Cord Cutting Doom Loop

“The US pay-TV industry lost a record 2.31 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2023,” Lightreading reports, pointing to a report from MoffettNathanson. “For Cable in particular, video is increasingly viewed to be lost cause,” noted MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett.

In other words: cord-cutting is gaining further momentum. And that’s bad news for the traditional media providers. It is not a surprise they are all suddenly “streaming believers.” However, that mad dash to streaming is not going to end well. First of all, we as consumers are getting tired of signing up for individual services and will spend on a handful of services — most likely the ones that come for cheap, free, or are part of a bundle. Amazon, Apple, and Netflix are sitting pretty. There is a bloody battle for attention going on — and increasingly, people with more time (and thus) attention to spend are doing it on TikTok and YouTube.

In response to an earlier post I shared about the crazy state of streaming, long-time reader Dana shared one of his pieces from 2022: The Streaming Bubble. Below is a recent video if you want to catch on trouble with Paramount+. You don’t have to see the whole thing. Just the first 10 minutes!