Is cable subscription model under threat?

At the Adage Digital Conference this year, high profile speakers including Verizon’s Chief Marketing Officer John Stratton discussed how IPTV is affecting the cable TV subscription model. Although the view was largely taken from a US TV market point of view, John Stratton acknowledged that IPTV is indeed forcing viewers to cancel their cable TV subscriptions and explore online alternatives such as Hulu, iTunes, Amazon Video and TV.com. These fast growing online services are all based on non-subscription based models including transactional, premium, ad-supported models.

John says that the cable subscription model will continue to exist for certain distributors as long as content providers keep their costs down. On the whole, the general trend suggests that the subscription model for TV is being challenged by rapidly evolving online content providers, but forces are already at work for content providers, distributors and advertisers to start offering IPTV services that are built on simple and flexible model.

You can watch the full speech in below 3Minute AdAge video.