Leichtman: 540,000 Cable Subscribers Left in Q2 > When times are tough, sacrifices must be made

Cutting off cable is the last thing to go (even above internet). Phone is the first because it can be easily replaced. They are actually adding phone subs though (3 play bundling at prices of 2 play). That is to stop the bleeding they were having.

What nobody mentions is that there is a major competition for peoples entertainment budget, including the internet. I may spend 8 hours a day on the net, and 30 min watching TV, and 1 hour watching netflix. Then there is gaming, consuming on tablets, tweets, FB, (reading, mags, games), music, and just being. So out of my day 30 minutes of broadcast is not worth $60 when I actually watch more on Netflix for $8 and actually consume it more.

So what cable guys aren't saying is that steam, ipads, netflix, web are all siphoning business from them.

Economically speaking content falls under substitution (it's not really that unique and the model is from the 40's), and people are just substituting TV for other forms of entertainment. The water cooler is gone, so the social pressure of "conforming" is gone too.

I just had dinner w/ 3 groups of friends and the discussion of what we watched came up--six people. Maybe 2-3 people agreed upon ONE show (think it was batchelor) and THAT was it. 10-15 years ago that was different. If you missed Friends there was something wrong with you. Today nobody cares. I'm watching Miami Vice on Netflix.

Since cable is not innovating and raising prices, they are going to bear the shotgun that blows up in their face. If Aereo flies, it will blow up the cable model. Cable will have a hard time innovating because like Sony they are also in the content business and that means consumer unfriendly DRM. Take a look at Sony's latest earnings....

Cable can clamp usage for a time (imaginary caps), but there will be major backlash on that too and wifi and the like will go after them.