It's Still Nice to Be a Cable Company
Remember how back in February, the Federal Communications Commission imposed new "open Internet" (aka net neutrality) rules on broadband providers? And how in April Comcast, facing opposition from the FCC and the Justice Department, dropped its plan to buy Time Warner Cable?
It felt like a turning point, an end to the vision, pursued most aggressively by Comcast, to remake the Internet in the image of cable television. One business columnist even declared that "the cable era is over."
And, yes, an era does seem to be waning. In August it only took a few stray words on a Walt Disney Co. earnings call to send investors scurrying from Disney and other big owners of cable TV channels such as Discovery Communications, Time Warner, Twenty-First Century Fox and Viacom. The cable channels' lucrative revenue mix of subscriber fees and advertising is showing the first signs of erosion as viewers cut the cord and get their TV through streaming services. The sudden realization of this occasioned a stock rout.
For the cable providers such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable, though, this year hasn't been so bad at all: