Whether or not you agree with the recent court decision to nix the 30% marketshare cap placed on cable operators, there is some interesting data floating around on cable’s competition. One chart in particular, compiled by Adam Thierer from the Progress and Freedom foundation, details share of market held by the entire cable industry versus satellite and telco operators over the last 18 years. The trend line for cablecos moves consistently downward. What I’d be interested to see is how that line compares to marketshare trends among cable operators. Graph from Thierer below.
On another cable-related note, there was some buzz last week after the DTA waivers were announced that clear QAM might be coming to an end. In other words, people were worried that they wouldn’t be able to access local HD channels from their digital TVs anymore because cablecos would start to encrypt them. Ben Drawbaugh at EngadgetHD has a nice post up that puts those fears to rest. In short, cable operators aren’t allowed to encrypt local HD channels. They must continue to broadcast them over clear QAM.
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