Craig Birkmaier wrote: > Cable already competes effectively with broadcasters > in the local spot markets, and DBS will soon be > playing in that arena too as they move to local > insertion of ads in the STB. Cable can offer increased > frequency at a significantly lower CPM, Not sure what you're describing here. Are you saying increased frequency of ads? If yes, then I'll go back to the old Laffer curve comparison: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/laffercurve.asp There comes a point where increased frequency of ads, like increasing taxes rates, reduces revenues rather than increasing them. I don't see any medium that increases the ads per hour compared with OTA as being at an advantage. > Cable systems typically insert ads into 30 or more > channels today - they offer access and demographic > targeting that broadcasters cannot match. Some amount of demographic differentiation could be done with DTT, possibly, as Kon and I discussed briefly some months ago. Seems to me that people will rebel against increased spam, as has happened on telephone systems and on ISP Internet connections. When you list the many more effective spamming methods cable, DBS (and TiVo) might offer, I can't help but wonder why they wouldn't just turn off consumers even more than they already are. We'll start seeing legislation passed to control the overload of spam, just as we got with telephone and just as we're starting to see for Internet spam. More effective spamming methods always seems to result in MORE SPAM, not just better targeted spam. > The telcos will have little choice but to open their > networks up to anyone who seeks carriage. Eventually > they will provide the infrastructure at the edges of > the network that will allow anyone to use the public > Internet to distribute TV content. Consider what you wrote there. If the telcos open "the edges" of the network for anyone to provide content streams, which to a degree they do already, those same telcos have to provision the core of their network to carry all these streams. Ditto the cable companies and any ISP, for that matter. If these are fast TV-quality streams, someone has to pay for the upgrading of the network core. The way you keep the network core up to date, and prevent it from overloading, is by charging different amounts for use, depending on the amount of traffic each subscriber is going to inject. And you apply mechanisms in the network that prevent subscribers from exceeding their allocated quota. This will continue to be the case. And it also applies to how a DTT broadcaster would rent out room on his multiplex. The same problem applies generically to any medium. Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.