Weekly Rewind
Apple’s skinny bundle ambivalence: We’re certainly not lacking in attempts to rebuild the TV bundle these days. Dish Network has Sling TV. Sony has PlayStation Vue. Hulu and AT&T are working on their own streaming bundles, while Amazon and YouTube are rumored to be doing the same. Apple, however, is happy to watch from the sidelines, at least according to software and services VP Eddy Cue.
“As a matter of fact, I’m not a big fan of the skinny bundle,” Cue recently told The Hollywood Reporter, arguing that the problem with traditional TV is more about the experience than the size of the bill. Instead of having to wade through a channel guide, people should be able to call up channels by voice–a feature that happens to be part of the latest Apple TV. Better yet, the device should intelligently predict what someone is going to watch when they sit down.
I don’t entirely disagree with Cue, but this vision needn’t be exclusive to oversized TV packages. With streaming devices like Apple TV, you’re free to assemble your own package, whether that’s through a la carte services like Netflix or larger channel bundles. In the future, TV will come in all shapes and sizes, and Apple will simply provide the voice and navigation services to sift through it all.
Who’s cord-cutting, anyway? Another day, another survey about how many Americans have cut cable TV. The latest from GfK claims that 23 percent of U.S. homes are without traditional TV service. That includes 17 percent relying on over-the-air antennas, and 6 percent that only use streaming services–both up 2 percentage points from the year before. The survey lines up closely with a Pew survey from last year, which found that 24 percent of Americans were abstaining from pay TV service.
How does one square these results with recent subscriber growth for cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable? Those modest gains are likely being eclipsed by the growth in new households that decide to go pay TV-free. These trends were in motion a few years ago, and seem to be accelerating now. Expect to see lots of new streaming services to emerge as TV networks scramble to claim this lost audience.
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