[opendtv] Re: CBS Affiliates Board, Network Agree on All Access OTT Terms | Broadcasting & Cable

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2015 21:58:59 -0400

On Mar 16, 2015, at 9:05 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> 
wrote:
> 
> Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> 
>>> So, unless CBS mis-located my IP address, for some reason our local
>>> CBS affiliate had already been allowed to participate.
>> 
>> Perhaps.
>> 
>> Did you pay the $5.99 subscription fee to find out?
> 
> No, I only started the process. It appeared to be allowing me to join.

Not sure what this would tell you. Everyone who lives in the U.S. can subscribe 
to CBS All Access. You may well live in a market served by a CBS owned and 
operated station - WJZ in Baltimore is a CBS O&O station.

> 
>> Not quite. You will get the live feed from your local CBS affiliate
>> if you subscribe to CBS All Access. That's what the revenue split
>> was all about.
> 
> That's just today, Craig, when CBS still has its OTA transmitters. We already 
> know what today's solution is. Do you really think I didn't get what CBS All 
> Access is?

And now you are so far into Les Moonves head that you can predict what he will 
do years in the future. You really are amazing!
> 
> I'm saying that in the future, not right now, CBS could continue to have its 
> local broadcasters provide free, ad-supported service, just as they do now on 
> MVPDs and OTA, only without needing any OTA facilities, or for that matter, 
> MVPDs either.

Of course. As long as you are reading the Tarot cards ANYTHING is possible.

CBS is not free via MVPD services - they demand retrans consent fees.

FOTA is still a reality, but not  priority for CBS, or any other broadcast 
network for that matter. For obvious financial reasons, they PREFER that you 
subscribe to a MVPD service of CBS All Access. The broadcast affiliates can't 
call the shots on this - they are living on borrowed time and have no leverage 
to demand that CBS allow them to give the network's programming away. At a 
minimum CBS would want what they get now from the MVPDs in terms of subscriber 
fees. 

If the transmitters are turned off, what value do affiliates have for CBS? 

You are the one who keeps telling us they don't need middlemen - especially 
middlemen that don't pay them for the content.

> CBS and others could provide, over the Internet, a continuation of their free 
> live streams, and a pay portal for all the pay-only material they offer now 
> (via MVPDs), and the archival stuff too.

They could do anything.

But they ARE getting subscriber fees from more than 100 million MVPD homes, and 
from CBS All Access NOW. 

Despite your claims that you have access to tons of content, the reality is 
that the trend is toward paying for live first run content and program 
archives. 

Keep dreaming...
> 
> I'm not sure whether the other networks will follow suit, but I wouldn't be 
> surprised. This is the migration path I'm talking about. Like all the similar 
> changes we have seen happening lately, this migration will develop if there's 
> a continued steady erosion of MVPD membership. Because, like always, you have 
> to consider what the alternative is, for CBS. Playing hardball, to keep 
> people locked into walled gardens, doesn't work so well anymore, Craig.

The only hardball they are playing is to keep people paying.

Regards
Craig
 
 
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