[opendtv] Re: MVPD Definition

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2015 09:33:52 -0400

On Aug 27, 2015, at 9:21 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Regards
Craig


But this does matter to the consumer. There is nothing ubiquitous
about competition through "your pipe" today. I cannot buy the
content I want, that I am currently getting from my MVPD bundle.

Used to be, if you wanted a movie channel you had to buy HBO. Used to be, the
only game in town to getting HBO was a local monopoly. Now, anyone, with a
neutral broadband link, can go to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and any number of
other existing or new sites. Why do I need to belabor this?

I don't have any idea why you keep belaboring this point. It is totally
irrelevant to what I said.

Options have become available, prospered, then disappeared for decades, as
technology has enabled new ways to distribute TV content. When is the last time
you bought or rented a TV program on a VHS tape? I remember queuing in lines to
rent one of the limited copies of newly released movies at Blockbuster.
Blockbuster shut down its last retail locations and their DVD by mail service
in 2014.

We have many new options; I subscribe to Netflix. But I have no options to get
the MVPD programs I want without buying a big bundle from Cox, Dish or DirecTV.

I already explained that the hard core addict is at a disadvantage. That's
always the case. But even there, ESPN has lost millions of eyeballs already.

Probably true. But by your own admission, most of the cord cutters did not
watch ESPN anyway. And some are borrowing authentication credentials to access
the Watch ESPN TVE app. And some are watching the NBC Sports Channel, The Fox
Sports Channel, and live events still carried by broadcasters.

This is just evidence of more competition and more options.

And then there is the reality that there is a huge live audience for ESPN and
other sports channels at sports bars and restaurants. And these establishments
pay hundreds or thousands of dollars a month for the right to fill all of those
Flat screens with live sports. Much of this audience is not even measured.

That's because you are unable to get past the walled garden model. So here
you are, thinking that Sling TV must define your new garden walls.

No Bert. It is because many of the shows I watch are ONLY available via the big
MVPD bundles.

Sling is trying to build a new walled garden at a lower price point, targeted
specifically to a younger demographic that prefers mobile platforms and needs
only one stream at a time. But they too are having problems licensing rights to
many MVPD channels.



Boo hoo. Whoever they cut new deals with, everyone in the US will be able to
access. ESPN is losing viewers, Craig, not gaining. If they were gaining,
they might be able to play "hard to get." Now, instead, they can't. They will
be maing deals. There is no need AT ALL for the govt to coerce anyone anymore.

They are playing hard to get. They typically lose viewers, then get many back
during football season. Iger has made it clear that they have no plans to go
direct for five years, if then.

In five years I'm sure we will still be arguing about this stuff, as we have
for the past two decades.

And you missed it again!! If this local monopoly did not exist, the
broadcasters, and the cable channels, would not have this kind of leverage,
Craig. The simple fact is, lemmings all over latched onto the monopolistic
umbilical, without appreciating the ramifications, *and* insisted that the
local broadcast channels be on that monopolistic pipe too.

Rubbish. Ever hear of Junk Bonds? The cable industry and its entrepreneurs,
like Ted Turner and John Malone, invested billions to compete with the
broadcasters. Just as Netflix, Amazon and Google are investing billions to
create content to compete with the content oligopoly today.

During the '80s, broadcasters still had enough clout in Congress to get them to
"level the playing field" with cable. In essence they got Congress to bust up
the monopoly, then they picked up the pieces. Once they had control, they used
the distribution oligopoly to create and grow the lucrative second revenue
streams.

That being the case, the broadcast stations (and congloms) have *every right*
to demand their pound of flesh.

They certainly think so. But you were quick to point out that Chairman Wheeler
used his bully pulpit to put pressure on Dish and Sinclair to get those
stations back on the DBS system, and it appears to have worked...

But you are ignoring why those stations went dark. Both Dish and Sinclair
stated they had reached terms for the retrans consent fees for the stations.
But Sinclair was demanding carriage of an unspecified cable network that they
do not own yet.

This is exactly how the broadcast conglomerate took control of of the content
on MVPD systems. First they created their own cable networks and used retrans
consent to demand carriage and favorable placement on the MVPD systems. then
they started buying up cable networks. Once they had control of the content,
they started asking for more money in subscriber fees for the packages of
channels each of the six big conglomerates control. Now Sinclair is using the
same tactics.

Now, at last, with a neutral Internet, that dynamic is changing. The lemmings
are rethinking their dependence on the monopolistic pipe, and these same
lemmings have made it abundantly clear to the FCC that they want the
broadband pipe to be neutral. They do not want to reinvent the old way.

The pipe IS neutral.

The packages of content being sold via that pipe are not.

Regards
Craig


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