BOSTON — If you think paying $100 a month for a mega suite of 500 channels, most of which you never watch, is overkill, you’re not alone. That’s why we are seeing the rise of the so-called “skinny bundle”, a cut-down cable package which operators hope can reduce cord cutting.
But Tom Morgan sees the unstoppable trend toward personal choice in TV viewing continuing. And he thinks bundles are about to go through their next evolution toward their final, most significant overhaul.
“Big cable packages are moving,” the principal of his OTT TV consultancy Mediad.tv, tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “I think it will evolve from skinny bundles to demographically- or psychographically-targeted bundles (for) young millennials, young married couples starting a household, old guys’ network… things of that nature.”
In other words, TV is going to start looking a lot more like the internet today – but also suspiciously like lifestyle magazine publishing of yesterday.
What is certain is this – the underlying structures of the TV industry are going to have to shift, and the industry may become smaller and more fragmented.
“It won’t be this monolithic industry,” adds Morgan, a former exec with MTV, BlackArrow, Move Networks and others. “A lot of the contracts will have to be redone. How sports works has got to go through a massive change. The golden era of television is in front of us, not behind us actually.
“One of my clients is moving toward an open ecosystem for television … I call it ‘WordPress for TV’ – you could create and distribute a television channel for a very select marketplace.
“There’s going to be a lot more choice with economic models that are robust and not as massive as what you saw in traditional TV.”
We interviewed him last month at the Progress Partners Connect conference. Our coverage of the conference is sponsored by Simpli.fi. More videos from the series can be found on this page.