[opendtv] Re: FCC: Chairman Wheeler comment on Dish-Sinclair dispute
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2015 23:24:22 +0000
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
The intent of the Act was to reign in the rapid rate increases for
the monopolistic cable pipes, and to assure carriage of local
broadcast stations.
Thank you, Craig.
Whatever you may believe the original intent of the 1992 Act to
be, it failed miserably,
It may or may not have. Hard to say, since we don't know what the alternative
universe would have looked like. Anyway, that's beside the point.
Your arguments that the marketplace is working with this
neutral pipe are not convincing.
They are a lot more convincing than your arguments that pretend the Internet
changes nothing, Craig. TV content distribution, over the unwalled and neutral
internet, is a whole new ballgame. As you can see, I have explained the various
possible scenarios, and they are playing out in real life.
What is relevant is whether the FCC will use its authority to
gain regulatory control over the application that is starting
to dominate the use of Internet bandwidth - the delivery of
TV content.
Once again, it makes no difference what the FCC attempts to regulate, if none
of the content owners or the viewing public care. Sling TV did not create
itself out of special favors granted by the FCC (I must have said this a dozen
times). Any OTT site that tries to duplicate the walled garden old school model
will simply fail. Why? Because people already know that old model, many are
still subscribed in it, and they are abandoning it. You don't abandon something
just to jump in that same environment.
Correct. Only those wholesale services that Congress
determines need regulation...
Like MVPD services.
No, Craig. What gets regulated are unavoidable monopolies. And MVPDs are NOT
wholesalers. They are retailers. Look up the definition, Craig.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/retailer
"1. the sale of goods to ultimate consumers, usually in small quantities
(opposed to wholesale )."
"To ultimate consumers" being the key. How is it you keep getting everything
wrong, Craig? One would think you're doing this on purpose. You don't know when
to stop.
What if CBS wants to sell its content to middlemen, as it has
done for decades?
Not a problem. OTT sites are not local monopolies. It's not like your MVPD.
I've said this many times. It is the monopolistic nature of the MVPD that
creates the market distortion. CBS can deal with a middleman OTT site, and if
they don't like that arrangement, they can switch to another OTT site
unilaterally. Or they can use multiple outlets, as they are actually doing, to
avoid the eggs-in-one-basket risk. Their content is now on Amazon, Hulu,
cbs.com, CBS All Access, and I think even on Netflix.
Sinclair is a OTA station group, not a CDN.
And who put you in charge to dictate what station groups can reinvent
themselves into, to remain relevant in the Internet TV era?
So you are suggesting that content owners should eliminate middlemen
that bundle live and/or VOD content, and use a new kind of middleman
to distribute their bits.
These OTT site middlemen may or may not bundle live and/or VOD, but they would
certainly NOT be competitive, if all OTT site middlemen bundle using the same
formula, Craig. That's too obvious to have to repeat over and over again.
The 1992 act was not trying to curb the leverage of the
monopolistic cable pipe, it was trying to curb the leverage that this
pipe had due to the vertical integration of exclusive programming.
I've explained this **very many** times. It is the monopolistic nature of the
MVPD pipe that creates the market distortion. Yes, the congloms or other
content owners can *and do* take advantage of this. **But so do the MVPDs
themselves**! Read the act, Craig. It has stipulations on what kind of bundles
the customers can be forced to buy, by the MVPD, as one example. Ultimately
sure, the FCC could even have regulated the prices strictly.
The FCC is currently trying to determine if this same leverage is
now being used to disadvantage would be MVPD competitors using the
Internet to deliver their services.
That's absurd. It's a bit like asking whether the stagecoach industry was
"unfairly disadvantaged" by the arrival of the railroad. The FCC, and Craig,
are having a hard time understanding that the landscape of TV distribution
industry has changed drastically, due to technological innovation. Of course
the old order becomes threatened. Any attempt to force-fit old rules on the new
medium will simply fail, for lack of interest. Lack of interest from the
congloms and from the buying public.
Bert
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