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

A la carte cable television subscriptions have been talked about since the 1990's. Secondary and tertiary net's were concerned that cable sub's 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 25^th most popular network in a given household? Will the consumer pony up 50 cents or a $1 to pay for a channel nobody really watches?

The 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 subscription.

But, 2010 presents evidence to the contrary. The major MSO's, 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 subscription.

What 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 MSO's and satellite providers the same overall amount when they have fewer sub's. Advertisers will pay less for their commercial time when their audience is smaller. This is a lose, lose.

How 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 genre(s) of programming it carries, the personalities of the hosts, etc. In short, the networks need to control the shorthand of what they stand for.

This 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 constituencies.

In this way, they will reinforce your network's personality, generate trial, and based on the on air delivery of their product, encourage repeat viewing.

Steve Yanovsky is a partner at Customer Focused Solutions, a marketing and marcom consultancy focused on media and entertainment companies. Steve can be contacted atsyanovsky@optonline.net.

Read all Steve’s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Media Mediations.

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