About a month ago, I wrote a post about the future of TV. I came to the conclusion that it was surprising that there wasn’t “live TV” online. That is, I am surprised that you can’t watch a TV on your laptop at the same time as you could watch it on your TV. Of course, I understand why that might not be the case right now (advertising, contracts, etc.), it seems like this form of entertainment is moving in this direction. When you take into account mobile TV, one has to think that live streaming TV shows is on the way, right?
It turns out that I’m not the only one frustrated by the lack of online TV streaming. Xeni Jardin, an editor/partner at Boing Boing (a rather popular technology zine), also shares this frustration:
It’s so dumb that it’s 2013 and I’m all SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY BITCH but the cable cos won’t allow simultaneous online content access.
— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) September 9, 2013
Don’t have cable. I buy BreakingBad on iTunes, but torrent it so I can watch each week’s ep ASAP same night before editing our recaps.
— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) September 9, 2013
As you can see, Xeni seems to think that we should be able to watch TV shows online at the same time that we can watch them on TV. This doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request, right?
It turns out, many of you out there agree with Xeni and I:
Market researcher GfK says 51% of those 13-54 years of age watch a TV program or movie via streaming video platforms. This is up from 48% in 2012 and 37% higher than three years ago.
What’s even more convincing is that the data go on to show that many folks would drop their Netflix service if cable companies offered a similar service at a similar price.
It seems to me one of a few things are happening:
a) TV executives already know all of this, but have run the data a different way and don’t think that people would actually follow-through on what they say when they answer these polls. [Not necessarily a response bias, but something more to the effect of the people who intend to vote on election day, but don’t.]
b) TV executives know this and they’re trying to convince the right people (CEO?) that this is what they need to do.
c) TV executives don’t know about these data.
Option c) seems the least likely, but I suppose it’s possible. Option a) seems like it could be plausible, but my guess is that the majority fall into option b). As a result, there seems to be a window of opportunity for an enterprising network to take a leap of faith and capture a great deal of value. Who’s going to be first?
Jeremiah Stanghini 
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