CNBC polled media insiders about the future of television. These are the same people who said streaming would never work, then said cable would never die, then said sports would save cable, then said bundling was dead, then said bundling was back. They've been wrong about everything for fifteen consecutive years. Perfect time to ask them to predict three more.
The article covers pay TV subscribers and sports ratings. Two things that have dropped every single year while experts swore this was the year it would turn around. At some point you're not forecasting. You're just refusing to read a chart that only goes down.
Media insiders love predictions because nobody checks if they came true. In 2023 they said linear TV would stabilize by 2024. It didn't. In 2024 they said it would stabilize by 2025. It didn't. Now they're saying 2029. That's not analysis. That's a coping mechanism with a longer runway.
Sports ratings get special treatment in these pieces. Every executive swears live sports are the last thing keeping the bundle alive. They are correct. Which is why the bundle is f*cked. Turns out one good thing cannot support forty bad things forever. Economics discovered this in 1776. Media executives will discover it in 2029.
The funniest part is asking what TV looks like in three years. TV in three years looks like TV today but with fewer subscribers and higher prices. Same shows. Same declining ratings. Same executives explaining why this quarter was an outlier. You don't need insider predictions for this. You need seventh grade math and the ability to read a trend line that has pointed down since 2010.
CNBC could have saved time and just written "it gets worse but slower" and gone to lunch.
Photo by Aleks Dorohovich on Unsplash
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