Last November, I wrote a column here about the future of cable television.  In that column from last November I forecast:

“Cable television subscriptions will experience noticeable percentage declines in the next three to five years.”

Last week it was announced that for the first time in history paid television subscriptions dropped 216,000 with cable taking the greatest hit.

The conventional wisdom of course is that this is due to the bad economic conditions of today.  Of course that is a factor, but the times have been bad for the past two years.  The new dynamic is what I touched upon in last year’s column; that the video viewing marketplace is fundamentally changing, that disintermediation is entering the living room with televisions with internet connectivity and that people have become increasingly comfortable with alternative screens.  In addition, people have come to accept paying for what they watch.  The cable television model is based upon having people pay for all the channels they don’t watch.  Why would people who willingly pay for what they watch any longer except paying for channels they don’t watch?

Of course, a decline of 216,000 subscribers is nowhere near a “noticeable percentage decline”, but I believe that this first ever downturn will be looked back upon as the early indicator of the trend I forecast last year.  As for the rest of that forecast from last years’ column:

“This decline will only be slowed if they [cable operators] accept unbundling and price per channel. This will cause a variety …

In the past three months I had delivered around 35 speeches and presentations.  During about 25 of them I have asked the audience the question that is the title of this column (why I will explain later).

.Whether it is a confidential gathering of 10-15 CEOs or a hotel ballroom of 400-500 people, when I ask this question, I have never had anyone raise their hand.  That is worth repeating.  25 times I have asked audiences to “Raise your hand if you love your cable company” and not a single person has raised their hand!

Not only that, but most of the time this question provokes laughter. People think the question is funny. The laughter clearly implies the absurdity of the question.  Playing to the audience I usually quickly say something like “Of course you don’t.  How can you love “maybe we’ll make it to your house on Tuesday between 8-4 and maybe we won’t” or “of course, why would you love a business model that is like going to a restaurant, ordering the chicken and being asked how you like your steak prepared because you have to buy everything on the menu whether you want to consume it or not”.  Even if you only watch 5-8 channels you have to buy a 100.  People nod their heads turn to each other and make comments, none of which seem positive.

Now some of you might immediately react that the question is unfair because I used the word “love”.  Well think about how the …

We have all lived through a lifetime of technology changing the media and content landscape.  Satellites allowed cable television and later satellite television to erode and then eviscerate the traditional broadcast network business model.  Then the analog to digital transition eliminated the physicality of the product in the music industry.  Then the universal, immediate and free availability of news and information on the Internet has pushed news magazines and newspapers to the edge of the abyss.

It is now cable television’s turn to face the disintermediating power of the Internet and technology.  This is a trend I have forecast for the past two years.

Cable television has long had a strangle hold on the American household as it has been the “last 30 feet” of connectivity into the home.  Owning this connection has allowed cable television MSOs and operators to control a great deal of the media access to the home and, in many cases such as customer service and pricing, act as a monopoly.  First was the connectivity to the world of cable television.  This was followed by …

The current media and advertising recession will be more severe and more transformative than any one of the last 80 years.  This will be a time when it won’t be just about how far down ad spending goes, but also about what media entities and even business sectors will survive.

Historically, advertising recessions have been 1-2 years in length and have been about a contraction in ad spending on measured media.  Everyone hunkered down, altered pricing strategies, leaned on relationships and waited until the inevitable spending upsurge occurred.  The advertising recession of 2008 – 2010 will be different. This time, entire structures on both the buy and sell side will collapse.  The institutions that were developed and rigidified in the 20^th century are clearly not mirroring the dynamic changes of the media marketplace in this new century.  The advertising agency constructed in the second half of the last century no longer reflects the media reality of today.  The same can be said of the hierarchical distribution channel specific media sales organizations.  There are agencies and media properties that exist today …

It is clear that one of the reasons that Barack Obama won the Presidency is his campaign utilized the Internet in all aspects and in new ways.  The Obama campaign of 2008 introduced and defined success with this latest transformative medium.  The campaign’s use of all aspects of interactivity will be the definition and measurement of success for the next 8-16 years.

Now that Obama is President and comes into office with a mandate for change in a time of incredible challenges it will be interesting to see how the campaign mastery of the Internet is deployed to the process of governing.  It is already clear that this administration is and will do things via Internet connectivity that have never been done before.

Over the years, how many of you ever listened to the “President’s weekly radio address”.  I always saw it reported on TV but never ever listened to it.  Well, since the Saturday after his election Obama has delivered a Saturday video message via first his Change website and now from the White House web site and of course simultaneously uploaded it to YouTube.  Within 48 hours, hundreds of thousands of people have taken the time to watch the video.  The Saturday evening local and network newscasts feature highlights from the video, bringing the message to millions more.  What used to be a rare event, the President of the United States speaking directly to the American people via video is now a weekly event.

What is even more intriguing …