GoogleTV Giving Networks the Jitters

In our recent review of Logitech's Revue Google TV Box, it was apparent that a lot of people, most notably Hulu, aren't exactly excited about the prospect of bypassing set top boxes with GoogleTV. ArsTechnica has an interesting article that taps into the discussion further by looking at how Google TV is attempting to calm down studio execs and arguing that people aren't really turning off cable and satellite because of set top boxes, merely that they are adding these things to enhance their TV viewing experiences.

From Ars:

Google is trying to calm the fears of TV execs by disavowing cord-cutters. The company says it doesn't believe that cord-cutting is a real phenomenon, adding that traditional TV is still where it's at and the Google TV is largely meant for content discovery, not replacement.

Cord-cutting is simply "not happening," Google TV lead Rishi Chandra said at the NewTeeVee Live conference on Thursday. He added that the Google TV is meant to help users access the content that they already watch the traditional way, and that cable TV already does a "pretty good job of delivering content to users."

It appears to be true that cord-cutters (those who ditch their cable or satellite subscription to go broadcast- and Internet-only) tend to be a small group in the grand scheme of content consumption. A Nielsen study from 2009 said that 98.8 percent of all video is consumed on a TV, while 1.1 percent is consumed on the Internet and 0.1 percent on a mobile device (which is really just a subset of the Internet).

Our experience has been a bit two-sided. On one hand, we've seen the economy drive a lot of peple we know to put up antennas and drop cableTV in favor of Netflix and now Hulu Plus. On the other hand, our personal experience is that connecting GoogleTV (a Logitech Revue) to a DISH Network DVR yields one of the most interactive and powerful TV experiences we've yet seen.

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