Why Cord Cutting Should Have Been TCA’s Hottest Topic
TCA 2016: Cable executives won’t be able to gloss over challenges to their business much longer
Daniel Holloway | January 19, 2016 @ 6:39 AM
Last Updated: January 19, 2016 @ 8:25 AM
The big stories from the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, which ends Tuesday, have been familiar: FX CEO John Landgraf kept talking about too much TV. Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos kept not talking about viewership data.
But the biggest story at TCA was the one that most people wanted to pretend didn’t exist.
In the second half of 2015, worries over cable subscriber declines soured financial markets on big media companies and forced top-tier executives like Disney’s Bob Iger to go on the defensive when talking about their businesses.
But TCA saw little talk of cord cutters — the industry mumbo-jumbo term for people who ditch their cable subscriptions. ESPN, whose subscriber losses sparked a media-stock panic last year, kicked off TCA two weeks ago not with a full-throated defense of the company’s lavish spending on sports rights, but with documentary filmmakers hyping movies about the Chicago Bears and O.J. Simpson.
When cord cutting did come up, cable executives took to whistling past the graveyard. Filmmaker-turned-TV executive Spike Jonze took the stage to enthusiastically introduce the programming slate for Viceland, the cable channel being launched by Vice Media and A+E Networks in February.
But when asked why Vice — a company that has achieved huge growth while focusing on digital-video — wants into a business whose customer base is shrinking, Jonze said that “the channel to us is just one means of distribution.”
Viceland’s shows, Jonze told TheWrap, will also “live on our website, on iTunes, on Netflix, on Hulu. There will be pieces on Snapchat. However you absorb content, we’ll have something to say.”
Which says a lot of nothing about how Viceland plans to draw a young core audience to a linear channel or how it plans to monetize its programming.
Kevin Reilly, who attended his first TCA since taking over as president of TNT and TBS, touted the continued power of cable as a platform. But he also talked up parent company Turner’s efforts to diversify its business, pointing to last year’s acquisition of digital company iStreamPlanet.
“Vice decides to get into the cable business, I’m getting into Vice’s business,” Reilly told TheWrap. “I believe there can be a real symbiotic relationship that nobody’s quite proved yet.”
Cable needs someone to produce some proof pretty soon. ESPN, the most successful of all ad-supported channels, has lost 7 percent of its subscribers since 2013. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted last month that as many as 20 percent of cable subscribers could cut the cord in 2016.
Those cord cutters are not consuming less programming — they’re finding it elsewhere. On Sunday, streaming service Netflix presented what was hands down this TCA’s most exciting lineup, trotting out casts and creators for buzz machines “Orange Is the New Black,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Jessica Jones” and “Making a Murderer,” as well as new shows from the likes of Judd Apatow and Ashton Kutcher and revivals of “Degrassi” and “Full House.”
Hulu and Amazon also presented, promoting programming that would be at home on the best cable channels. Though none of those services release viewership data, they have all continued to add subscribers as cable loses them.
Turner, in the face of that competition, isn’t the only cable company venturing into digital. NBCUniversal last year launched Seeso, a comedy-focused streaming service headed by former Pivot and Sundance Channel executive Evan Shapiro. But those companies face an uphill battle against the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Hulu — and YouTube and Apple — which have been living in the digital space for years.
As FX’s Landgraf said during his executive session Saturday, “We all have a stake in saying really positive things about the health of the businesses that we run.” So it’s unsurprising that questions about threats to cable’s business model are met with vague and sunny talk about pivoting to digital.
“I wish it weren’t happening, but it feels manageable to me,” Landgraf told TheWrap when asked about subscriber loss after his executive session. “We’d rather be paid by 100 million homes than in 93 [million], but we’re still increasing our revenue on the affiliate side, because we’ve had 12 years of momentum and success.” He added, “We’ve so far managed to manage our way through this transition pretty well.”
But so far isn’t all the way, and not every channel is positioned as well as FX, Turner and cable’s other top brands. As more cords get cut, the questions will get tougher and more frequent.
