Study: cable TV "precariously close" to losing to broadband

About 60 percent of all US homes will subscribe to broadband service by the end of 2007, and cable operators will come "precariously close" to losing their majority market share, according to a new study from Pike & Fischer, a Maryland company that offers business and legal information products.

Cable operators will see their share of the high-speed Internet market fall to slightly more than 50 percent as the adoption of standard DSL and fiber-to-the-home options continue to help the major telephone companies net the largest number of new broadband customers, according to the Pike & Fischer survey titled "Broadband Business Outlook 2007."

But a growing array of on-demand and high-definition programming, together with aggressive promotions, will lead digital cable subscriptions to make up the majority of the industry's core video customer base, Pike & Fischer said.

"We also know that cable operators want to draw users away from the computer screen and back to the TV set, so they'll be developing ways to let customers access Web content through their set-top boxes," Scott Sleek, Pike & Fischer's director of broadband advisory services and an author of the report, said in a statement.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)