Nielsen starts breaking down TV streams by device next month

Nielsen already tracks what you're watching via gizmos like Apple TV, Roku and PlayStation, but has always lumped those viewing statistics together. That changes come April 25th when the ratings-minded folks start breaking over-the-top viewership dat...

Yet again, ‘Game of Thrones’ is the world’s most pirated TV show

For the fourth year in a row, Game of Thrones has won the dubious honor of being the world's most pirated TV show. The annual study, carried out by TorrentFreak, reveals that an estimated 14.4 million people snaffled HBO's opus this year. By comparis...

Editorial: Cutting the cable cord is a young trend going in the right direction

Editorial Cutting the cable cord is a young trend going in the right direction

This week I bought a Roku. Late to the party? Yes, but not as late as you might suppose. Roku has sold about 2.5 million streaming media boxes since the product launched in 2008. Approximately 1.5 million of those units moved in 2011, indicating an acceleration of demand. Coincidentally, those numbers roughly represent the cord-cutting movement: Reportedly, 2.65 million cable subscribers ditched their service between 2008 and 2011, with about 1.5 million of those defections happening in 2011.

While cable cord-cutting is a trend, the movement is occurring in the context of customer inertia. About 100 million customers subscribe to cable, satellite, and other pay-TV providers (e.g. AT&T's U-Verse). The problematic value proposition of cutting the cord will probably keep massive inaction in place for the short term, but cannot, I believe, withstand long-term marketplace demands.

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Editorial: Cutting the cable cord is a young trend going in the right direction originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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