Mark Cuban Says The Internet Is Dead

During a cable and telecom conference, Dallas Mavericks owner and HDNet cofounder Mark Cuban stated that the internet has died as a form of entertainment and that HD cable is the new way of entertainment for all. Whatever. This just shows how disconnected the 49 year old billionaire is from consumer reality. While he may have a point regarding HD content and the bandwidth issue, his exceedingly broad statement 'the Internet is dead' as a form of entertainment is ridiculous.

Why do I say this? Younger people are developing or have established different habits regarding the consumption of entertainment. The established model of broadcast or cable TV and its timed 30 minute or one hour segments of entertainment is irrelevant and outdated to them. I would dare to say most of the entertainment they consume is Internet or computer related. Watching short video clips on YouTube or the endless clone sites; using iTunes to listen to/watch entertainment on their iPods; looking at video clips on their cell phones and watching DVDs on laptops or portable players is how young people consume entertainment. (Note that these are all standard definition or worse.) Adults? I know many that already have ditched cable TV (with its 70% of channels nobody watches but you still pay for) in favor of watching TV shows online on the network's own sites, or simply watching them when they are released on DVD.

Does anyone care about HD content? Not as many as you might think. Even though we are approaching 40% of US households that have at least one HDTV, industry research has indicated that anywhere from 40%-60% of HDTV households watch only standard-definition content. Why? Either 1)consumers don’t know any better (this is the most likely one); 2)they haven’t bothered to sign up for HD cable/satellite or even hook their TVs up to an antenna to receive free OTA HDTV; 3)haven't purchased either format of HD player; or 4)do not download available HD content. The recent HD-DVD/Blu-ray 'war' has also shown this mass consumer apathy over HD. In 2007, 99.4% of all packaged entertainment sales were standard DVD. Undoubtedly this number will go up now that Blu-ray has 'won', but many HDTV owners think standard DVD is 'good enough' and still do not plan to upgrade to Blu-ray.

We are only at the beginning stages of getting our entertainment online, not the end as Cuban and his cable TV cronies are making it out to be. Whether or not cable internet throttling will become widespread and change this trend remains to be seen.

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