Death seems to be a very clear condition for anyone who isn’t one of the readily duped Hamptonites in Weekend at Bernie’s, but it turns out that there’s much more to being dying than a form of democratic woodenness. Not long ago, medical and legal experts discovered themselves at odds with what constitutes private death and agreed to settle the issue using the Uniform Determination of Death Act, a model law that is currently in place in 37 state and the District of Columbia. A dying person is defined as someone who has experienced catastrophic cessation of brain function, per the UDDA’s legitimate definition, and Jonathan Papelbon may fit that description. However, he talks far too much to be regarded as a legitimate member of the dead set. Now if only people would use the same academic precision to determine when it’s healthy to destroy a once-thriving business model. A related definition of “in the pay-TV space” is still obscure despite legislation’s efforts to settle many of the conflict over our shared philosophical outlook. According to the scholars of Wall Street, the legacy cable/satellite/telco-TV bag is as useless as the Diplodocus, although there are still an awful lot of consumers banging around in that void collection. Through the second quarter of 2024, some 48.2 million subscribers were still paying for a classic movie deal, and while that’s a ghost of where things stood at the company’s peak—105 million in 2010—it’s perhaps a little early to start firing up the burner at the crematorium. Which is not to say that network’s going to pull a Lazarus, sometimes. Once a staple in 91 % of all U. S. TV households, the bundle’s penetration has plunged to 38 %. According to MoffettNathanson analysis, 51 % of occupied homes ‘ total pay-TV penetration has been wonnowed over, even when the 20.3 million virtual MVPD channels are added in.
None of this is extraordinary, during its short era as the point nobody could ever figure out how to apply correctly, the VCR was likewise a device in more than nine-tenths of our family rooms, dens and apartments. The DVD player turned off its analog precursor’s lights if the radio star was killed by video. Both modern-day devices are as uncommon as a macramé owl or one of those retro-70s electronic football games where plastic players performed a little St. Vitus dance every time you turned on the power. In a report released in the fall, Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson noted that it is currently impossible to predict when Quincy, M. E. will be on the horn. And the live sports market encroachment of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video only makes things worse. The analysts wrote,” It is becoming increasingly clear that there is no longer a floor, simply because linear video is no longer the only way to get sports.” The people who control the once-insanely-lucrative regional sports networks, a subset of the programming ecosystem that arguably has been clobbered with more frequency and vigor than any other element, are not in the dark about anything. The MoffettNathanson duo wrote that while vMVPDs may have once appeared to be a lifeline, the skinny bundles are increasingly bailing on the pricey local sports nets,” the RSNs that were once a crucial tentpole have largely disappeared from linear distribution.” Carriage brawls and cost-cutting measures knock them back another yard for every inch of ground the RSNs regain.

As for bundled subs, the exodus is only accelerating. In a year’s time, nearly seven million households called it quits with their pay-TV operator, which marked a loss of 12 % of the overall base. In the last five years, 35.4 million customers have bailed on their subscriptions ( in keeping with the UDDA theme, that’s about as many people who took the Big Dirt Nap during the plague of Justinian ), go back 10 years and cable’s body count stands at 51.5 million souls. And as much as time seems to be speeding up as we age, 2014 wasn’t all that long ago. Obama was president! Russell Wilson was already working on his wooing Ciara! Pickleball existed! ” Time is a flat circle”, Matthew McConaughey said, and yep: That was 10 years ago too. Damn. Anyway, even if the cord-cutting movement continues at the same dizzying clip, the bundle’s vanishing point is still a long way off. Given another 12 % year-to-year decline, the sub base will be down to 42.5 million by the end of the third quarter of 2025. One more trip around the sun will increase the count to 32.9 million as operators look at a crowd of 37.4 million customers at the end of September 2026. By 2040, the bundle could be reduced to 5.4 million subs, with all other factors likely causing more problems for us all.
Of course, the operators will have all fallen far before the losses start to pour in, but the bigger picture is that the loss is still significant. This train is running expressly to Wormsville, population: You, and the headlong flight of advertising dollars from linear entertainment programming and the exponentially rising costs of sports rights will only serve to exacerbate the end of the obscene old TV model. The vMVPDs should help cover some of the spat, but no miracle treatment will save the patient with a conversion rate that is currently around 29 %. The number of homes that subscribe to either service will fall below the 50 million mark in just four years, even if MoffettNathanson’s projections are accurate and equilibrium is found between the traditional pay-TV operators and the skinny-bundle crowd. When you take two steps forward and one step back, the streaming trillionaires will soon be dumping the final kilo of dirt onto a barren area of land that was once home to the 105 million people who used to play games.
It’s an UDDA conundrum, and like the bony guy with the scythe and the hooded cloak, there’s not much anybody can do about it. But if it’s any consolation, there’ll probably be a TV in the room where you give up the ghost.