Were you one of the subscribers that pulled the plug on your cable this past year? Tell us what prompted your decision in the comments below.

Whether you already dumped your cable company or are entertaining the notion of doing so later this year, you’re a part of a constituency that is increasingly finding the notion of life without cable to be an attractive reality. Deliotte, an accountancy firm that follows business trends in media, released the results of their sixth State of the Media Democracy earlier this week and it doesn’t forecast sunnier skies for cable companies in 2012. According to the press release:

A number of Americans have already cut, or are exploring cutting their pay TV connection entirely. Deloitte’s survey found that 9 percent of people have already cut the cord and 11 percent are considering doing so because they can watch almost all of their favorite shows online. An additional 15 percent of respondents said that they will most likely watch movies, television programs, and videos from online digital sources (via download or streamed over the Internet) in the near future.

Moreover, the number of people citing streaming delivery of a movie to their computer or television as their favorite way of watching a movie rose to 14 percent from 4 percent in 2009.

Are you paying attention, cable companies? As much as one-fifth of your cable subscribers could possibly abandon your pricey ships by the end of this year in order to swim ashore the more agreeable environs of the Internet where, presumably, they aren’t going to be bilked for egregious amounts of money.

It gets worse for cable companies as the study says that 42% of Americans reported streaming a movie, as opposed to 28% in 2009. People are catching on to this Internet thing but, amazingly, there still may be hope for cable companies. The survey continues:

“Consumers have shown that they value DVR functionality, yet the majority of Americans don’t have a DVR in the home. This represents a potential opportunity for cable and satellite TV providers,” said said Phil Asmundson, vice chairman and U.S. media & telecommunications sector leader, Deloitte LLP. “In a world where consumers have other ways to access content, the DVR may be an underutilized service that could serve as a value-add for new and existing subscribers at minimal cost to cable and satellite TV companies.”

In fact, 44% of those surveyed have DVR technologies but the question is: will cable companies actually try to capitalize on the opportunity mentioned here by Asmundson? Probably not, as so far they have generally just tried to limit Internet access or pass off their financial short-comings to the consumers that keep them relevant.

Add to the mix that Americans are currently in the throes of a heated love affair with their smartphones, which is another means for people to watch videos via Internet.

The number of households owning smartphones jumped to 42 percent in 2011 from 25 percent in 2009. Furthermore, the number of consumers interested in purchasing a smartphone in the near future increased to 52 percent in 2011 from 40 percent in 2010.

Throw the surging tablet market into the media mix and – I enjoy saying this every time – cable companies look like they might be on the ropes.

So does anybody think that cable companies have a future? Have any of you cancelled your cable subscriptions this past year or, better yet, are deliberating toward the decision to “cut the cord” this year? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

Showtime’s “Shameless” is based on a popular show from the UK by the same name and stars William H. Macy and Emmy Rossum.

“House of Lies” stars Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell. It is about a competitive group of business consultants who stop at nothing to get the client.

Competition for viewers by providing edgy original programming heats up as Showtime features these two new shows to challenge HBO’s stranglehold with the likes of “True Blood” and “Game of Thrones”. Meanwhile, Roku and other streaming platforms vie to loosen the traditional cable provider grip. In the end, it’s all about more viewing choices and more equipment options for the consumer.

This morning Google announced their purchase of Motorola Mobility. At $12.5 billion, it is their largest acquisition ever. Also announced today, after a swirl of rumors, was the acquisition of Insight Communications by industry giant Time Warner Cable.

This means that the nation’s second largest cable provider is purchasing the ninth for $3 billion. Time Warner Cable will add about 750,000 customers to their current base of about 12 million. Insight, which serves areas in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio has 537,000 high-speed internet subscribers and 679,000 cable video subscribers.

According to a press release -

Time Warner Cable believes that, after incurring onetime costs and capital expenditures, it will create annual cost efficiencies of approximately $100 million through programming expense savings and other cost reductions. The company expects to realize the bulk of the savings within two years of closing. Furthermore, with Insight’s digital conversion and DOCSIS 3.0 rollout behind it, Time Warner Cable expects Insight will have lower capital requirements of 10%-12% of revenues upon completion of the acquisition.

How are people responding to this merger on the interwebs? The feedback on Twitter is mixed, but a definite majority seem to be less than thrilled.

While it’s true that any large company is going to have its share of negative feedback, it seems like Time Warner Cable receives a little more criticism than other companies. Like Verizon, Time Warner Cable’s customer service is sort of a long-running joke on the internet.

A quick scan of any complaints board or consumer advocate website will yield plenty of posts about the way Time Warner handles customers. “Worst Customer Service Ever!” is not an uncommon post title. The newest release from the American Customer Satisfaction Index gives Time Warner a score of 59, which is tied for the industry low. The ACSI has been reporting yearly on consumer’s impressions of companies since 1994.

