[opendtv] Re: FCC Opens TV Spectrum for Broadband Use
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2010 07:40:57 -0500
At 3:45 PM -0500 12/2/10, John Shutt wrote:
My question has always been, how does Freeview get away with it?
How do they offer, FOTA, channels that demand $1 per sub from
American cable providers? My pat answer has always been that they
are indirectly subsidized by the UK's TV License Fee providing the
underlying broadcasting infrastructure.
The license fee ONLY covers the content provided by the BBC. I
believe the operating costs for the Freeview infrastructure are paid
by the content providers. In this sense, it is probably true that the
license fee does pay the service fees for the BBC channels. The
following link describes the rules for service providers:
http://www.freeviewnz.tv/images/uploads/file/Freeview%20Service%20Provider%20Code%20of%20Practice_May10.pdf
In essence, services providers are paying significant carriage fees
to be on Freeview. Several recent network additions brought on the
order of $40 million pounds per channel/per year in service fees.
If not, then how do they do it?
Clearly they give the content away and pay the service fees because
this is a very efficient way to reach eyeballs for advertisers.
Remember, the U.S. Broadcast system produced very large profits for
the networks, for decades, with noting but advertising revenues.
What happened here in the U.S. is that government supported
oligopolies have been allowed to create second revenue streams and to
use their monopoly power to continually increase the cost for those
who choose to use an MVPD service. It is also noteworthy that a huge
amount of the subscriber fees flow to the content providers,
Hollywood and the sports franchises, and in turn to the talent. Where
else in the world can one get paid $1 million per episode as an
actor, or mutiple millions per season to play games with a ball...
Cutting the salaries down to size for these content industries may be
as difficult as cutting the size of the Federal deficit.
Regards
Craig
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts:
