Hey, cord cutters: you’re all talk. A new study, put together by the UK’s Informa Telecoms & Media, which “delivers strategic insight founded on global market data and primary research,” says that today’s cord cutters only account for 0.18 percent, or 1.2 million, of worldwide television subscribers. In other words, the number of cord cutters in the world amounts to a rounding error. But will it always be that way?
Perhaps not. Even if cord cutting is impossible for the average family in 2011, the reports says that the percentage of cord cutters will increase to 2 percent, or 16.1 million, of worldwide television subscribers by 2015.
Anyone who thinks that cord cutters represent the vanguard of some sort of down-with-cable movement, well, slow down.
The report says that while it expects cord cutting to increase as mentioned, traditional television distributors shouldn’t be too concerned, as plain ol’ traditional distribution isn’t going anywhere anytime soon; you’re just going to have to keep dealing with Comcast and the like.
Need evidence of why cord cutting won’t violently overthrow the current television distribution regime? Just look to Canada, which is going through a bit of a crisis trying to figure out how to handle Internet traffic. It’s sorta hard to “cut the cord” if you’re paying through the nose for a few wayward gigabytes.