In many contracts it refers to the medium of transmission. Cable requires a coax cable. Streaming comes over the top on an internet connection (which ironically might be provided via a coax cable).
I, for example, get my live TV as a bundle of channels from DirecTV stream. It’s called “stream”. It requires no cable box, is a mix of live and on demand, and I can receive it anywhere over the internet (phone, home, work, etc). I’d never consider this cable. I’d also never consider satellite delivered TV cable, even if they are very similar.
I think the nuances are a little more subtle than you are admitting.
What is a TV channel? Several streamers align their content into different verticals. When I log into Disney+, the first thing I see is a selector for Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. Are those channels?
What is a "collection" of TV channels? ESPN+ allows me to watch what is currently airing on ESPN, ESPN2, etc. Their content is primarily live rather than on demand, but they only offer a very limited scope of content that all falls under the same category and only originates from the same family of channels. Are they actually cable?
Don't basically all cable companies offer some form of on demand content? Are they all streamers too?
Honestly, I don't care about the answers to these questions. They are rhetorical to show that it is hard to draw nice clean lines around these which is part of my original point that ads isn't what defines cable. Ads come with live content, not with the distribution channel for that content.
