[opendtv] Re: Gatekeepers of Cable TV Try to Stop Intel
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 13:16:22 -0400
On Jun 24, 2013, at 4:26 PM, "Manfredi, Albert E"
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Craig Birkmaier wrote:
>
>> What makes you think that redefining who can be an MVPD is going to
>> break the monopolies on content distribution?
>
> Scale. The local cable monopolies continue to be a fact of life in most
> neighborhoods around the US, and DBS only partially opened that up. Even
> Verizon FiOS is limited to certain parts of the country only. But leveraging
> off the Internet and the popularity of broadband links to homes, OTT sites
> can be far, far more numerous than anything that came before.
Sure. Every program can become a streaming TV service. No argument here.
You could create a website for every product in the world; most products do
have a website. This has not changed the reality that most e-commerce takes
place via a relatively small number of stores - both physical and Internet
based.
But this has nothing to do with the real issue: the desire of the content
conglomerates to sell their programs via bundles, and to sell the bundles by
ONLY making the most desirable content available in real time via a bundle.
Remember, NETWORKS and their local broadcast stations are BUNDLES. They fill
their schedule with programs they produce and programs they buy. They do not
expect you to watch everything; but they do expect that you will be able to
access these programs if you want to. And cross promotion is a critical part of
their industry.
What they do not want is for the consumer to decide whether they want to pay
for their content.
Scale means nothing in this discussion. The congloms will continue to force
bundling until the viewer totally rejects it. Fortunately, I am hearing more
noise about bundling than at any time in recent history. And this is coming
from friends and acquaintances, not just people in the industry. So ultimately
we may both get what we want.
> This is similar to the way Internet access became available in the early
> days, by leveraging off the ubiquitous telephone connections. People could
> use just about any ISP. That went away with broadband, of course, for
> technical reasons. But now we can see that same effect taking place with TV
> content. People should be able to go to any number of OTT sites, no matter
> where they live. The onus of setting up the server networks is on the
> congloms and/or broadcasters, and it is something they would do for their own
> benefit.
The stations are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are not needed,
except for local news, and they are restricted to geographic markets. The
networks , other broadcasters, and program syndicators are not going to allow a
local station to deliver its content everywhere.
Technologies like AeroTV can deal with the local market issues; but the
networks are suing and say they will kill local broadcasting if AeroTV is
allowed to survive.
In other words, in all likelihood, we are still going to be arguing about this
stuff at the end of this decade.
Regards
Craig
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