RBOCs Entering the $50 Billion Multichannel Video Market Follow Different Product Development Strategies to Compete With MSOs -- According to Yankee Group, "Despite public statements to the contrary, we believe MSOs aren�t taking the threat of new competition lightly � and they shouldn�t: We estimate cable will lose subscribers at the rate of 0.5-1 percent per year. This is before the entry of new competition with a two-way network, with more bandwidth and potentially more advanced applications than the MSOs can provide. In the last 4 years, RBOCs have steadily lost residential wireline voice subscribers. Yankee estimates that about 4 percent of US households have dropped their wireline phones. In addition, a growing number of voice minutes are shifting to wireless. We expect traditional wireline voice revenue to decline by approximately 24 percent in the next 4 years. Alternative voice providers, including MSOs, will be important drivers of this revenue erosion. We anticipate that cable�s VoIP product will gain 12 million homes by year-end 2008. The RBOCs have their backs up against a wall and cannot postpone new product development."
The global streaming industry has spent the better part of a decade chasing subscriber counts as the primary metric of success. That era is now formally over. New market data from Omdia confirms that the industry has crossed a decisive threshold; one that shifts the competitive playing field from growth-at-all-costs to monetization discipline. For senior executives navigating media, advertising, and technology strategy, the implications extend well beyond entertainment. A Historic Revenue Crossover Online video revenue increased 13.5 percent to $176 billion in 2025, while pay-TV revenue declined 4 percent to $170 billion; marking the first time in the industry's history that streaming has surpassed legacy pay-TV in revenue terms. This is not a rounding error or a statistical artifact; it represents the culmination of more than a decade of structural disruption to the traditional broadcast and cable TV model. Global subscriptions to online video services reached 2.24 billion by the ...