[opendtv] Re: Disney's streaming service has won, and it hasn't even launched yet
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2017 07:23:56 -0500
On Nov 13, 2017, at 12:41 AM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
More examples of Disney embracing the direct to consumer model, as they must,
now that walled gardens are no longer the only game in town.
No Bert. These are the same examples we have been discussing for months, sinc
eDisney announced these new streaming services on August 6th.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-disney-earnings-20170808-story.html
Walt Disney Co. will launch two Netflix-like streaming services — one for
sports and another for films and television shows — in one of the boldest
moves by an entertainment company to address the changing media landscape.
The stand-alone subscription services would appeal to younger audiences who
are turning away from traditional media and flocking to Netflix and other
digital platforms. The ESPN service, which would be available next year, is
expected to feature 10,000 sporting events annually, among them Major League
Baseball games.
The Disney-branded film and TV offering, set to debut in 2019, would include
original content developed by Walt Disney Studios
And once again, Bert tries desperately to turn this into a Net Neutrality
issue, which is not even touched upon in the Verge article:
And more examples of the difference between a mandated-neutral broadband
provider and a not-required-to-be-neutral web site/information service.
HUH?
We have no clue as to what you are talking about. But it is consistent with
your efforts to make everything we discuss about Net Neutrality.
In short, while this seems to escape the disingenuous broadband providers,
with their half-baked rationalizations, Disney can go direct to consumer with
its own, quite non-neutral store (information service), just like any store
can.
DUH. This has been going on for almost a decade Bert. Ever hear of Netflix?
Apparently not, since this article is ENTIRELY focused on how Disney may
disrupt the market for SVOD services:
That’s why Netflix’s stock dropped in August when Disney announced it would
be ending a 2012 deal that brought all of the studio’s films exclusively to
Netflix. Losing Star Wars, Marvel, Disney’s live-action output, and Pixar’s
many franchises would be a huge blow unto itself. But even more ominous was
the revelation that Disney was building its own streaming service, on which
its many blockbusters would be exclusives.
The VERGE even gos so far as to suggest - if not predict - that Disney could
run everyone else out of the business:
At that point, Disney would be able to just lean back and starve everyone
else out, knowing that its movie-franchise head start will be impossible to
match, no matter how many billions its streaming competitors throw at the
problem. And if Disney has to pick up a 20th Century Fox along the way to
keep building that intellectual property portfolio, Iger seems to be just
fine with that idea, too.
Of course, this also points to a possible future where almost all of our
blockbuster entertainment comes from a single course. That would seem to be
dystopian and horrific, something that audiences would neither want, nor
stand for. But if it means an infinite stream of Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars
stories until the end of time... well, maybe it will be a little easier to
swallow.
What would be difficult to swallow would be for the current five member content
OLIGOPOLY to become the DISNEY content MONOPOLY.
IF the DOJ has reservations about AT&T acquiringTime Warner, just imagine what
the reaction would be to Disney buying Fox, or any of the others.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this article does touch on “neutrality.” How ironic it
would be if the Internet remains neutral, but we have to buy our entertainment
fix from an Internet monopoly?
The reality is that broadband providers are ENABLING this new Disney service,
not getting in its way.
Disney leverages the mandated neutrality of the underlying distribution
networks, just as brick and mortar stores leverage the neutrality of public
roads. This Disney website model in no way describes a broadband provider's
business model. No one would pay a non-neutral broadband provider, unless we
lived in some parallel universe, in which each household had access to dozens
and dozens of very low cost broadband providers.
What’s your point Bert?
Of course these businesses are different.
There ARE no non-neutral broadband providers...
Only non-neutral Internet services, which at present are not an issue.
What has changed is that there are now a growing number of streaming video
services ENABLED by the broadband providers. And there are a growing number of
homes that subscribe to multiple streaming video services and/or a legacy MVPD
service and one or more SVOD services. In fact the MAJORITY of U.S. homes now
subscribe to both.
Different lines of work, different set of rules.
DUH.
It would be ridiculous to tell Netflix or Disney or Hulu that they have to be
“neutral” with respect to the content they license. What would that even mean?
It is not up to Netflix or Amazon to decide if the Star Wars movies are
licensed to one or more SVOD services. And Netflix cannot demand that Disney
license House of Cards for the new Disney streaming service.
What the article actually focuses on is the market power that Disney has as it
enters the SVOD market. I do not fear that Disney can overwhelm the SVOD
market, nor do I think the DOJ would allow them to do so. The real issue is how
many different SVOD services will people support?
There is nothing to keep Comcast or Verizon or AT&T from developing new SVOD
services with the content they own. The fact that they also provide broadband
is largely irrelevant.
The only issue to date that has had anything to do with the Net Neutrality
debate is new forms of bundling services. This includes Zero Rating of specific
services to attract cellular subscribers, and now the inclusion of SVOD
subscriptions, like HBO and Netflix, in the cellular bundles.
But these are not Net Neutrality violations - at least since that the Wheeler
FCC dropped the Zero Rating issue due to very strong consumer push back.
These are NOT the points the article is making.
Correct, since these points are entirely meaningless.
Only YOU are trying to create some form of connection between these subjects.
And the ONLY reason you keep doing this is that you are desparately trying to
convince us, and the FCC, that broadband is the equivalent of POTS service.
IT IS NOT.
Rather, they are obvious concepts that any reader of the Verge article is
expected to understand, without intense belaboring.
Really?
The article never mentions the term Net neutrality, nor does it make any claims
that Net neutrality is the reason more companies are entering the SVOD
business.
But the article CERTAINLY DOES suggest that Disney may have the power to
dominate this market segment.
Without that understanding, the article would make no sense.
WHat you have said in this post makes no sense Bert. There is absolutely no
correlation between licensing content to SVOD services and net neutrality.
Is it really possible that a rational person could think a broadband provider
should follow the same rules as Netflix and Disney? I don't believe it.
No Bert. These subjects are not even related. Only you could try to make a
connection.
Is the FCC really so lost that they haven't figured this out? Just how slow
of wit does one have to be, to think that a broadband provider should be
allowed to block content as much as Disney can, on their own web site?
Apparently YOUR “slow wit” Bert, since you are the only one trying to convince
us that ISPs as just waiting for the Pai FCC to return to light handed
regulation of the Internet so they can start blocking competitive services.
The future of the legacy MVPDs is the Internet Bert. The cable/FIOS guys have
enabled the SVOD business and new competitors in the VMVPD business. The DBS
guys are developing VMVPD services to complement and/or replace their MVPD
services.
YOU are hopelessly devoured by your belief that some broadband providers want
to block legal Internet content. It simply is not true, nor is it going to
change. NOBODY is going to start blocking competitive content.
The stores compete. For that to work, the streets leading to these stores
have to be strictly neutral.
Really? Ever hear of toll roads?
Regards
Craig
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