Is Cord-Cutting A Myth? Do The Math!

By Paul Kagan - April 23, 2013

The popular image of "cord-cutting" - movement of interest from cable TV to online viewing--has been misread from the beginning. Reports of cable TV subscriber losses miss the fact that satellite and telephone companies built their own "cords." So, despite the advent of Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and other online providers, over the last three years (2010-2012) cable, satellite & phone operators - each of them "cords" with monthly contract fees - added a total of 3 mil. net new subscribers (see table above).

Concerns that a shift from TV to the internet have put incumbent carriers on a downward - perhaps fatal - path are way over the top (pun intended). Print critics in newspapers, magazines and online (veteran cynics of wired TV) have conjured a mass movement to online video, an opinion that helps them promote their own ventures.

As the table above shows, the nine largest "cords" (cable, satellite and telephone providers) - had 91 mil. subscribers at year-end 2012, up 3 mil. from 2009, when cord-jumping fever settled in. The biggest gainers on the list were AT&T (+2.36 mil.), Verizon (+1.98 mil.) and DirecTV (+1.64 mil.). And in 2012 alone, the big telcos added 1.265 mil. subs, Satellite gained only 321K and cable gave up 478K. (Note: for this analysis, I used data from only the five largest cable MSOs. But research indicates similar percentage performance deeper into the list.

The data above are not my estimates; they were reported by the companies. It's clear that, despite populist fears of cord-cutting, the nine largest video distributors signed a net new 3 mil. subscribers over the last three years while pundits accused them of losing audience to internet video newcomers. The new online networks surely are building their own followings, but they have a long way to go to be full competitors.

One of the biggest obstacles for the newbies is their own chronology. People aged 20-35 today - the primary cord-cutters--will lead different lives as they mature, when work and family responsibilities will have greatly changed. The economics of time and taste will find big screens on walls everywhere, and family viewing may well have a renaissance. Indeed, Google Fiber - for one - is counting on it. The search giant is planning to overbuild the nation with a gigabyte network designed to compete head-on with its cable/telco predecessors, while bowing to the needs of this generation's heavy downloaders.

Google clearly got the idea from the original cable guys, whose revenue comes primarily from video content but whose profit depends largely on similar access to the internet. Let the upgrading begin.