Scene at TCA 2016 Winter Press Tour (Updating Photos)
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EPs Brad Simpson, Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson, co-EP Anthony M. Hemingway, Consultant Jeffrey Toobin, and actors Sarah Paulson, John Travolta and Cuba Gooding Jr. on stage for FX's "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story" panel on Jan. 16
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Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys on stage for FX's "The Americans" panel on Jan. 16
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Jay Baruchel and Eric Andre on stage for FX's "Man Seeking Woman" panel on Jan. 16
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Creator/star Donald Glover on stage for FX's "Atlanta" panel on Jan. 16
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Co-creators/EPs Zach Galifianakis and Louis C.K. for FX's "Baskets" panel on Jan. 16
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FX CEO John Landgraf on stage during his executive session on Jan. 16
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Actors Rebecca Liddiard, Micahel Weston, Stephen Mangan, Co-Creator/EP David Hoselton, EP David Shore and Co-Creator/EP David Titcher on stage for Fox's "Houdini & Doyle" panel on Jan. 15
Amber Grimes and Nick Cannon on stage for Oxygen's "Like a Boss" panel on Jan. 14
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EPs Philip D. Segal, Kevin Williams and investors Lauren Maillian, Randi Zuckerberg, Ido Leffler and Sarah Prevette on Oxygen's "Quit Your Day Job" panel on Jan. 14
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Actor Kieran Bew on stage for Esquire's "Beowulf" panel on Jan. 14
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Candis Cayne, Caitlyn Jenner and Ella Giselle on stage for E!'s "I Am Cait" panel on Jan. 14
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Nathan Phillips, Britne Oldford and Julian McMahon on stage for Syfy's "Hunters" panel on Jan. 14
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Stars Olivia Taylor Dudley, Hale Appleman, Arjun Gupta, Summer Bishil, Jason Ralph, Stella Maeve and EPs Michael London, Sera Gamble and John McNamara for Syfy's "The Magicians" panel on Jan. 14
EPs Ryan Condal and Carlton Cuse for USA's "Colony" on Jan. 14
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Jamie Kennedy, Maya Erskine and Joshua Leonard, Melissa George, Dave Annable and Co-EP Dr. Kathy Magliato on stage for NBC's "Heartbeat" panel on Jan. 13
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Executive producer and star Eva Longoria and actor Jencarlos Canela on stage for NBC's "Telenovela" panel on Jan. 13
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NBC's "Game of Silence" panel on stage on Jan. 13
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Executive producer Dick Wolf on stage for NBC's panel about "Chicago Med," "Chicago Fire" and "Chicago PD" on Jan. 13
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Actress Miranda Cosgrove on stage for NBC's "Crowded" panel on Jan. 13
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Jennifer Lopez on stage for NBC's "Shades of Blue" panel on Jan. 13
Mark McKinnon on stage for Showtime's "The Circus" panel on Jan. 12
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Luke Wilson, Carla Gugino and Imogene Poots on stage for Showtime's "Roadies" panel on Jan. 12
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EP Bill Lawrence, EP Blake McCormick, EP Steve Franks, and actors Wendie Malick, Page Kennedy, Justin Hires, Jon Foo, and Aimee Garcia for CBS's "Rush Hour" panel on Jan. 12
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Daniel Henney on stage for CBS's "Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders" panel on Jan. 12
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CBS News panel on Jan. 12
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Chairman CBS Sports Sean McManus, "The Super Bowl Today" host James Brown, analyst Phil Simms, announcer Jack Whitaker and announcer Jim Nantz on stage for CBS Sports panel on Jan. 12
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Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney for Amazon's "Catastrophe" panel on Jan. 11
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Director Alex Gibney and producer Kahane Cooperman for Amazon's "The New Yorker Presents" panel on Jan. 11
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Titus Welliver for Amazon's "Bosch" panel on Jan. 11
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Ben Chaplin for Amazon's "Mad Dogs" panel on Jan. 11
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Alycia Debnam-Carey on stage for CW's "The 100" panel on Jan. 10
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Actor David Gyasi on stage for CW's "Containment" panel on Jan. 10
Series creator Tom Rob Smith on stage for BBC America's "London Spy" panel on Jan. 8
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Creator Peter Moffat on BBC America's "Undercover" panel on Jan. 8
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Producer Huw Cordey on BBC America's "The Hunt" panel on Jan. 8
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Host Chris Evans for BBC America's "Top Gear" panel on Jan. 8
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Executive producer John Legend on stage for WGN America's "Underground" panel on Jan. 8
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Series creator Peter Mattei, EP Peter Tolan and stars Ryan Hurst, Gillian Alexy, David Morse, Kyle Gallner and Christina Jackson for WGN America's "Outsiders" panel on Jan. 8
Host Craig Ferguson and EP Brian Vok-Weiss speak on stage during History's "Join or Die" panel on Jan. 6
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Viceland creative director Spike Jonze introduces new network's panel on Jan. 6
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Viceland creative director Spike Jonze and the network's hosts speak on stage on Jan. 6
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John Rhys-Davies speaks on stage for MTV's "The Shannara Chronicles" on Jan. 6
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Nikki Glaser on stage for Comedy Central's "Not Safe With Nikki Glaser" on Jan. 6
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Stars Sutton Foster and Hilary Duff speak on stage during TV Land's "Younger" panel on Jan. 6
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Improv group The Katydids (Caitlin Barlow, Katy Colloton, Cate Freedman, Kate Lambert, Katie O'Brien, Kathryn Renee Thomas) and EPs Alison Brie and Jay Martel speak on stage during TV Land's "Teachers" panel on Jan. 6
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"Chasing Destiny" EP Jason Sands, host Kelly Rowland, creative director/choreographer Frank Gatson and EP Danny Rose speak on stage on Jan. 6
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Brandy Norwood speaks onstage during the BET "Zoe Ever After" panel on Jan. 6
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Connor Schell (left), senior vice president and executive producer for ESPN Films, and Ezra Edelman, director of "OJ: Made In America" on Jan. 5
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Vince Vaughn, executive producer of "The '85 Bears," speaks during the ESPN Films "30 for 30" panel on Jan. 5
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"Rough Draft" host Reza Aslan speaks alongside writer Norman Lear on Jan. 5
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TV stars and executives promote new and returning shows at the annual Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour