the bright idea

The problem with “cutting the cable”

With CES in full swing, I’m seeing a lot of buzz about “cable-less” TV solutions, most notably the Simple.TV. Though the Simple.TV does require a basic cable connection, other cable-cutting solutions advocate canceling your cable plan completely and relying solely on iTunes, Netflix, Hulu+, or other subscription-based a la carte services. With my love of all things cloud-based and new wave, I’m shocked that I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon with one of these products because, in theory, I love what they preach.

Last year, I needed to write a paper about the TV industry for one of my classes and I ended up doing a lot of reading about the future of “television.” Both network executives and alternative third party solutions preach the same philosophy (one that I wholeheartedly agree with)—TV as we know it is dying and a world of a la carte, on-demand programming is dawning. It’s not going to happen for a while (for me and others) because of two always undiscussed reasons.

First, the death of channel surfing. I’d venture to say that about 7/10 times I sit down to watch TV, I sit down with no preconceptions about what I’m going to watch. I flip through my favorite channels and just see what’s on. If I was living a “new wave media” or “cable-less” lifestyle, that scenario wouldn’t work as well. I’d need to sit and think about what I want to watch, implying I had some kind of intention to watch the entire program. (As a digression, I find it interesting how there’s some pressure to watch a program in its entirety when you choose it a la carte or on-demand as opposed to finding it while channel surfing.)

Second… talk and news! Most of the TV I watch is talk and/or informational (Anderson, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Watch What Happens Live, The Talk, The View, Piers Morgan Tonight, TODAY, etc.). Have you ever seen full episodes of Oprah on Hulu or Netflix? It’s damn near impossible to watch full episodes of my favorite talk shows online. Granted, there’s a different viewing mentality with this kind of programming as opposed to narrative serials, dramas and comedies. For narrative TV, there’s a certain responsibility for a fan to know what happened to their favorite characters each week. For talk, you can always just catch tomorrow’s broadcast. However, these shows are a staple of the broadcast industry and until there’s a viable solution to watch them without traditional cable… I’m not switching.

Well I think that’s all I have to say about that for now. At the end of the day, I know full well that the TV experience is headed toward a philosophy of just “video content” instead of dramas, talk, news, sitcoms, etc. I accept that future… but don’t accept the commercial progress we’ve made thus far.