TV viewing, movie attendance to hit skids in 2012, analyst says

Analyst Rich Greenfield of BTIG thinks 2012 will be the year people watch less television.

"We believe 2012 will be a watershed year for the media industry and serve as a historic inflection point for traditional TV consumption," Greenfield wrote. Although the saturation of cable channels trying to cater to every niche has boosted the time people spend in front of the television, Greenfield said, "we believe consumers have reached a breaking point.” So what will people do in place of zoning out in front of the boob tube? "Social gaming will become a new 'cure for boredom,'” Greenfield predicted. Going to the movies is also going to lose its luster. Already reeling from a year that saw box office attendance fall by 4%, Greenfield says, the industry will see moviegoers become even more picky when it comes to opening their wallets for Hollywood.

Greenfield thinks 2012 will see the development of what he calls virtual MVPDs (multichannel video program distributors). In other words, consumers will no longer have to get a cable box or satellite dish, but instead will be able to subscribe to cable TV via the Internet. Typically, cable operators that are also broadband providers, such as Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable, have resisted the idea of competing against each other by becoming virtual MVPDs. Greenfield thinks satellite broadcaster Dish and phone company Verizon will be the first movers.