[opendtv] Re: Rediscovering Off-Air Television
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:59:50 -0500
At 3:38 PM -0600 12/10/10, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
I'm having a hard time parsing through this logic. They can't watch
the shows that were cable-only, unless they go out and buy boxed DVD
sets. Which is highly unlikely the case for most of the shows. So,
as the author said, they will tend to fill up their TV staple diet
with more of the FOTA content.
Yes, they can buy or rent many of these shows via DVD, or stream via
websites like iTunes and Netflix.
And they can also see many shows older shows via the websites of the
cable networks. The MVPDs are protected for the live and current
season stuff.
Well, obviously, Craig. That's the whole point of market forces,
isn't it? When a given business prices itself out of competition,
which is a gradual process, that industry has to readjust.
Not with government protected oligopolies wher there IS no
marketplace competition.
I do agree that the MVPDs are reaching the saturation point in terms
of pricing. To a limited extent this does allow alternatives to
develop, simply because there is so much money on the table. But the
content oligopoly can exert significant control over this
evolutionary process , as they are doing today.
Your argument goes something like, hey, I was making more profit
before, with my anti-competitive practices. So I'll sink with the
ship rather than reorganize my business.
No "THEIR" argument is we are making monopoly rents from our content
today, and must control the transition to new forms of distribution
so that we can at least maintain, in not increase the profits we
obtain from our lucrative partnership with the politicians.
That won't happen. All it takes is a non-negligible change in MVPD
subscriptions, for things to begin readjusting. Broadcasters don't
necessarily have to change anything they are doing, *if* this MVPD
membership reduction is truly happening. Subscription fees all by
themselves have become enough of an incentive (or so goes the
premise of the article).
The MVPDs as simply a legacy distribution partner that can be thrown
under the bus when convenient. For now they can be used to maximize
profits while the content congloms figure out the new business model
that will maximize their profits via a REGULATED Internet.
Regards
Craig
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