"Dish Network Vice-President of Online Content Development and Strategy, Bruce Eisen" stated at a conference Nov. 3rd that streaming sites such as Hulu will "destroy the television industry as we know it". At first glance I do understand his point of view, but is that really a bad thing? What is not mentioned are the details about the target audience for these sites. Generally speaking, people who do use streaming sites do not have cable television or have a basic version that does not give them access to premium sites such as HBO. They can not afford or are not willing to pay for this service. In essence, if a suitable substitute is available at a lower price then people will opt for that alternative. HBO has stated that they have not seen any evidence of switching and thus this is not the issue. It seems to be the cable companies that stand to lose the most, or will they? It is up to them to adopt their business model to adjust their revenue streams to factor in these new alternatives. Instead of paying for cable television, consumers will pay for broadband internet. This emerging trend is not something they will be able to stop and in order to survive they must adapt.
As a consumer I would gladly pay a small fee to have access to content, even if it was delayed a certain period of time to avoid cannibalization. Case in point, Netflix launched on XBOX Live and as soon as the new dashboard was downloaded I installed Netflix and have been enjoying it since.
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