Another Shift in How Things Get Counted

There are times when the way things get counted tells you something about where products are growing, how companies want their growth measured and how revenue growth metrics are changing.

That seems to be the growing case for video entertainment. Until recently, "basic subscribers" have been a fairly reasonable way to evaluate how well a video provider is doing. Two decades ago, that might have been a reasonable way to evaluate how well a telco was doing. But markets are changing, and so are the "counting" mechanisms.

This data from the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing track "digital video" in addition to basic subscribers. At some point, we might well find that digital video subscriptions are a better indicator of performance than "basic" subscriber units, where in the past the delivery protocols haven't mattered as much (satellite subscribers are, by definition, digital customers).

These days, "revenue generating units" make more sense as a way of describing either cable or telco growth. About a decade ago, "voice grade equivalents" began making more sense than "access lines" as a way of describing and measuring performance.

It looks like we are just on the cusp of a time when digital video units are a better growth metric than "basic" and "enhanced" or "digital cable" subscriptions.