The future of cable is getting fuzzier
Are you still paying for cable TV? That question, once a whisper, has become a shout. Just last week, Variety announced the imminent death of cable television on its front cover. Kudos to the graphic artist who fashioned a skull out of co-ax. It’s not quite on the level of the 1966 Time magazine cover that wondered “Is God Dead?,” but it still reflects a seismic shock.
For the better part of the last decade, I’ve been writing as if cable were on its way out. I may have been premature, but I think we’re getting there!
In some ways, cable, once the main event in television, has become more about exposure and publicity than broadcasting. Tonight and tomorrow night, the BET network will air three episodes of the legal melodrama “The Good Fight” (9 p.m., TV-14) in prime time. It’s a nice way for folks who haven’t seen the well-cast series to sample the show. But it’s basically a commercial for the premium service CBS All Access, where “The Good Fight” and “Twilight Zone” and “Star Trek” reboots originate.
CBS All Access has also been sharing its series on its own CBS network and other outlets including Pluto, the streaming aggregation service.
The “war” between streaming and broadcast took an interesting turn two weeks back, when most NBC broadcast affiliates refused to air the network’s “30 Rock” reunion show. Why? Because the cheeky special did too good a job promoting NBC Universal’s new streaming service, Peacock, something broadcasters (rightly) see as an existential threat.
Not only have cable subscription numbers declined, streaming services have basically claimed credit for series that originated on cable. AMC may have developed “Breaking Bad,” but most people came to consider it a Netflix show. Some cable shows only became hits once they streamed. Most viewers couldn’t pick the show “You” out of a police lineup when it aired on Lifetime. Once it streamed on Netflix, it became a hit. The blur between cable and streaming has become so pronounced that FX on Hulu was born. The FX series “Mrs. America,” one of the year’s best, was on Hulu, not FX.
So how does cable endure? Because inertia works both ways. I’ve gotten letters, or rather emails, complaining that I promote streaming and say that cable is “old-fashioned” and “blue-collar” while Netflix is elitist. I gently explain if you want to feel “traditional” by paying three figures for cable when Netflix can be had for less than $15 bucks, that is your right.
Back in another century, I was at a lunch thrown by Showtime where I met an acquaintance and asked him if he could give me a nutshell description of Showtime’s audience. To my surprise (and delight), he described them as “people who forgot they were still paying for Showtime.”
I have the feeling that those are the kind of people the cable industry is relying on to stave off extinction for another couple of years.
› Acorn begins streaming the second season of the Swedish crime drama “Rebecka Martinsson.”
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› A defendant defies the rules of the court on “All Rise” (9 p.m., CBS, repeat, TV-14).
› A twister keeps Austin spinning on “9-1-1: Lone Star” (9 p.m., Fox, repeat, TV-14).