According to this story by KTVB.com, CableOne cable rates are set to increase to $50/month for their BASIC package which has approximately 70 channels. At this new price cable is now $10/month or $120/year MORE expensive than DishNetwork's 100 channel plan with local programming ($39.99) or $20/month more expensive than DirectTV's 50+ package ($29.99).
Does this pricing cut into the young audience (18-25 year olds) media buyers always have difficult reaching. Some programming this demo watches is only located on cable or satellite systems and without the ability to place locally on satellite systems this leaves media buyers with a dilemma. If this does start cutting into that college age demographic do we move money away from TV and towards online.
I definitely don't have all the answers but as we continue to see crazy rating numbers published by Nielsen for TV programs for the 18-25 demographic and lead us to not trust the numbers, for better or worse. Media buyers are asked by their clients to closely scrutinize their advertising spending and report back what their dollar is getting them.
Some more stats for ya:
According to Television Bureau of Advertising Cable Penetration in the Boise DMA has continued to sink from 47% penetration in Feb. 2000 to 30.5% in Feb. 2009. Meanwhile Satellite or ADS(Alternate Delivery Systems) have increase from 17% in Feb. 2000 to 43% in Feb. 2009. Combining together these two TV delivery methods leaves about 27% of people still using rabbit ears or no subscription based TV.
Now for my questions:
The main question I have regarding these stats is are the correlated simply to cost? Or is there a quality of programming/channels available in each of these television delivery methods? Feel free to leave some comments if I am completely off base on this.
