[opendtv] Re: 20050509 Mark's Monday Memo
- From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 08:47:23 -0400
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Congress.
If the
> broadcast flag or equivalent is not included in the rewrite of the
> communications act, this could be a signal to the conglomerates
that
> the era of Free TV is over, and that's OK with their friends in
the
> Nation's capital.
Sorry but I do not at all think my predicted lower quality of
broadcast TV means the end of it. It is normal price
discrimination between similar products targeted at the two groups
of OTA viewers and HxDVD buyers. The market will determine how
much lower quality OTA becomes, and whether it goes away (which I
doubt).
The lower quality OTA functions both to sell ad's and to advertise
the eventual DVD's for the winners. And note that watching OTA,
or even pirated OTA, this way may lead to an INCREASE in the sales
of these (H)DVD's if done right. Think of the original OTA dramas
and movies as a teaser show where you want to own the high detail
real one, plus the missing episodes, with gratuitous sex &
violence, sans logos.
And I DO think picture quality will count as everybody gets
displays where they can see it and start to expect it.
- Tom
> At 10:05 PM -0400 5/11/05, Tom Barry wrote:
>
>>It is not really necessary to go all the way to SDTV programming
>>in order to differentiate eventual HxDVD sales from the original
>>broadcasts. They can just sell higher quality discs with less
>>parts cut out, no commercials, logos, or popup overlays, and less
>>filtering or artifacts.
>
>
> Tom has stumbled onto something here that may be significant.
>
> There are some things that broadcast TV does well, and it is likely
> that it will continue to do so, in the future. Live sporting event
> coverage is one of the programming areas that is well suited to the
> advertiser supported programming model. It is difficult to time shift
> sports, as the outcome is well known shortly after a major event
> (although some people start caching an event, then start watching
> 20-30 minutes later so they can skip the commercials and catch up
> with the live event near the end).
>
> There are some things that broadcast TV does not do well. The
> presentation of movies is a good example, as most of us prefer to
> watch these "stories" without commercial interruptions, and we have
> multiple options to do so (premium movie channels, VOD, NVOD, DVD
> etc.).
>
> And there is one thing that broadcast TV cannot do at all - the
> presentation of content without restrictions on things like nudity,
> violence, and language. In essence, broadcast TV is becoming
> non-competitive with "uncensored" media because of the content
> restrictions imposed by government. It should come as no surprise,
> that pressure is being applied on broadcasters in this area, as it
> may be the deal breaker for "Free TV."
>
> The content moguls can use the lack of an enforceable broadcast flag
> as the excuse to move their best content to distribution systems
> where content restrictions do not apply. As Tom notes, DVD versions
> of programs could contain additional content that is not offered in a
> free-to-air version, along with additional features that could be
> linked to e-commerce opportunities.
>
> Image quality might also be a factor, however it is important to note
> that this does not matter much to a significant portion of the
> potential audience. Consider the large number of people who think
> that DVDs are high definition today.
>
> It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Congress. If the
> broadcast flag or equivalent is not included in the rewrite of the
> communications act, this could be a signal to the conglomerates that
> the era of Free TV is over, and that's OK with their friends in the
> Nation's capital.
>
> Bottom line, the real value of ad supported TV is as the promotional
> engine to drive the sale of higher quality content.
>
> Regards
> Craig
>
>
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