Big Cable Partnering with Netflix? My Thoughts in the San Francisco Chronicle

I previously wrote about recent reports that major cable companies are in discussions with Netflix to potentially carry the service “natively” on their set-top boxes.  Given the long adverse history between the two camps, this was big news.

The San Francisco Chronicle -- in the heart of the tech community -- published a feature story yesterday about the subject.  My thoughts were referenced repeatedly in that article (since I had been interviewed a few days back by reporter Benny Evangelista).

Bottom line -- I absolutely believe that it makes sense for the cable companies to carry Netflix -- for myriad reasons, including (1) offering consumers a one-stop shop for all of the content they want, (2) driving even more reason for consumers to upgrade to their significantly higher margin faster broadband services, (3) bringing even more visibility to their own original programming, and (4) raising the overall customer experience (and, hence, net promoter scores) which, in turn, could slow down the phenomenon of cord cutting.

Nielsen Report -- Cord Cutting Is Real

Cord cutting is real and happening in significant numbers now, concludes a new research report by Nielsen (which is significant itself, given Nielsen's long-time central role in television audience measurement).  The report measured year-over-year changes from Q3 2011 - Q3 2012.

Here are some of the report's key findings:

-- U.S. individuals spend 33 hours per week watch videos across all screens
-- the number of homes subscribing to wired cable television services decreased 4.1%
-- at the same time, telco-provided television services increased 21.1% and satellite television increased 2.1%
-- "nearly a million more homes are subscribing to broadband while skipping a traditional paid tv subscription"
-- the number of broadcast/broadband only "television" homes increased 22.8% in the two year period Q3 2010 - Q3 2012

With the continuous string of new online content mega-deals by Netflix, Amazon and others, this trend likely will accelerate.