Economist Reporter Cites Self as Evidence of Cable-Canceling Trend

The Economist has weighed in on the nascent trend of consumers dropping their cable TV subscription, and instead getting all their video content online (through Hulu, iTunes, Netflix, Boxee, etc.)

The magazine’s April 24 piece, headlined “Down the Tubes,” provocatively proclaims that “a growing number of people are poised” to ”cancel their contracts and watch television over the Internet instead.”

However, the unnamed, Japan-based writer doesn’t produce any evidence to support the claim.

Instead, it’s essentially a personal essay about why he/she is eager to watch stuff online instead of paying for cable (and repeats the theory that the industry wants to inhibit higher-speed broadband access because that represents a potential cannibalizing threat).

Which is fine as far as that goes.

But I was expecting some sources to back up such assertions as these: “Most [consumers] would welcome the chance to buy only those channels they want to watch, rather than pay for expensive packages of programming they are largely not interested in” and “Eventually, all these external [Internet TV] services will be built into the television set’s motherboard.”

The anonymous Economist writer also seems to believe the pay-TV industry as we know it today is headed to the dustbin of history, positing that “the measures to suffocate Internet television being taken by the cable companies may already be too late.”

Really? So far, the evidence is that people are still quite willing to splurge on TV, even amid a global economic recession. Verizon added 299,000 FiOS TV subscribers in Q1, and AT&T added 284,000.

Personally, I’d much rather lease an HD DVR and pay for cable than cobble together my own Linux-based computer running Boxee connected to the TV — the Boxee software being something the Economist guy/gal predicts will be “one of the most disruptive things to happen to television in ages — and not before time.” That, and 290 yen, will buy you a small cup of coffee.