It's interesting to look at the age breakdown [1], though. Less than 50% of respondents under 50 have cable. How much of the older population does, just out of inertia and being used to it?

There's a generation growing up now with a very different experience.

I distinctly remember my kid experiencing cable for the first time around age 3 or 4 (rainy day while we were staying at a cottage): "this is in the middle, start it over at the beginning", "I want to pick a different episode" and when the first commercial came on "hey! Put my show back on! I don't want to watch this".

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/17/cable-and-s...

Yeah the pendulum is definitely swinging (or has swung) in the opposite direction (VOD) but live will always have a place (sports, news, serials, award shows, etc). Not saying there has been a massive paradigm shift in the past 5 years but the news of linear TV's death is greatly exaggerated imo.

Part of it is too that a lot of people just like to have the TV on with whatever sports, documentaries, cable news, etc. is on as a sort of background even if they're not really sitting down to watch it.