[opendtv] Re: Gigaom.com: TV somewhere, sometimes: Pay TV’s rocky path towards a streaming future
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 08:51:16 -0500
> On Nov 23, 2014, at 7:22 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
> <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Perhaps attempts to balkanize the Internet deserve to be hard to get right.
Not sure Balkanization is the right term for what is happening. One could argue
that corporate intranets that give employees access through the public Internet
is Balkanization; but this is exactly what the Internet was designed to do.
There will always be public and private "states" that make up the Internet.
There will always be sites that encourage anyone to connect, and sites that
require paid subscriptions. Netflix requires authentication too.
> Trying to force-fit the linear TV bundles into an Internet unwalled model
> seems to be problematic.
Why? Clearly it is possible, as the article notes, with services from Comcast,
TW and Charter. The more important question to answer is whether consumers will
continue to want a bundle of appointment TV channels?
Obviously live streaming is needed for live events - this is a huge draw, and a
great vehicle for commercials. But the content offered by most of the channels
in the extended basic bundle can be offered on demand, with or without
commercials. This is something that facilities based MVPDs can only offer in a
very limited way because of bandwidth limitations. The DBS systems can only get
there by creating parallel Internet services, which in most cases will require
a broadband connection from a cable competitor. The cable systems can move to
an IP delivery infrastructure, but why bother when they already have this with
broadband.
Perhaps this is what Time Warner CEO Rob Marcus meant when he said:
> "There certainly seems to be a trend toward products being offered on a
> less-bundled basis, at least to the extent it's delivered online. And I think
> we all know that, over time, this is one unified market."
>
> Yes, why not these non-neutral MVPD/ISPs simply make themselves into OTT
> sites, instead of trying to forcefit the "linear TV bundles, tiers, and
> proprietary middleboxes" model into an Internet TV environment?
Great idea Bert.
Finally, after all these weeks of arguing about what the content owners and
MVPDs mean when they talk about this subject, you come the the obvious
conclusion.
It is not a force fit Bert. It is little more than a plumbing change, probably
less traumatic than going from analog to digital cable.
The fact that you can access Internet services via a smart TV or any number of
competitive devices from Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Roku, Sony, et al,
suggests that the days of proprietary middle boxes from the MVPDs may be
numbered. As the author of this article suggests, this is fueling competition
and innovation around the user interface to the TV.
Perhaps this next step in the evolution of content distribution will lead to
the ability to buy only the content we want at a price no greater than we pay
today. Perhaps not.
One thing is certain - we will still be arguing about who is getting it right,
and how important building bundles around exclusive content is a decade from
now.
Regards
Craig
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