Those businesses have already had to contend with the rise of on-demand paid streaming services, such as Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon, which are hacking into their market share, and giving rise to the trend of "cord cutting" - that is, homes that cut off traditional cable TV in favour of digital or web-based TV services, such as iTunes and Netflix.

Significantly, the biggest audience losses across the board are in the 18-to-35-year-old demographic. Data from Price Waterhouse Coopers suggests cable's share of that demographic has shrunk roughly 6 per cent during 2013-2014. In the same period Netflix lifted its subscriptions by a quarter.

But the small-bundle market - so-called "skinny" cable services - differs from the streaming sector in that they offer linear channels like cable TV businesses, but rather than sell hundreds of channels - a constant complaint from cable customers - they instead offer packages of 25 channels or fewer.

In the US, the satellite TV provider Dish has just launched a web-based linear channel service called Sling TV that offers small channel packages including ESPN, ESPN2, Disney, CNN, TNT, TBS and Cartoon Network. The channels are streamed to a smart TV or set-top box, such as a Roku, via broadband.

The service, which starts at $20 a month for 17 channels, is loudly pitched at "cord cutting" homes, as a complement to a streaming TV service. Sling also sells $5 "add-on" packages offering between four and nine extra channels, themed around sport, world news, kids TV or lifestyle programming.

Now Apple has confirmed it will push into the skinny cable market with a 25-channel service that it will launch later this year. Significantly, and unlike Sling TV, the Apple service will offer re-transmission of the US free-to-air networks ABC, CBS and Fox, as well as high-profile cable channels such as ESPN and FX.

Apple is planning to price the service at around the $30-$40 mark. And while the exact channel lineup has not been announced, Apple's poor relationship with NBC Universal suggests, at present, that neither NBC, nor any of the NBC-owned cable channels (such as Bravo, MSNBC, SyFy, USA or E!) would be offered via the service.

In the US, other cable providers have begun offering their own pared down services in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. Comcast's Internet Plus service includes broadband, 10 pay TV channels and access to HBO. FiOS from Verizon offers broadband, local channels, a choice of Showtime or HBO and Netflix.

The shift puts an interesting complexion on the widely-held belief that streaming services will ultimately overtake traditional TV services. Instead, the rise of "skinny" pay TV suggests the two may simply become strange bedfellows, though the linear channel half of that relationship looks certain to be pared down from a plump 200-plus to a much leaner 25 or fewer.

Sparing cable TV from the "cord-cutting" fate many have believed was inevitable, Nielsen's global president Stephen Hasker has described it as a combination of "some cord cutting and some cord shaving."

That said, the bigger corporate splinter - the weakening or severing of channel/cable company partnerships - is a very real trend. The US network HBO has confirmed it will launch a direct-to-the-consumer streaming service. Its longtime rival Showtime will follow suit. And the US network CBS has already launched its own streaming service. CBS's free-to-air rivals ABC and Fox are already stakeholders in Hulu Plus.

For consumers, the annoyance of managing multiple small subscriptions is a small price to pay - often literally - for the ability to cherry-pick content, rather than pay a one-size-fits-all fee for an avalanche of channels, many of which are of little interest.

Though the trend is yet to impact Australia meaningfully, it inevitably will. Streaming is still in its infancy here, with the Fairfax Media and Nine Network backed Stan, the Foxtel and Seven Network backed Presto and the US-owned Netflix barely out of the gate. And Foxtel already offers a pared down linear channel streaming service, Foxtel Play.

In the US, the cable television business is built on a revenue model that pays channels by the subscriber. That is because in most cases cable TV companies and channel owner/operators are not the same. In Australia, that is less the case; Foxtel, for example, has a huge suite of "owned and operated" channels that if staffs, programs and manages itself.

But there is one skinny cable operator in the market: Fetch TV, which offers 35 channels, on-demand movies and access to Netflix. The arrival of other players, such as Sling TV or Apple, is inevitable. And the clock is ticking. Apple will announce the full service in June and is expected to launch it in September. With Amazon looking to follow Netflix into Australia, Apple cannot be far behind.