[opendtv] Re: TV Programmers Put Subscriber Caps on Skinny Bundles | Media - Advertising Age

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 00:24:42 +0000

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

Then let's not get excited that you can view more than 50 channels
via the antenna you hardly use anymore.

Once again, I can't fathom what Craig doesn't get. The ATSC OTA medium is a
clear improvement of what came before. Craig's goalposts keep moving. Back
then, he said 30 channels, and ATSC has no trouble beating that. That's all. I
get more than 50 now, with plenty of spare capacity still, in spite of Craig's
assertions back then that this would be impossible.

The bulk of my TV "watching" is background noise while I do their
things,

Thanks for sharing, Craig. So just like I said, pretty much all your TV is by
appointment, whether you focus on it or not. Instead, I watch the news that
way, mostly France 24, or otherwise online. But there are those few exceptions,
e.g. channel surfing and seeing an interesting movie on one of those OTA
subchannels. That does happen.

Moonves is not offering CBS affiliates anything new.

False. Moonves is giving local broadcasters license to transmit the live
broadcast stream online, within some kind or market boundaries. This hasn't
been possible at all, even though Aereo tried. In short, Moonves out-Aeroed
Aereo (as I suggested back then that the congloms should have done), giving
this role directly to the local broadcaster. I'm not sure I would care
personally, but some people seem to. I think the exception to that is CBS
sports, which no doubt they're working on.

The fact that something exists does not mean it will be
successful.

Of course, but the reality is, especially among the young, what came before is
NOT so successful. The trend is downward. So the people at the helm are taking
action.

But the TV content owners have been able to protect their monopoly,

Craig gets funnier and funnier. Now he forgot what a monopoly is.

The pipes are just middlemen who buy the same stuff from the
content oligopoly.

The pipes operate as local monopolies. They act as the single gatekeeper, with
the old model you recently became enamored with (after bitching loudly for
years about wanting a la carte, before Internet broadband was available widely
enough to force that issue [oh shucks, Craig isn't going to get that "force the
issue" either, and I'll have to belabor that point ad nauseam]). The single
gatekeeper permits the content owners to collude.

Even if Craig subscribed to multiple MVPDs (which in practice would be quite
clumsy because they each mandate use of their proprietary STBs, which they do
because the presumption is that they are a local monopoly, and I wonder why I
have to spell it all out every time), even then, it would offer no advantage.
The content out of each pipe is basically identical.

Competition in the marketplace has to work in the supply *and* in the
distribution chain. Otherwise, you get market distortions. If Craig's
theoretical handful of distribution options offer the identical mix, at
identical pricing, and by the way he only has one choice that offers broadband
too, then it *should* be patently obvious that there is no distribution
competition.

With the Internet, there is. You get different content at different portals,
different pricing, all of these instantly available to everyone, with no
deliberately created proprietary interface obstacles. And the same people who
were staunchly behind garden walls before, are now venturing out.

Anyway, rather than Sling, I would be WAY better off with CBS
All Access and Netflix, for example.

Seriously?

You already said you don't need CBS All Access as you can already
see these shows via Hulu and CBS.com.

And again one has to laboriously belabor the obvious to Craig. I'm using the
conditional, Craig, get it? You were trying to convince me that paying $20/mo
for a dozen channels I never watch is great value. I said BS, I **would** be
far better off with something that costs quite a bit less. Understand now?
Would be. (My wife would like the HGTV, at least until she got tired of it as
she does with most TV, but $20 is way too steep for just one channel.)

Can I not shame Craig into ceasing with circular arguments? For example, to
move forward, does Craig not get that competition has to exist in distribution
as well as the source, for an open market to work? Does Craig really not see
that lack of competition at any stage creates market distortions?

Bert



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