[opendtv] Re: TV stats for Italy
- From: "Bob Miller" <robmxa@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:27:21 -0500
On 12/21/06, Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
At 7:13 PM -0500 12/20/06, Steve Wilson wrote:
>Well OTA, at least free OTA, I think has some advantage in that its
>easily portable...tuner in your laptop, tuner in your desktop and
>now you can use many different PVR programs to record content and
>watch at your leisure. No fees. Not tied to any service provider.
I agree 100%.
This is the logical market advantage for a wireless (multipoint) TV
distribution system. I noted multipoint, as there have been a variety
of wireless fixed (point-to-point) multichannel TV services offered
over the years.
But portability and mobility are not enough, in themselves, since the
vast majority of TV viewing takes place at home or in fixed locations
like sports bars. Fortunately, a FTA system can also support fixed
receivers.
You may be right to say that portability and mobility are not enough
but your argument to support that statement is tragic.
With NTSC we didn't have mobile and only barely portable. To argue
that we would not support them because when we didn't have them we
didn' t use them is ridiculous.
Like saying that cars or elevators or copy machines would not be
useful because no one ever used them before they existed.
Our plan always was for fixed, portable and mobile or ubiquitous
reception and I still think that makes the most sense. Why not offer
all three? But I do believe that if you could make a system that only
worked mobile and portable that it would do very well all by itself.
In fact it would account (will account) for more hours of TV watched
than that in the living room in a few years.
Not by a bit, by a lot.
Bob Miller
So the real issue becomes the content that can be accessed. Offering
content in the free and clear is not enough; you must offer a good
representation of the content that people want. The Netherlands
serves as a good example. With only three channels of Free OTA TV,
cable had a huge advantage and easily walked away with 95% market
share. Here in the U.S. the situation is not much better, as most
markets get only 4-6 channels with unique content.
Free OTA only seems to be winning when there is an attempt to provide
enough programming choice to cause potential viewers to evaluate the
offerings and decide whether it is worth the extra cost to pay for a
subscription service. When the choice is to pay less for less (i.e.
On Digital and USDTV) subscription-fee based OTA services always come
up short - the more expensive multichannel services typically win
because of greater programming choice.
Personally, I think any programming that contains commercials should
be offered in the clear, with access control for content that is not
suitable for children.
I do believe that the mobility and portability advantage of OTA can
be exploited, particularly with respect to pushing NON-TV content to
receivers. The ability to use data broadcasting techniques to push
web content and RSS feeds to mobile/portable receivers could bbe a
huge competitive advantage.
Regards
Craig
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