Consumerist has been holding their “Worst Company is America” Tournament for 6 years and this year Time Warner Cable made it all the way to the sweet 16, getting edged out by BP in that match-up. They pick the entrants in that contest based on nominations from readers.

Of course, Insight Customers have their fair share of complaints. And most Insight customers that are unhappy about this acquisition are not basing their opinions on first-hand experience with Time Warner, but more on what they’ve heard. This tweet might sum things up quite nicely -

Is all of this internet chatter about Time Warner unwarranted? Or is there some truth to it? What are your thoughts about the acquisition? Let us know in the comments.

Even better, it will be available in HD widescreen. Customers will be able to:

• Make and receive Skype video and audio calls, or send instant messages via Skype on a television while watching their favorite TV show at the same time, and accept incoming calls during a TV show with the help of Caller ID.
• Make and receive video and audio calls, or send instant messages via Skype on a compatible mobile phone or tablet.
• Import friends to their address book from their Facebook, Outlook, Gmail and smartphone contact lists, find them on Skype and see when contacts are online and available to talk.

“Our unique relationship with Skype not only will change how our customers interact with their TV, but also will create new and meaningful ways to bring our customers closer to the people they care about,” said Comcast Cable President Neil Smit. “TV has evolved into a social experience, and Comcast and Skype will be delivering a product that personalizes the TV experience even more, and brings friends and family together through the biggest screen in their homes.”

“We are pleased to announce this partnership with Comcast, added Skype CEO Tony Bates. “By combining Comcast’s broad living room reach with Skype’s innovative communications platform and worldwide community of users, we can bring video calling into the heart of the home allowing people to share life’s experiences both big and small.”

The service will be delivered through an adaptor box, a “high quality” video camera, and a special remote control that lets you text on Skype while you control your TV. The person on the other side doesn’t need any of this special equipment.

Customers will also be able to use Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile app to access mobile features and engage in conversations.

Skype says the offering will come in trials at first in the coming months, and then they’ll make additional details available later in the year.

Intel will combine TI’s Puma product lines with the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) standard and Intel’s SoCs for a set top box, and other model products for the cable industry. "The objective is to provide cable OEMs with an open and powerful platform for delivering innovative and differentiated products to service providers that improve the video, voice and data content experience at home," Intel says.

"Adding the talents of the Texas Instruments’ cable team to Intel’s efforts to bring its advanced technology to consumer electronics makes for a compelling combination," said Bob Ferreira, general manager, Cable Segment, Intel’s Digital Home Group. "Intel is focused on delivering SoCs that provide the foundation for consumer electronics devices such as set top boxes, digital TVs, Blu-ray disc players, companion boxes and related devices. This acquisition specifically strengthens Intel’s product offerings for the continuum of cable gateway products and reinforces Intel’s continued commitment to the cable industry."

Intel says it has offered all TI employees with the cable modem team the chance to keep their jobs in at Intel sites in their respective countries (mostly Israel). They would become part of the company’s Digital Home Group.

Financial terms of the acquisition weren’t revealed. The deal is subject to regulatory review, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

"Today, at The Cable Show, the company announced several integrations that could significantly change consumer interaction with TV / cable," a representative tells WebProNews. "Integrations are with PayPal, Panasonic, Gracenote, Jinni, Strategy&Technology and Alticast – and the announcements contain a variety of services/monetization methods, including the ability for consumers to see movie data (e.g. actor names, songs playing, scene location) while they’re watching it, buy soundtracks from an OnDemand movie, or navigate Google Maps using just the TV remote."

"The innovation RCDb brought to Blu-ray was so successful that they are now using that service model for cable, and stand to impact the bottom line — helping operators/content providers generate greater revenue from these services. (Previous models of widgets offered via TV haven’t proven very profitable)."

The PayPal integration is aimed at enabling quick, easy, and consumer friendly, PayPal powered transactions on cable television services, Blu-ray players, and other connected TV devices. PayPal will have pre-integrated e-commerce capabilities for cable operators that deploy the RCDb web services platform on their networks. RCDb says this opens up opportunities for cable operators to better monetize TV and movie content through the integration of established web services.

"Imagine: a music soundtrack purchase cued by the related on-demand movie," the rep says.

The other partnerships are aimed at bringing familiar web experiences (like Google Maps), rich movie data, new revenue streams to cable, as well as personalization features and deep interactive web services. More about each individual partnership can be found here.

Ad spending during the third quarter of 2009 was down 15.3 percent compared to last year, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines.

There were some bright spots with Internet display (+7%) and newspaper Free-Standing Inserts (FSIs) up 3.9 percent. Online growth was driven by telecom, travel and auto advertisers. FSIs benefited from CPG companies expanding their couponing efforts as consumers became more value-conscious.

