Streaming Bundles Have Money-Saving Appeal, But In The Long Run They’re Bad For Consumers – Guest Column

deadline.com:

The much-anticipated collapse of the cable bundle took a lot longer than everyone thought and now seems ready to happen all at once.

At least that was one of the leitmotifs this earnings cycle as one media CEO after another talked about spinning off or disposing of cable networks declining in value (and Comcast-NBCUniversal actually became the first mover).

Yet, at the same time, the race is on to rebuild the bundle. The market is being flooded with a bunch of “all-in-one” pay-TV subscriptions and entertainment bundles like Comcast’s StreamSaver or sports bundles like Venu.

But while these packages promise savings of a few dollars a month, unless the advertising model fundamentally changes, the economics of these new bundles will never add up to what the original bundle offered – and that’s bad news for consumers.