Face It, Cable: You're on the Way Out

Cable TV is "on the fast train to oblivion," but you won't hear that from its executives. The latest financial results from Time Warner and News Corp are upbeat, and Comcast has decided to snap up the rest of NBCUniversal ahead of schedule. But the disastrous future for these companies is "emperor's-no-clothes obvious," writes Michael Wolff at USA Today. The bigwigs pretend that people aren't "cord-cutting," but the reality is that "virtually everybody has cut it or is flirting with the possibility of cutting it or being harangued by their children to do so."

At the heart of the problem is "modern business myopia." Cable TV is deeply entrenched across the US, and for the moment, is still raking in cash—even as viewing habits have fundamentally changed. "My large television is a fully connected but dead presence in the house where a river of video, legal and not, flows over my laptop," Wolff notes. All that's left is for people to finally get around to dropping their cable service. Until then, expect the executives to remain in denial, following in the footsteps of Detroit, the music industry, and the newspaper business. Click to read Wolff's full piece. (More Michael Wolff stories.)