We’ve reached a somewhat sad milestone in entertainment history. As of the end of 2023, cable subscribers will be outnumbered by those who no longer pay for any traditional TV service offering. While the decline in cable subscribers is hardly news at this point, we’ve seen an acceleration in its decline throughout 2023. Entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake, of Blake & Wang P.A, shares his insight on the matter.
Breaking Down the Figures
The number of people with no traditional TV service- be it because they’ve exited that model, or those who never joined to start with- has now reached just over 144M, a 12.5% increase over 2022 numbers. Traditional pay-TV members have dropped by 10.2%, to 121.1M- and that includes those receiving their package through telecom providers, cable, or satellite. We’ve seen this decline since 2014, also widely seen as the year streaming first had a noticeable market presence.
Why? In the end, however mercenary it seems, people no longer want to spend upwards of $100 a month on one fixed bundle, even live TV. They want the wealth of choice, lower cost-of-entry, and easier exit of the current streaming subscription model.
Disney vs Charter: A Symptom
We pretty much saw this shift play out in real-time with this year’s thorny Disney vs Charter TV deal. Comcast no longer wanted to pay for cable channels that its subscribers aren’t engaging with; now most of Disney’s premium (and attractive) offerings are funnelled to Disney+ instead- another issue accelerating cable’s decline in people’s perceptions.
It’s expected that we will see a similar scenario play out a lot in the coming years. The economics of streaming are, of course, hardly a simple and easy money-maker now the pandemic-generated boom has lost its shine. So there’s still a lot of evolution in the entertainment space to come. But if current trends stay consistent, one thing is for sure- the future is not with cable.
Film and Television 