[opendtv] Re: News: Fox Playing Hardball With Balky Affils
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 14 May 2011 07:29:57 -0400
At 9:14 AM -0400 5/13/11, John Shutt wrote:
How is that "free" TV business model working in the UK?
www.tvlicensing.co.uk
John raises an interesting question. Clearly, the TV license in the
U.K. is a significant tax, which is used to fund a very large
broadcast organization, the BBC. And, thanks to the TV tax, the BBC
is able to create world class (commercial free) programming on a par
with the commercial media conglomerates in the U.S.
Because of the TV tax they don't waste a lot of air time begging for
donations like a certain non-commercial broadcaster in the U.S.,
which ALSO gets a fair amount of the taxes we pay (just not directly
coupled with the ownership of a TV).
What is dramatically different about TV in the U.K. is that there is
a vibrant TV market served by commercial broadcasters based in the
U.K. as well as the U.S. media conglomerates. These companies
actually PAY significant amounts of money for the right to deliver
their advertiser supported content to consumers via a FREE
multichannel broadcast service. They do not expect consumers to pay
billions in subscriber fees to view programs bursting at the seams
with commercials, as we do here in the U.S.
So what is so different here in the U.S., that the same advertiser
supported TV business model is no longer considered to be viable
without the second revenue streams from subscribers?
Let's "do lunch" and have our lawyers talk about it...
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:
