Will A la carte Make Cable Net's Vulnerable? - Steve Yanovsky - MediaBizBloggers

A la carte cable television subscriptions have been talked about since the 199039s Secondary and tertiary net39s were concerned that cable sub39s would not choose to pay for them since they never or hardly watched them Sure everyone is going to pay for ESPN and Discovery but what happens when yours is the 25th most popular network in a given household Will the consumer pony up 50 cents or a 1 to pay for a channel nobody really watchesThe consumer is facing tough economic choices every day Arguably they have to deal with the most difficult choices that they have ever faced Conventional wisdom used to be that cable television subscriptions were recession proof The thinking was that consumers would give up going out eating in restaurants cut back on vacations hold on to their car a little longer etc but in their cocooning mode they would never give up their cable subscriptionBut 2010 presents evidence to the contrary The major MSO39s such as Comcast and Time Warner have reported a decrease in their sub count Pay subscriptions are down for the first time in history Cord cutting is a topic that gets written about every week The confluence of a weak economy and new technologies has given the consumer the motivation to downgrade or eliminate their cable subscriptionWhat are the consequences of a new cable subscription model for those secondary and tertiary cable networks A reduction in their audience universe will have dire effects on their business Both of their revenue streams will be hard hit by this eventuality Their sub fees will be reduced as their sub count gets reduced They cannot charge the MSO39s and satellite providers the same overall amount when they have fewer sub39s Advertisers will pay less for their commercial time when their audience is smaller This is a lose loseHow do you address the problem if you are running one of these networks You launch a fierce branding program to establish your identity in the mind of the consumer They need to be certain of who the network is what genres of programming it carries the personalities of the hosts etc In short the networks need to control the shorthand of what they stand forThis branding effort needs to be carefully developed based on audience research and then executed across all communication touch points That is this is not just an ad campaign but it needs to be consistently exhibited in all the programming Plus the attitude and copy on the web site needs to convey this branding effort as well as all press releases executive interviews and speeches In short every time they talk to one of their constituenciesIn this way they will reinforce your network39s personality generate trial and based on the on air delivery of their product encourage repeat viewingSteve Yanovsky is a partner at Customer Focused Solutions a marketing and marcom consultancy focused on media and entertainment companies Steve can be contacted at syanovskyoptonlinenetRead all Steveamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Media MediationsCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

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