After last week’s media meltdown, which involved entertainment conglomerates issuing less-than-optimistic quarterly reports and a subsequent $50 billion stock sell-off, analysts are taking on the question of what’s really going on here. Yes, SVOD services such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and HBO Now have finally taken root, with SNL Kagan earlier this week reporting that some 625,000 people had cut the cord in the second quarter alone. So what does it all mean for traditional pay-TV providers?

According to the Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today blog, the biggest problem is the lack of predictability in the sector. Investors used to be able to count on the fact that month after month cable companies would bring in X amount of revenue per subscriber and that those numbers would remain relatively stable. In this era of cord-cutting, however, that’s out the window.

“There are just not a lot of data points,” Jessica Reif Cohen, a veteran media analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told the blog. “Everyone is throwing out numbers but if you really question (companies)…it’s like nobody knows.”

Something else no one knows — and that includes companies, consumers and investors alike — is which networks will make the cut and be included in so-called skinny bundles and which won’t. In an era of extreme change, no one’s betting that they’ll all survive, and customers are increasingly becoming unwilling to pay for networks that they don’t watch.

“Those networks that have no real value to the consumer will go away,” John Martin, CEO of Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting cable unit, told the blog. “There’s going to be a bifurcation between the haves and have-nots.”

As one executive at a major media company said, “All of a sudden everything’s a question – even things [investors] used to be comfortable with.”

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