And how do you know this? It appears you're just stating your opinion as fact, which is something I've noticed you commonly do. You don't even appear to be educated on the emerging technologies, so forgive me if I don't adopt your opinion as anything more than internet barking.
Bundles were created by the cable companies. It was their model. It was good for them, but not very good for some consumers. It didn't matter because consumers didn't have alternatives. They were at the mercy of what the cable companies offered. That's all changing. Content can be delivered without cable now, and that's the whole point. When the delivery gets out of their control, it's totally reasonable to assume, or hypothesize that their most hated business method (bundling), will change too.
I can make the same argument. How do you what will happen? You are only stating your opinion also. Your opinion is no more factual than mine. The reason you have a problem with what I say is because I don't go through the tedious process of qualifying every one of my remarks with "I believe," or "in my opinion." It's superfluous. As any good English teacher will tell you, when you are writing a term paper, for example, you don't say, "I believe," or "It's my opinion," because
by definition, your writing is your opinion.
Now that said, here's how I know. Casual viewers will always exist. Most, and I emphasize most, programming relies on casual viewers. Very few genres can exist on a niche audience. That's because there is a baseline amount of cost involved in producing entertainment. In television, you have to have cameramen, directors, audio engineers, producers, editors, video equipment, audio equipment, etc. You need a lot of money to pay for all these expenses, and you normally can't generate that kind of revenue with a limited audience. That's why cable started bundling channels in the first place. If channels weren't bundled, then you would only have around 10-15 channels. That's because most channels wouldn't make enough money to stay in business. I listed several examples. The History Channel, the Food Network, the SEC Network, etc. don't make enough money independently. They don't have particularly large audiences, because they only offer niche programming. They depend on being part of a larger package to make enough money. On the other hand, over-the-air networks like Fox, NBC, CBS, etc. can exist independently, because they provide a variety of programming, and attract an overall large audience. They can exist independently because they have so many people watching their programming that advertisers will pay enough money for them to remain in business.
HBO can be purchased as a stand alone service now. I pay $15/per month for HBO NOW (I don't have a cable or dish subscription). I pay $8/per month for Netflix and Hulu. I wouldn't pay anything for just Food Network, or History Channel, or HGTV. Lots of people won't pay anything for ESPN, and in the future there will be channel options (bundles) that don't include sports and ESPN.
HBO product is content. Same thing with ESPN. HBO itself is not the product. The movies HBO shows are the product, same way that the games ESPN shows are the product. It's true that HBO is a pay service and ESPN isn't. However, lots of people don't pay for HBO either. ESPN could possibly turn into a pay service, a la HBO, but they would have to offer all of their sports as a package. ESPN couldn't operate as a pay service if they only televised one sport or league, like only college football or only the SEC.
To your point about Food Network, History Channel, etc., that's exactly what I'm saying. HBO can exist because most people watch movies. HBO has a wide consumer base to support. Only a niche audience is interested in history or cooking. Those channels don't have enough of a base to independently survive. Sports is similar, to some extent.
It's a stupid analogy. Businesses need advertising to survive/grow. Consumers don't need bundles to survive. In fact, bundling is probably the very least liked aspect of TV.
It's not a stupid analogy, and you missed my point. I didn't say consumers need bundling. My point was, most types of entertainment need bundling in order to survive (just as businesses need advertising to survive). If there isn't bundling, then you will only have a few "channels" that would survive in the streaming world. It wouldn't be too much different that TV was in the old days of the 3 networks. You would only have a handful of streaming "channels" (or whatever you want to call them) that would survive to even be offered in the first place. The productions costs are otherwise prohibitive.
There probably will be some bundling, I agree. But bundling options will expand and many of them won't include sports. In fact, I believe some cable companies are already starting to offer them.
I think there will be bundles with no sports, and bundles with just 1/2 sports channels. The days of forcing 7-10 sports channels on people is probably coming to an end.
That's most likely true. However, that goes for
all channels, not just sports. You won't be able to have an "Alabama" channel, or a "Penn St" channel, or really an SEC Network, or ACC network. You will have to have a few channels with a variety of content (like all the college football conferences, or a channel with multiple sports.) That's the whole point.
One other thing. You can actually get cable bundles with no sports on them today, so that's nothing new either. That's leads to another point. You mentioned earlier that you can get Netfilx and Hulu for $8 a month. Well, one thing you aren't taking into account is that most of the channels you get on Netflix and Hulu are also on cable and dish. That mean those channels don't rely on the streaming services for their main source of income. If cable and dish no longer exist at all, then you won't be paying $8 for Netflix and Hulu anymore. All those channels will have to charge more to stay afloat.
