The death of cable television: where the smartphone is the computer meets information wants to be monetized

Just yesterday I wrote about how last year I began a TECHNOLOGY RANKINGS: DINOSAUR WATCH list. This included cable television.

Today, I notice that Business Insider has an article on how cable television has to start following the lead of Apple and Netflix and offer improved search, so we can find a particular show, and a cheaper price for their content; undercutting iTunes and Netflix, for example.

The cable (and satellite and telco) TV faction still has a strong grip on how you watch TV in your living room. They own the pipe that's running into your house, they own the set-top box that's already hooked up to your TV, and they have great, long-lasting relationships with content providers. That's all crucial.

But video entertainment today is increasingly relying on the Internet and mobile devices. And that's where the cable and satellite guys are mostly lost

This is bad advice. It seems to suggest that perhaps cable MSOs can start pumping Disney Channel or ESPN events to our smartphones and all will be good. This is not the case. Getting content onto our smartphones, or iPads or web-connected television is one part of the equation. And, in fact, it's the really really easy part. The hard part? Surviving when your entire business model can no longer exist.

Cable television has long been able to leverage content for both ad sales and subscription sales. In fact, they get the highest score possible in my 'INFORMATION WANTS TO BE MONETIZED' category in the Technology Rankings. The problem is where this reality meets head-on with the spread of smartphones. In fact, given the current pace, Apple's new iTV doesn't need to succeed. Google TV doesn't need to succeed for cable television to go extinct in a few short years.

Because the rapid spread of smartphones are choking off and killing the very ecosystem cable television thrives on. When it comes to 'television' content, the new reality is simple and stark: I want to watch what I want when I want where I want on the device I want.

Simple, right? A technical fix, albeit a massive one, for cable companies is all that's required for them to succeed, then?

Wrong.

Because, not only can their disparate pipes, billing systems, content contracts and delivery infrastructure not make this happen, even if they could spend the tens and tens of billions of dollars for it to become a reality, they would still die off. Think about what I said above about content: watch what I want when I want where I want on the device I want. That places a premium on content, yes, and an even greater premium on the present. This very moment in time. Cable television cannot live in such a world. Everything they do is built on a different enviroment. They make us pay for content we never want just to get the content we want. They make us pay for content we periodically want, only, they make us pay for it always, even if we're not watching it. And charge $100 a month for the privilege.

Why in God's name would I pay for something I don't want? Why would I pay for a program, today, when I won't watch it til next week? Next week, I'll open up my browser, or turn on my iPhone, or turn on the 'television' and watch it then. The only way cable makes money is by requiring us to pay over and above for what we do not want. And that is a business model doomed for extinction. Sure, given the current contracts and systems in place now, individual bits of content may be priced too high. That will take care of itself in the due course of time (and a short time that will be). Cable television will be virtually non-existen by 2016.

In a few years from now, younger people will stare at us with incredulity, the way we do when our parents tell us about life without remotes or 100 channels. They will be shocked when we tell them we used to pay even if we weren't watching. They'll thnk we were stupid. The way we think about those people we see from the 1980s music videos in those ridiculous clothes and with that hideous hairstyle.

The children are right. We are stupid.

But to the cable industry's regret, we are getting smarter every day.