Will Apple TV Kill the Cable Companies?

Could Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) TV usurp the cable companies’ reign over the living room TV the same way it usurped the music industry with iTunes? Ever since an August 2012 article in the The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple executives were in discussions with various cable companies about the possibility of partnering together to create an Apple TV set-top box, rumors of the cable companies’ imminent demise have been circulating.

Will Richmond, president of the market intelligence and consulting service firm Broadband Directions, thinks the rumors of the cable companies’ demise have been greatly exaggerated. In an interview with Forbes, Richmond points out that, unlike the music industry, pay TV companies are still very profitable.

Pay TV companies gross $103 billion a year from viewer subscriptions, making them less vulnerable to Apple’s tendency to identify markets saddled with poor content delivery devices before producing a superior product that soon becomes the industry standard-bearer.