After Streaming Kills Cable, Where Will the Content Come From?

[Commentary] Netflix is not going to kill cable. Nor is Amazon Prime. Nor is the mythical Apple TV. Because if they do, they will essentially be sawing off the limb on which they have built their businesses: content funded by the very cable model against which they offer an alluring alternative. And wow, is it ever funded—programming is expensive, as you may have heard.

Cord cutting may be on the rise, but it's nowhere near the level of an existential threat to the cable industry, despite the hype. Nielsen’s fourth-quarter cross-platform report counted more than 5 million "zero-TV" households in 2012, up from just over 2 million as recently as 2007. Those are small numbers given the 110 million TV household universe. That said, cable operators (or MVPDs, for multichannel video programming distributors) and the networks they carry are dragging each other kicking and screaming toward the rich seam of multiplatform video distribution that Netflix and Amazon are already mining as fast as they can. To be sure, there's a new economic model for content coming, but it’s big enough to allow all parties to survive, perhaps even thrive. Here's how.