[opendtv] Re: Product Half life
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:01:50 -0400
At 5:01 PM -0500 4/18/11, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
> You don't need an FCC license for valuable spectrum to distribute
content over the Internet.
The fundamental disagreement I have with you, on this matter, is
this: you assume that because people want to view their TV content
on different platforms than just stationary TVs, they are no longer
interested in today's TV content. So congloms and local affiliates
will go belly up. But that doesn't follow.
Congloms now distribute their content via affiliates too, not to
mention MVPDs, so "FCC license for valuable spectrum" may just be
irrelevant. You are confusing the conglom with the local
broadcaster. The content is what matters most to the conglom. There
is no reason to believe that just because distribution might go from
an affiliated RF transmitting station to the Internet, that no one
will be interested in the content.
Thank you Bert!
You have made my argument for me. I've never said the congloms are
going away. It is their reliance on broadcasters as a distribution
medium that is endangered.
Good content will always find a path to the consumer. That being
said, the congloms are going to find it more difficult to leverage
the small amount of good content they control to push crap.
And increasingly, people who develop good content are going to learn
that they may be able to bypass the congloms and work with "new
distributors" to reach the public.
In fact, when you see the hype about AppleTV or GoogleTV, don't they
often use the offering of popular shows, like House, as part of the
hype? They aren't selling their software with obscure productions
from starving artists, Craig. The way they get people hooked is by
showing shows they like on this new distribution pipe, or on these
new viewing appliances.
You miss the point completely here Bert. The resistance to Google TV
is primarily related to the fact that it is a search engine that may
expose consumers to additional options that lie outside the
traditional MVPD walled gardens. What you are missing is that the
congloms LIMIT our access to good content. That is the nature of
their business; to decide who gets the chance to use their pipes and
help make them money.
It is also important to note that the congloms are becoming MORE
vertically integrated. Larger and larger portions of the programming
they carry are produced in-house, often with MUCH smaller budgets
that the shows they used to offer in prime time. This has resulted in
a significant reduction in the the quality of Broadcast network
programming, which in turn has resulted in a serious erosion of their
total audience and ratings.
If any MVPDs survive, retrans consent will continue to exist. Or it
will morph into fees charged to the ISPs who carry this conglom
content. I doubt the congloms would come out hurting at all.
Exactly. The congloms can sell directly to the MVPDs, Apple, Google
et al. The only problem they will face is some push back from
Congress, which has enabled their profitable oligopoly. Many Congress
Critters were critical of the recent NCAA Basketball Tournament
coverage because most of the first round games were NOT carried on
their local CBS broadcast affiliates.
Where we may disagree is that it is going to be more difficult in the
future to use bundling to force people to buy stuff they do not want.
But in the end, the consumer is going to continue to pay for their
entertainment fix...
> And wen CBS decides it does not need channel 9 to distribute its content,
WUSA must either create (or buy) programming to fill in the gaps.
I'm saying, WUSA can also sell their spectrum back to the FCC
auction and continue to operate as a local content source, with none
of the OTA transmitter expenses. Like any other content owner.
That's assuming their local content really is in high demand. WUSA
would keep its reporters, writers, and studio, but no transmitter
facilities.
In theory this is exactly the way things are likely to work out. The
problem with the theory is that local content has never been a highly
profitable business for broadcasters. Back a few decades, local TV
news may have been a profit center for the stations with the highest
news ratings, but even then the 3rd and 4th ranked news organization
typically operated near break even or a loss.
Truth is that stations make most of their money during prime time and
during sporting events that draw large local audiences. Take that
away and there's not much left. Look what happened to KRON in San
Francisco when they went independent with an emphasis on local news.
Look what has happened to the newspaper business. Yes a few local
news organizations will survive, but it is highly unlikely that any
market will be able to support three or four local TVnews operations.
The difference between this and newspapers is that people still look
for this TV content, be it network or local. It's what they want on
their iPads, iPhones, and on their Internet-connected TVs.
The high quality entertainment content and live sports yes. Local
news, not so much. I find it much easier to get my news on demand
(and on topic) from Internet portals.
Regards
Craig
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