[opendtv] Re: CEA White Paper
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 23:17:33 -0700
At 5:57 PM -0700 10/24/05, Tony Neece wrote:
>I don't agree with you that they are making money on their multi-channel
>service.
I did not say THEIR multi-channel services. They are making money on
the multichannel services offered by their competitors, namely cable
and DBS.
Since retransmission consent was legislated in 1992, subscriber fees
for both broadcast and cable networks owned by broadcasters have
skyrocketed. The way this works is that the broadcasters either take
money directly for their signals, or they take in-kind compensation
in the form of preferred placement of their channels and cable
carriage of new non-broadcast services. Most of these subscription
fees go to the media conglomerates, not the local broadcast
affiliates. Now that the conglomerates own the networks that deliver
90% of the content we watch, they are going to go for CASH when the
next round of retrans consent agreements are negotiated.
>In 3 markets, Albuquerque, Los Vegas and Salt Lake City, they
>definitely are, with their selling off bandwidth to U S Digital. But do =
>you
>know of such revenue elsewhere; I'd like to know.
This is not a significant source of revenue for these stations. What
is more important is that USDTV is not holding onto subscribers, and
it is not opening up new markets. The business proposition is not
appealing to connsumers.
> Here in Los Angeles, =
>none
>of the major stations are doing that. Here the major stations do most =
>of
>their prime-time in Hi-def, which doesn't leave much bandwidth for other
>services. The ad agencies put the broadcasters on notice they would not
>increase their ad budgets because of digital.
The transition to digital was NOT intended to help broadcasters make
more money. It WAS intended to allow them to remain competitive while
using the spectrum more efficiently.
The additional cost of producing prime time programming in HD is in
the noise. production cost have been going down thanks to technology.
It is the cost of talent and rights to programming, like football,
that has been going through the roof.
Regards
Craig
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