[opendtv] Re: Bob likes COFDM

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

> Competition is nearly impossible when a few powerful
> companies use the legal force of government to
> preserve and protect an oligopoly or monopoly.

Can you be more specific? What govt reg is preventing
an affiliated OTA station from airing the productions
of small, local producers, say off prime time, instead
of infomercials? I mean, other than a simple business
decision of that station (wanting to maximize revenues),
what's preventing this? You seem to be against business
using a simple profit motive. Like in these two quotes:

> The local broadcasters is going to take the MOST
> PROFITABLE way out. Benovolence to independent
> producers is not a trait one associates with
> broadcasters.

and

> Even if you could buy a station, you are at the mercy
> of the programming oligopoly for content that will
> attract a meaningful audience.

So what? What makes this any different from any other
business? And more importantly, how is govt forcing
stations to operate any differently from any other
large scale business? The small independent station
has to consider the taste of the masses to get a large
audience, or remain a niche station catering to the
few. And risk going out of business.

"Most profitable" and "benevolence is not a trait"
are the common denominators of all non-charitable
businesses, are they not?

> Perhaps the best comparison I can offer is what is
> happening in the music business. We are seeing more
> and more artists choosing to go direct, selling CDs
> out of the trunk of their car (or their website)
> when they do live performances. Some even encourage
> file sharing to help make their music more popular.

Exactly. And there's nothing the large-scale music
business can do to stop this. Similarly, as Tom points
out, a film producer can use the Internet and unicast
file transfers to get his stuff out there.

TV is a large scale, mass medium. It takes a large
scale, mass audience to operate TV profitably. The
payoffs are big if you can get on TV, and that's
probably what most aspiring producers are looking for,
ultimately.

I think the same applies to film studios and movie
theater chains.

As far as I can tell, to use a scarce resource such as
RF spectrum set aside for TV, you need to be a large
scale outfit. I don't find anything wrong with this.

Bert
 
 
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