Talking Cable

 Up until 2013....while still working in the US, I was hooked up to cable TV.  I had what you'd consider the basic package, with one extra (HBO).  This deal....basically 99 channels plus one....ran over $110 a month.  I considered it ridiculous.  Toward the end, I added what I typically watched in a single month, and it amounted to the local five TV stations, C*PAN, Fox, TBS, HBO, the History Channel, and two channels which featured older movies.  That was it.  The other 85 channels?  Worthless.

If you look around over the past month....there's a lot of chatter over TV news via the cable folks, and if this trend develops (as I expect)....the cable empires will have to rig up some deal where you get the basic cable package without CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc.  Once they reach this level, which I expect by the end of 2021....the news networks will go into some collapse mode.  Downsizing will occur, and big-names will quietly be dismissed.

CNN being rejuvenated by Bezos?  What you'd end up with is some weird combo of WaPo and CNN....probably renamed in some way, and forum-type shows being hitting the air for six-plus hours a day.  I'm not sure if people really desire that type of 'news', but that'll be the solution to spoon-feed the general public.  

As for the other two....Fox and MSNBC?  I see both downsizing the big names by the end of 2021, and some attempt to reconnect to the public.  

Finally, the question ought to come up....can cable TV survive as it is today?  If people just want a basic 15 to 20 channel offering....for less than $30 a month?  There's no real profit at that point, and a bunch of channels would drop out entirely.  I think data-streaming, with fresh new shows via Netflix and Amazon....will be the path to the future.  For networks like CBS, NBC or ABC....it's a dismal future for their brand.