[opendtv] Re: Qualcomm on Channel 55
- From: Bob Miller <bob@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:03:39 -0400
Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
>Tom Barry wrote:
>
>
>
>>It would maybe not be politically expedient right now for broadcasters to
>>point out that the current
>>rules would allow them to charge extra for HDTV and just send only SDTV for
>>free.
>>
>>
>
>While it might be true that it isn't politically expedient, I think it'a also
>true that doing so might be the kiss of death for OTA broadcasting.
>The Freeview experience has shown that people are willing to use OTA,
>limitations and all, if it's free, not if it's for pay. And the various surveys
>have shown that OTA is not used primarily by destitute people at all, so no
>reason to assume that OTA users in the future will be happy with
>quality levels inferior to those enjoyed by cable subscribers.
>
>
Why do you assume quality levels of OTA to be inferior to cable?
It isn't politically expedient NOW. It will be economically imperative
once must carry multicasting is settled one way or the other. It will
become economically imperative in any single market attempts this in any
significant way and is successful.
Now that I have a decent enough receiver in New York for OTA the cost of
cable compared to the number of channels it delivers that we absolutely
must have is getting out of whack. Gotta have the Comedy Channel, Daily
Show, Gotta have HBO but after that there is not much.
So it may not take that many channels delivered in a subscription
service to tempt a lot of people.
>
>
>>The pay-for-OTA of course reminds me of USDTV.
>>
>>And I always thought one of the nice hidden benefits of USDTV was it allowed
>>USDTV to be the premium service and collect the funds instead of having the
>>broadcasters suddenly announce that OTA TV was no longer free.
>>
>>
>
>Except that it is the USDTV model that still has to prove itself. The Freeview
>model works. Even if no better than NTSC, it still works for 15+ percent of
>households overall here, and with more choice could gain a better following.
>But any purported "advantage" of migrating FOTA TV to pay TV could spell OTA's
>ONdigital/Quiero-like demise.
>
>
The Freeview model works but what is interesting is that with 30 free
channels, and more coming, a pay service like TopUpTV is also doing
well. Unlike with ONDigital you have a combination of a lot of free
channels and the ability to "Top" that off with a few premium channels.
USDTV would be doing a lot better even with their limited channel
selection and poor receivers if free OTA was doing better in Salt Lake City.
At some point between USDTV's 12 channels and a cable's 1000 channels
there is a sweetspot or a combination of services that at the right
price will be a cable/sat killer IMO.
TopUpTV is being successful even though they came late to the party,
don't have the most compelling content and have since lost some content
to Freeview. When they started they had only one box that would work for
them and there were a hundred being sold that did not work with them.
But they are growing and I expect that they will continue to grow at an
accelerating rate.
Also there is the MPEG4 French subscription service starting soon. That
should be interesting.
Bob Miller
>Bert
>
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