[opendtv] Re: New DIRECTV satellite to help deliver '150 HD channels'

At 10:30 AM -0400 3/27/08, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:

When the majority of new TVs sold are HDTVs, Craig, your definition of
"niche" becomes ridiculously strained. And when a DBS company offers 150
HDTV channels, it says to me that virtually ALL of their content is
being simulcast in HD. Which, again, really strains any definition of
"niche."
It's not surprising that you misunderstood how i defined what DirecTV is doing as a niche strategy. You just conveniently ignore what I wrote and come back with something that is COMPLETELY irrelevant.
Yes people are buying HD capable TVs Bert; they have little choice and now that screens are flat or very thin the "wife factor" is changing to allow larger screens into the home. But the fact remains that more than half of all HD capable displays do not have access to or use any HD service; for MANY consumers, upscaling DVDs is as good as it gets.
What i wrote is that DirecTV is focusing its efforts on the high income demographics, a portion of the market that they have exploited for years with exclusive packages like the NFL Prime Ticket.
They see the opportunity to differentiate themselves from cable (and DISH) by offering more HD simulcasts. Dish cannot compete because of capacity limits, and cable is not competing because they too have bandwidth constraints, driven as much by broadband as the desire for more HD programming.
AND, DirecTV is NOT offering 150 channels in HD. They are offering 92 plus locals if they are available in your market. They will grow to 150 as the content channels convert to HD. I would also add that MANY of their HD channels are from premium movie services and their own HD-VOD services. 



The cost difference was always tiny, Craig. Even at the beginning of the
transition. We were told by those who know, back in 2000, that it cost 2
percent more to produce an HD show than SD.
Again, Bert, you demonstrate that you don;t know what you are talking about - let's just call it "FTA TV Blinders."
Most of the network TV fare you watch - at least the popular shows you cite - have a VERY HIGH cost per episode. This has NOTHING to do with the actual production costs; it has everything to do with talent costs and the Broadcast Network ecosystem that must be fed. The statistic that you threw out above was made by Hollywood post production professionals who provide the services to the networks to handle the production tasks associated with these shows.
So your statistic only applies to a tiny fraction of shows produced by or for the major networks - shows that have budgets in the range of $1 to $5 MILLION per episode.
There is a huge world of content creation out there Bert, and you can drop 2 or 3 zeros from the cost per episode for most of this stuff. The typical price for an episode produced for Discovery Networks, HGTV, Food Netowrk et al is more like $25,000 to $30,000. In 2000 HDTV cameras and production gear were still VERY expensive - so the cost add to produce one of these shows in HD was more like 20% not 2%. Today an independent producer can buy an HD camera and an Online editing system for LESS that an equivalent SD system in 2000. 


Of course there should be a rush to HD. As far as I'm concerned, it
could safely have started 10 years ago. But okay, HDTV prices were still
too high for the average consumer back then.
I would suggest to you that it will be another decade before the vast majority of content is produced in HD. And by them the tiny screens of our cell phones may be a more important market than network Prime Time. 

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: