Open innovation: An analysis of the business model of digital cable television

Digitisation is an important milestone in the development of cable television (TV). Cable TV system operators have invested abundant manpower and cost in building the digital head-end and network, researched and developed integrated digital set-top box and finally completed the installation of digital set-top boxes for households, before eventually achieving full digitalisation by shutting down all analogue channels. Initially, the digital cable TV industry was expecting additional profits on top of the fixed monthly rental fees, but there are no value-added services that could bring enormous profits to the cable TV operators even after launching it for years.