[opendtv] Re: Retransmission Letters Fly on Capitol Hill

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 08:54:06 -0400

At 3:58 PM -0500 7/30/10, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
On this point, I have two responses.

1. If Congress did eliminate FOTA TV, it wouldn't do anything but increase the cost of MVPD subscriptions. Any amount of competition the MVPDs do have now, from FOTA, would vanish. So they could get away with even higher fees.

Perhaps, but this would only help the new competitors get a foothold. We are already at the point where there is a huge opportunity to move to new forms of paid/advertiser supported content distributed via the Internet. The reality is that the MVPDs are going to have to lower their rates to survive...


2. Governments have always had ways of getting the word out to the population, for "free." Either the town crier, or posters all over the place, or pamphlets or leaflets, or whatever. FOTA TV and radio took over that role, years ago. So it seems unlikely that they would want to get rid of it entirely. At most, they would get rid of the current systems, and replace them with "free" service over other platforms.

I have seen NOTHING to suggest that the politicians want to get rid of broadcasting. Radio still works, and the current "spectrum grab" will help the politicians, as it will result in just a few channels in each market that will continue to carry the water for the government and will continue to be the only way to reach 100% of the public. The broadband plan is just an adjustment to get rid of the marginal players, and sell their spectrum to the telcos to raise more money for the politicians to spend.

Regards
Craig


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