By Ian Hollidae, 2024/09/11

Another week, another article about pay TV losing subscribers. The analysis reads like the usual doomday affair but there was one small bit I found interesting:

"[The] 1.6 million subscribers lost in the second quarter account for 6.9% of the industry's base, and there's no reason to think the slide is going to slow down at all, MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson write: It is becoming increasingly clear that there is no longer any floor. As we've discussed here before, a few years ago there was a thought that digital pay-TV distributors like YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV would replace losses at conventional distributors, but that's no longer true."

So I take it streaming is now not the answer?

The article goes on to talk about things such as seasonality and other factors. But I think there's one thing that doesn't get alot of attention. Back at the beginning of the streaming boom, there was a fair amount of talk about finally achieving something close to an a la carte market. However, here we are in 2024 and I can't really say a la carte exists on a large scale. Certainly there are a number of apps that focus on a specific item (as a sports fan, I can name a few) but all we seem to have now is the recreation of cable TV online. Sign up for Disney+ or Paramount+ or Discovery+ and you pay for all the content whether you actually want it or not.

Sounds a lot like cable doesn't it? And if that's the case, I don't see how streaming could ever be a solution. Maybe the thought that thought that digital pay-TV distributors like YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV offering a la carte that conventional distributors wouldn't provide is no longer true as well.