During my tenure at Pitt County Government, I had the privilege of being its Cable Coordinator.  My job was to monitor and asses the cable companies with Pitt County’s jurisdiction; moreover align the franchises such that they were an asset the citizenry.  I successfully negotiated three (3) franchise agreements, and helped restructure Pitt County’s cable ordinance.  I was very lucky in that most counties only have one franchise to contend with, Pitt County had four.  Which doesn’t make me an expert, but it does make me well versed enough to contribute to this conversation.

Just so that you don’t have to read the rest of this blog (if I hadn’t lost you already – lol), in my opinion the answer is an unequivocal YES. Cable-TV will be around in the next 10 years.  I say this because of four reasons:

1. The tremendous ability Cable companies to diversify.
2. The cable companies market footprint.
3. Bandwidth
4. One word – Lobbyist.

Diversify

Cable-TV was born in the mid 40’s, created for a simple purpose – better reception.  Crude antennas were situated on a high point (or Pole) in a community.  A cable was laid from the antenna to the homes. The residents attached to the cable to get better reception.  Typically television shops set up the system to sale more TVs. For 70 years cable has been evolving and adjusting itself to meet a need. Now cable companies offer, television, movie networks, local programming, phone service, internet and home security monitoring.

Market Footprint

The Cable-TV market footprint is decreasing according to IHS Screen Digest, The number of pay-TV households in the US declined by nearly 380,000. So now the total number of cable subscribers in the US is “down” to 100.9 Million. This decrease is recorded during a slow economic recovery, so some of the decrease can be attributed to America tightening its belt. 100 million is a huge market share, even at the reported rate of decrease 10 years from now Cable-TV will be here.

Bandwidth

Because the coaxial cable used by cable TV provides much greater bandwidth than telephone lines, a cable and Internet modem can be used to achieve extremely fast access to the Web. This, combined with the fact that 100 million homes are already wired for Cable-TV, has made cable Internet service far superior to DSL. Access to the internet in my opinion was the greatest move by Cable companies to compete within the technology arena. Many proponents of the death of Cable-tv point to wireless technologies that will one day revolutionize how we access the web. I think that wireless technology is still looking for a viable business model, because it would have to compete with cable internet’s price point. Although once in place it could surpass cable deployment, because of the minimum of infrastructure requirements.

Lobbyist

Cable-TV companies are entrenched within the Government on so many levels. From Local to State to Federal – cable companies pad the pockets of many policy makers. They are tenacious when it comes to anti-cable legislation. They harness the power of information and are not ashamed to throw money at their cause. An example of this is reported by OpenSecrets.org , they tracked political contributions on the Net Neutrality issue. This legislation would not allow cable companies to block, sites such as Google and Netflix (who provide video services and use a lot of bandwidth). Click here to see what companies invested what to whom.

To sum it all up, Cable-TV is here to stay. Cable is 70 years strong, they know their market, and they own it they adapt to social and technological trends and they drive policy creation in Washington. They have solid product offering and they are entrenched in your home with their own coaxial (or fiber) connection. And in my opinion, it’s not a bad thing. Internet video is growing and it will definitely one day become a formidable competitor to Cable-TV. But if I were you, I wouldn’t bet your “bundle” on it.

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Finishing up a clients project and getting ready to prepare for that 2-3 hours of sleep before my day starts again – I decided to blog a bit. Not strictly about business, but about something dear and personal to me, loyalty. I never knew how much this attribute plays into our everyday lives, until I decided to go into business for myself. Within our family structure, our friendships and our business relationships we covet loyalty and place it on the “mantle of valor.” Should it be there and why do we hold it in such regard?

First lets define it, according to dictionary.com (the root word) loyal is: “unswerving in allegiance: as (a): faithful in allegiance to one’s lawful sovereign or government (b): faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due (c): faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product.” Interestingly, the obsolete synonyms of the word include “lawful” and “legitimate”.

So why do we place loyalty among the favorable attributes? If I am loyal to a client will that bring about her loyalty to me? If I am loyal to my assistant, will he choose loyalty over subordination?

Loyalty in its purest form is noble (and rarely practiced) it’s akin to unconditional love – the definition described it as “unswerving”. Reviewing my business and personal relationships over the past 15 years there is one constant trait – change. Change is a great litmus test of true loyalty. When you make more money, who will no longer have your loyalty? When you drop from status or position who will offer you allegiance? When conditions change where will your loyalties lie?

In my opinion loyalty (as we commonly know it) is worthless; it is based on current conditions and self preservation. Loyalty, as commonly practiced, asks the question “what can you do for me in exchange for the appearance of my loyalty” Should such a noble attribute be based in selfishness? Our 28th president Woodrow Wilson stated “Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.” I agree with the statement because loyalty as we know it is about “what’s in it for me?”

Even though my opinion is somewhat callous about our practice of loyalty, I believe it still exists. True loyalty is commonly practiced with reference to ones faith and immediate family. These two areas in our lives harkens our core, which lends itself to more transparent and honest introspection. In other words, only when loyalty threatens to destroy our self image – do we give it the reverence it deserves.

In my opinion true loyalty is a righteous characteristic, but I think we need to use the term less. Every time we proclaim loyalty we should ask ourselves: is my loyalty unconditional? If not then choose another term, try these: transitory allegiance, fair weather friend, ephemeral friendship, symbiotic association and (my favorite) parasite.

5:38 a.m

Re-Focused
Thomas Y. Lynch

“Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my King, He would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies.” – William Shakespeare