Among television media, cable TV networks audience gains led to a larger share of ad revenue. Year-to-date cable TV spending slipped by just 2.9 percent, a much stronger performance than the TV sector as a whole. Network TV saw year-to-date spending fall 11.5 percent and Q3 spending fell 25.1 percent.

Magazines (-19.7%), newspapers (-22.8%) and radio (-22.8%) lagged the overall ad market during the January-September period. Third quarter losses for each of these media categories were less severe compared to the first half of the year.

"The updated monthly trend line on total advertising expenditures still shows no meaningful improvement through October," said Jon Swallen, SVP Research at TNS Media Intelligence.

"The slump has now passed its first anniversary and year-on-year comparisons will become easier in the upcoming months. Going forward, the timing, strength and durability of an advertising recovery will ultimately be determined by the way consumer activity rebounds."
 

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"Year-over-year, Mixpo has seen, primarily, local TV advertisers, extend their broadcast strategy and campaigns to the Web by more than 300 percent," a Mixpo spokesperson tells WebProNews. During that time, according to Mixpo, over 1.2 million minutes of video display advertising have been watched. That translates to over two years of 24/7 non-stop TV viewing.

In addition, over a third of these user-initiated views have resulted in additional clicks and interactions. Really these types of ads cater to more than just the click though.

Video Display Ad on One of Our Own Sites

"Pre-roll ads are not the right solution for local advertising.  They’re expensive and have limited availability, interactivity and targeting, to drive effective local promotion. Video display ads are more affordable, can be targeted to the right customer, and allow viewers to interact as they wish, rather than being forced to watch an ad," said Mixpo President and CEO Anupam Gupta. "This new ad unit – takes the static banner to the next level with higher engagement and local response."

"We are seeing a trend unfolding and that is an extension of local TV advertising strategies to the Web, with the benefits of measurement and interactivity," Gupta added. "Advertisers have already spent tens of thousands of dollars to produce high quality TV creative. Leveraging that is the easiest way to take advantage of online video advertising."

Last week Mixpo and the National Cable Communications, which is comprised of major cable companies Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner, launched an initiative to let cable advertisers extend their TV commercials to the web. These are treated as banner ads, rather than pre/post roll.

NCC is jointly owned by three of the largest cable companies – Comcast Cable, Cox Communications, and Time Warner Cable. This makes up a good-sized chunk of television advertising in the US.

"Through Mixpo, national and regional TV advertisers can now run their existing TV ads in quality display inventory on cable operator ISP Web sites, and make them highly interactive on the Web," says Joe Grisafi, NCC’s vice president of digital media and advanced advertising strategies.

"Local advertising isn’t only about small and medium sized businesses.  It’s also about national and regional brands driving local response," says Anupam Gupta, president and CEO of Mixpo. "NCC has the largest Spot Cable advertising sales force in the U.S. and now also represents one of the largest locally targeted online ad networks. It just makes perfect sense to bring together this cross-platform advertising solution to their national and regional clients."    

The news of major cable providers taking their advertisers’ ads to the web shows that display ads are still a significant element in not just online advertising, but the big picture. AdWeek, citing data from Adify, says that the display ad market is stabilizing, at least in some categories, after being hit by the economy.

"Though it cannot claim comprehensive insight into pricing trends for the entire display marketplace — for example, it lacks data from many top publishers as well as the largest portals and search engines — Adify does have unique visibility into the online advertising ecosystem," says AdWeek’s Mike Shields of a report from Adify. "The Cox TMI-owned firm manages over 200 networks, representing inventory on 12,000 sites which reach nearly 70 million U.S. users."

Broadway Systems is a provider of traffic and billing for managing TV ad inventory.  Under the agreement, the two companies will integrate systems and enable Broadway Systems’ cable network clients to make their inventory available to Google TV Ads advertisers more easily.

"With the addition of Broadway, the Google TV Ads team is now working with most of the leading traffic and billing systems for cable networks, including Harris Corporation and VCI," says Bob Meese, Business Development Manager for Google TV Ads.

"We hope to make TV advertising more relevant, accountable and measurable, delivering benefits to viewers, advertisers and programmers," he says.

Broadway’s clients who are Google TV Ads inventory partners will be able to reach new advertisers with Google TV Ads as well as using their existing tools. They will also get access to inventory performance reports based on set-top box data.

"Efficiency has always been a cornerstone of Broadway Systems, and our integration with Google helps streamline the process of bringing new advertisers to our customers," said John Sorensen, president of Broadway Systems. "Google TV Ads is an exciting outlet for new advertising revenue, particularly for cable networks. Now, Broadway customers have a direct line to these online opportunities."

Inventory owners specify the inventory they want to make available through Google TV Ads, and when advertisers select inventory they want to target, submit bids and upload ads, the winning ads are delivered from Google’s platform to Broadway’s traffic system. Broadway returns verification info to Google about when and where the ads ran.