CBS Corporation (CBS) and Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC) Are Both Losers

Netflix will naturally win as the quiet cord-cutting revolution picks up steam.

Analysts at UBS estimate that this country’s pay-TV market declined by 208,000 households through the first half of the year. By targeting 250,000 net defections for all of 2013, this will be the first year that the industry suffers a step back.

Hollywood had better get used to it. The spat between Time Warner Cable and CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS) this summer was ugly, but it ultimately reminds us that we can spend a month without watching some of the industry’s most prolific channels. We may not exactly be ready for Netflix’s “rerun TV” platform of earlier seasons as our lone consumption vehicle, but the world didn’t end just because Time Warner Cable customers missed out on a few episodes of Ray Donovan. Right?

Subscribers may not realize this, but they won this fight. If Time Warner Cable takes a subscriber hit by TV buffs feeling that they were wronged, it loses. If they stay put, Time Warner Cable and CBS lose because it proves that customers don’t care. Apathy, in time, can be just as deadly as subscribers cutting the cord this summer.

You can’t cheat cable subscribers and get away with it.

The article CBS and Time Warner Cable Are Both Losers originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Rick Munarriz.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool recommends Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of Netflix.

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