[opendtv] Re: Local Content Considered Key to Mobile DTV Adoption
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:54:17 -0600
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> So how do you change the perception of the program syndicators who
> charge you for each time you play that file in your schedule?
>
> For decades the networks got the rights to ONE air play of first
> run content, then a second air play six months or more later during
> the summer re-runs. If you missed the first scheduled play you were
> out of luck until the rerun season. This was considered to be a
> major FEATURE, something that caused people to watch appointment
> TV. Now it is a major drawback, as people expect to be able to find
> any program that they may have heard is worth watching.
>
> The cable networks took a different approach, checker boarding the
> same episodes of their shows in multiple time slots. If you missed
> one, you could catch it later; just program your PVR to catch the
> next instance in the future. Unfortunately, broadcasters don't do
> this much because they are paying significant money for each time
> they air a program; and the networks typically do not have the
> rights to provide multiple access points to their prime time shows.
Wait one. I don't understand. Who is creating a different set of rules for
cable and for OTA broadcasters? (Again.) Why is someone allowing cable
companies to "checkerboard" their program schedules, and not OTA broadcasters?
There is plenty of time in the day, and plenty of subchannel space, to allow
OTA broadcasters to do what MVPDs do, in smaller scale. Why is someone blocking
them, and if so, why are they not being taken to court?
(Sidebar. I have noticed that now, when [ex] prime time shows are rebroadcast
in syndication, they are rebroadcast as HDTV rather than SDTV. Good deal!)
> So VOD and the Internet have become an alternative distribution
> medium to provide those second chances.
True, but it is the congloms who use the Internet for your second chances, not
the OTA broadcasters. I see nothing wrong with that, unless the OTA
broadcasters are being forbidden something that the MVPDs can do.
Except for real time programming, I suppose that if the content owners decide
to make everything available on demand as soon as it's ready, all we would need
is improved broadband access and ISP nets to make that work. Seems to me that
the content owners are the ones who prefer to keep their initial airing of the
content on a schedule. Broadcasters are just making this model work.
If content owners change their way of doing business, the OTA broadcasters
would have to accommodate the new reality. I'm not in the TV industry in any
way, so I could be off base. What I see here is that the content owners are the
ones pulling the strings, and OTA broadcasters are reacting.
Bert
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