If Cable Dies, What’s Next?

As more people cut the cord and ditch the dish online video has become the alternative of choice: 

Most things about cable, were it to remain static, indicate that its demise is on the horizon.  Cable is an analog technology in an ever-expanding digital world.  As people have grown accustomed to content specifically tailored to their interests online, cable and satellite providers continue to bundle packages of hundreds of channels when the consumer only watches, on average, 17.  Rather than paying the costly cable bill, dealing with the necessary hardware and service, and risking the ever-looming threat of a lost remote, more and more households are waving good-bye to cable and satellite.   In America, 6.5% of households have taken the leap to dump cable and embrace the alternatives.  The rate at which additional households are saying sayonara to cable and satellite is increasing as well.

Over the last 5 years nearly 3.8 million cable and satellite subscribers have cut the cord or ditched the dish.

Rather suddenly, traditional broadcast services have lost their monopoly on video content, and now millions of eyeballs once locked down by cable are up for grabs.  With this opportunity, new video content providers seemingly pop up every week. Video content has become democratized. No longer does an idea need to be picked up by a T.V. studio, produced with a swollen budget, and have content adjusted to meet the requirements of sponsors.  A huge audience is now accessible to everyone, and that audience often chooses to engage with videos that would never have made it onto traditional television.    

Video content has become democratized.

Every day 432,000 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.  Not all of it is has value for everyone, but it is undeniable that from the sheer volume of video, there are moments worth watching.  Figuring out how to get the right video moments in front of the right viewers will prove to be very lucrative.  It is impossible for an individual to go through the endless flow of videos being uploaded and determine what will be an appropriate video to show to a certain audience.  Several companies are attempting to automate the process of curating videos for specific verticals, for example funny videos for people who like to laugh, cute videos for cat lovers, and extreme videos for adrenaline junkies.  The company that is able to surface the most relevant and entertaining videos,  present them in an engaging user interface, and provide an amazing user experience, stands to lead this emerging market of cable cutters searching for new content.

Unreel.co's UI

Figuring out how to get the right video moments in front of the right viewers will prove to be very lucrative. 

Unreel separates itself in the Internet video landscape.  Unreel’s AI, Bumblebee, is able to identify trending videos by category and deliver them to the appropriate audience. What makes Unreel unique is that Bumblebee also crawls through the comments for each video, and tags the moments that are most talked about.  That way, when watching a video under any category, a viewer can read the tagged moments to see what other people are saying about it.  If a moment's comments are compelling, the user can then click the tag to jump to that part of the video, getting around any fluff and going straight to the good part.

Check out Unreel here for the best internet video experience. 

Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cutting-cable-cord-web-based-media-mean-death-tv-2/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/08/24/for-millions-of-cord-cutters-cable-tv-fades-to-black/14513495/