[opendtv] Re: something

At 10:56 AM -0800 11/26/08, John Willkie wrote:

People have no preference for one (or more) local television stations as a
source of news?  It seems to me that you go to rhetorical extremes to make
obvious points, badly.

"Content is king."


Yes content is king.
As for local TV news, clearly there are viewer preferences for one station or another. The same could be said for cities that had more than one newspaper in the last century. But the economics made it difficult, if not impossible for multiple newspapers to survive in most cities; and now the existence of even one newspaper in a city is starting to look doubtful.
As long as TV stations can make more money producing newscasts than it costs, it is likely that they will continue to offer local news. And if the new FCC demands that stations "bulk up" in terms of localism , it is likely that they might continue to offer news as a "loss leader."
But this cannot be sustained if other revenue sources disappear - like their network affiliation. Look at what has happened to the valuation of KRON - they cannot sell it at any price today.
So add it up. If there are increased demands for localism, ratings continue to decline, and local ad dollars continue to dry up you have the perfect storm...
bye, bye, OTA TV, except of course for public TV funded and run by the government...
And then there is the dilemma the NAB faces, now that Fox has been outbid for the BCS championship series by ESPN. Friday they asked Congress to intervene, using some lame argument about many of the universities that are involved receive government funding.
Guess they forget that the athletic departments in these Universitis are "corporations" that are highly profitable, and kick money back to the educational side of the University. Thanks to escalating TV rights, each school in a BCS bowl game hauls in about $9 million. 

http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/70352
And finally, a school can hit the jackpot for itself and its conference by playing in a BCS bowl game, where the payouts are exponentially higher. The BCS bowls pay its participants a set amount, usually in the $17 million range. About half of this money goes to the BCS game participant, while the other half is shared with the other schools in its conference.
If the NAB had any leadership, they would be calling for a REAL college football play-off system, which would render the bowls and the BCS irrelevant. I doubt that this would hurt ESPN, no matter how the contract is written, since they have guaranteed subscriber fee revenue.
They would have more sympathy from Congress if everyone got to bid on a whole new "franchise" that would capture more eyeballs than the Superbowl or the NCAA Basketball Championships. ABC could just take the lead knowing they will still have the ESPN subscriber fee revenue to make Disney's bottom line look good. 

Regards
Craig




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