Despite seeing peers in my generation using almost exclusively online live streaming services for TV access, I had expected to find that the majority of adults across America continued to subscribe to and watch live TV through traditional cable access.
I also expected streaming companies to be charging a premium above the costs cable companies could achieve with the economies of scale.
And finally, I expected to see limited numbers of subscribers considering Internet services, despite the hype and novelty.
In reality, I found that only 44% of US households have cable – still a sizeable number of subscribers, but nowhere near the higher saturation I expected. I also found that the cost of cable continues to go up year by year, despite a consistent pattern of subscribers only watching a (constant) small fraction of the content, and that this is driving subscribers to online services, whose cost per (actually watched) channel is a fraction of that for cable.
It is going to be fascinating to continue to be part of this changing media industry over the coming years as I continue to work in and watch the changes from within.
Live TV - Streaming Services 