bijan:

Web video critics have long believed that even as more shows go online, pay television operators will always have the advantage because of live events (news, sports, music etc)….But here’s the thing: if ISP fees increase it will only accelerate pay television churn. Generally consumers have a fixed amount to spend on entertainment. And increasingly consumers would rather pick internet access over pay television. Certainly that is true with the younger generation.

If you could only have one which would you pick?

I’ve been desperately trying to get rid of cable television for, I dunno, five or ten years. Unfortunately I married an amazing woman who happens to love sports, and live sports are the absolute albatross that keeps us from being able to turn off the lights on cable.

Bijan’s recent post assumes that the entertainment wallet size is fixed, so if fees for the Internet go up to account for high bandwidth streaming of live content, it will accelerate the death of cable.

I, for one, would absolutely love that outcome, but I’m not so sure that is how it plays out. The fees for cable have gone up over the last 10 years and I’d be curious to see if that caused folks to seek other outlets. I don’t have the data, but it seems entertainment as wallet share has been going up, not staying flat. I am essentially paying $100/mo so my wife can watch hoops, golf, and football. That’s a pretty amazing killer app for the cable companies to have, and unfortunately I’ll be paying until it all migrates to the Internet and is easy enough for my four year old to use (note: he can use Tivo, so I’m not asking THAT much).