Would you cut cable for Netflix?

This morning, I tweeted San Francisco Chronicle article "1 million homes cut cable, switch to antenna, Web," which showed up in my RSS feeds. The story is actually three days old. A surprising number of people tweet-replied that they had cut the cable, completely or partially. I've been thinking about doing the same and wondered about Betanews readers. Would you go or have gone from cable to online video streaming (from networks and services like Hulu or Netflix) and over-the-air HD broadcasts?

You can answer the question in comments or email joewilcox at gmail dot com. I'll be swapping out that email address in a day or so as I seek to create, at least temporarily, a Google-free zone. Messages will forward after the switch. Your answer could benefit other people considering a similar move, but struggling to cross that psychological barrier of "What will I give up?"

Michael Campbell tweeted: "Cut the cable late last year and now OTA + netflix. Couldnt' be happier." He followed up to my question about what with: "Tivo premiere. 2 tuners w/OTA antenna, Netflix, pandora, amazon vid + pytivo to stream home media http://goo.gl/avwCu."

Adam Hall tweet-replied: "The one thing that keeps my cable on is live sport. Internet TV, Hulu and Netflix cover the sitcoms and series we watch." I asked: "So if live sport streaming was available, you'd ditch?" He replied: "Becomes a financial question then :) Can I get internet unbundled from tv for proportionately less?"

That's exactly the question to ask. Zach Weigand "kept bare-bones cable because Cable+Internet is magically cheaper than internet alone." There's the problem. Who provides the broadband that most households use? Their cable or IPTV provider.

That's 2 Million Cable Cutters This Year

The Chronicle cited data from Convergence Consulting Group, which has posted executive summary and table of contents from report: "The Battle for the North American (US/Canada) Couch Potato: Online and Traditional TV, and Movie Distribution." Have these guys not heard of the five-word rule that book publishers use so well (and report writers should adopt)? There are reasons why book titles (and New York Post headlines) are "Smashed!" and not "Five people are smashed in this riveting story about two New York subway trains colliding at 10:32 a.m. EDT on April 1 after one of the drivers falls asleep while reading Gone with the Wind -- or does he? It's a Scarlet Ohara whodunit."

The report's summary offers up some pretty interesting data, such as that by the end of this year, more than 2 million U.S. households will have cut cable for "Online, Netflix, OTA, etc." Convergence Consulting Group also reveals how networks contribute to an increasing percentage of online viewing. Excluding sites like Hulu, in 2010, "18 percent of the weekly viewing audience (includes TV & Online viewers) watched on average between one to two episodes at a broadcaster or cable network or one of their distribution partner's websites...One to two episodes represents for the average TV viewer just 5 percent of weekly viewing time. Hulu and its online distributors and the CBS Audience Network are responsible for more online viewers than the Broadcaster websites combined."

That 5 percent may not seem like much, but there are lots of advertising dollars at play. Television is the advertising Holy Grail that Google and some other online services would like to possess. Most ad dollars are going to TV, but online is gaining. U.S. online advertising rose 10 percent year over year to $25.7 billion last year. Convergence Consulting Group predicts $28.5 billion in 2011. Hence, online TV streamers can expect ad interruptions to become more like regular television. According to the report:

We believe the nature of free will begin to change over 2011-2012. We anticipate the number of online advertising minutes associated with most free online TV episodes will increase to at least on average half the TV advertising load and in some cases there will be a longer delay/window in terms of when the show/episode is made available online for free. Or the show/episode will no longer be made available online for free -- hence more walled garden requiring a paid subscription or only available for a fee.

So that raises an addendum to the question: Would you cut the cable if presented with half as many commercial interruptions for streamed programs as broadcast or cable TV? Right now, I typically see anywhere from two to four commercials per streamed episode -- and that's up from 12 months ago when two to three was typical. I already find the four (and sometimes more) commercials on Hulu Plus as unacceptable. At least with television, DVR is option. Convergence Consulting Group predicts that the number of U.S. TV subscribers will reach the 50 percent threshold next year. I'm surprised it's not higher now. People who stick with the status quo can fast-forward commercials, something streamers can't do.

So the question remains: Would you or have you cut cable for online streaming and OTA? Please answer in comments, or email joewilcox at gmail dot com.