“I don’t think the sky is falling quite yet,” Cablevision Systems CEO Jim Dolan said Friday on the company’s earnings conference call in addressing Wall Street’s cord-cutting worries that have driven down entertainment stocks this week.
“There is not enough programming in OTT video services and online to “really entice a mainstream customer” yet to drop traditional bundles in a “landslide” move, he argued. “Eventually though there will be enough programming for over-the-top to be competitive with the traditional [pay TV] bundle.”
Dolan suggested that it would take at least five years for 10 percent and 10 years for 30 percent of the market to move away from the bundle.
The change will not happen “over a very short period of time,” because consumers are “very, very comfortable with the amount of choice cable offers.” Dolan compared the cable bundle to buying “the entire magazine stand” to have options to read various publications.
But he also said that broadcasters see retransmission fees as “a pot of gold” as they continue to boost prices, which the Cablevision boss aid would contribute to driving some subscribers away.
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