Video Disruption

There’s also a lot of programming that is readily available through OTT services or simply isn’t available on the traditional pay-TV outlets.

Speaking as a cord-cutter myself, our decision wasn’t as much about the cost of cable as it was about the value for money considering the programming we like to watch. We have small children with short attention spans, and between content from PBS, the new Sesame Street app, Netflix, and good old YouTube, we’re all set on children’s programming.

And my wife and I are busy working parents who like to watch a series all in one go, with our few hours a week of TV viewing being composed of a drawn-out binge session. We just finished the fourth season of House of Cards, and we literally watched half a season of Bloodline while my wife was in labor with our daughter.

(Granted, it was the boring, waiting-game part of labor, but labor nonetheless.)

Daredevil. Transparent. Mozart in the Jungle. These are legitimately good television programs that far exceed what most traditional networks and basic cable channels put out. And since we don’t watch a ton and don’t care about digital voice, the two usual methods for getting cord-cutters back on board (or keeping people from cutting the cord to start with)—bundling offers and data caps—don’t work on us.

So what would?  A per-channel pricing model would help. I know it’s complicated, and that many subs would end up paying more and all that. And I know all about the potentially deleterious effect it could have on the industry as a whole. But I am genuinely curious to see how per-channel pricing will pan out in Canada, as it inches toward mandatory adoption by the end of 2016.

Cord-cutters are piecing together “skinny cable” models of their own as it is, and services like Sling TV and HBO Now have made that easier. And while Verizon has offered some channel choice to its FiOS customers for several months now, I’m interested to see how pay TV providers can move beyond bundling to a fully a la carte model. It won’t be for everyone, but if I could get my choice of ten or twelve channels and a nice fast data connection without raising my current data-only bill by more than 50% or so, I’d do it tomorrow.

And bear in mind that we regularly buy individual episodes of shows that aren’t available through any of our regular services. Ignoring all other considerations and speaking as a consumer, if I can buy season 13 of Top Chef for two bucks an episode the day after it airs, I’m less inclined to accept the notion that I should pay for entire channels that I never watch.

Here’s another thing. Excellent, comprehensive customer experience management might work on us, too. Cord-cutting can be exhausting. If you own your own modem and router, and then have, say, Comcast or TWC piping in data over your wireless network to your Roku, which is playing content via Hulu… who do you contact when it all goes wrong? The provider who can see the most detail on what went wrong neither has ownership of nor visibility into the entire value chain, and is less-than-inclined to help a low-value data-only sub.

This literally happened to me recently. I picked up a little Amazon tablet and was having trouble with my Netflix app. Amazon’s CSRs walked me through some steps, determined there wasn’t anything they could do, and advised me to contact Netflix. Netflix walked me through some steps, determined there wasn’t anything they could do, and advised me to contact my cable company. Fortunately, I found a solution before I proceeded to baffle my cableco’s CSR with questions about a buggy app, but the entire process dragged on for far longer than it would have if I had a single point of contact.

Pay TV providers have the wherewithal to support this entire complex chain, but customer satisfaction rankings continue to slide as more and more consumers develop adversarial relationships with providers who are, in turn, frustrated by declining ARPU. So, again, I know it’s complicated, but just speaking for myself, I’d consider paying more if I knew the quality and reliability would be on point, and that I wouldn’t get passed around from company to company.

There are obviously no easy answers. But if cord-cutting truly is slowing, and if many subs are supplementing—rather than replacing—their pay TV subscriptions with online services, then perhaps there’s an opportunity to bring cord-cutters back into the fold. And if cord-cutting isn’t slowing, then what’s the harm of a business model designed to give subs pause before they snip?