Don’t Fear the Cord-Cutting Reaper

It was back in July when Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) started to diverge from the big media companies like Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB) and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS). Quarterly earnings were being released and a rising Netflix began to look like an inverted view of falling traditional media. Cord-cutting began to look increasingly like traditional media’s Grim Reaper, with his ominous sickle cutting away traditional customer bases in favor of online streaming services.

But then third-quarter earnings came in and the Reaper turned into more of a nuisance or formidable challenge rather than a sign of imminent certain death. Disney beat estimates by 2.56%. Comcast met expectations and Viacom beat by 1.3%. Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) actually performed the best, beating Wall Street estimates by 14.7%.

Cord-cutting certainly will continue to pose a challenge to traditional cable and media, but the large companies are not getting caught with their pants down. In other words, cord-cutting is not going to be a repeat of the demise of Blockbuster Video on a broader scale. Blockbuster was caught totally unprepared for digital cable and on-demand movies, did not have a flexible business model at all and had too much brick-and-mortar infrastructure in its rental stores that quickly became irrelevant.

The story with big media is much different. Undoubtedly, Netflix and other cord-cutting options are causing a disturbance, but the big players are already equipped with alternatives and more diversified revenue streams. Comcast has Xfinity TV Go, Time Warner has HBO Go and Viacom is also plenty busy with providing content on alternate outlets. Disney of course has its myriad revenue streams that cord-cutting can’t touch, the recent struggles of ESPN losing 7 million subscribers over two years aside.

It is no surprise then that Disney is having the best 2015 of the lot, barely off its all-time highs of $122 a share and having just crossed back over the $200 billion market cap threshold this month. Comcast and Viacom are still getting the lion’s share of new Internet subscribers. Time Warner must be doing something right if it is beating Wall Street estimates by such a wide margin.

Expect cord-cutting to pose a challenge for big media ahead, but only as a spur for needed innovation rather than as a serious threat emanating from the Grim Cord-Cutting Reaper.

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