[opendtv] Re: Users as Toast: The Blocking of Google TV

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2010 07:20:13 -0500

At 8:44 PM -0500 11/15/10, Cliff Benham wrote:
I watch ONLY what I want and when I want, not what anyone or anything suggests I should watch 
and never the twain shall meet.


And this is very much like the rest of America!

We use search engines to find what we are interested in.
Search is almost non existent on a cable STB. You still get the time honored tradition of a grid of programs arranged by time and channels. This has inevitably led to the cliche' "500 channels and nothing to watch."
My suspicion is that TiVo's suggestions are made solely on how much money a program's viewing could make for them and the program supplier by having the greatest number of viewers, and are not in any way based on the educational, social or performance quality available in that program. 

To Wit:
ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."
Who the HELL cares who is dancing and who is left? This program is promoted heavily by ABC and by all the ABC O/O stations AS "NEWS" during their national and local news shows. Since when is this inane program news? Fix the quality of the program and it won't need promotion during a news show. It will gather ratings on its own merits without any other help. 

Cliff nails it.
The congloms are all about promoting the content inside their walls. They do this constantly via Breakfast TV shows, Late Night Talk/entertainment shows and promos throughout the day and now even during the rare moments when they are not running commercials and promos.
And they do this through their cable TV properties as well. Some people think Fox is a bit different than the others, especially The Fox News Channel. But FOX is one of the most aggressive promoters of all. They target political conservatives and men, filling the screen with beautiful, and sometimes intelligent female pundits. They love to criticize the other networks, but this is nothing more than targeted promotion. Last night they gave a boost to Discovery Networks by promoting Sarah Palin's Alaska documentary...
They are all scared by the Googles and Apples that provide REAL search capabilities. And they are scared by YouTube, which now generates audiences as large or larger than the Networks. Yesterday I read an interesting commentary: 

Why the Web TV War Has Already Been Won by Google With YouTube

http://seekingalpha.com/article/236724-why-the-web-tv-war-has-already-been-won-by-google-with-youtube?source=marketwatch
Lady Gaga just passed the 1 BILLION views mark on YouTube. And Justin Bieber just passed 1 billion too. Who is Justin Bieber? According to the article:
"Bieber owes his stardom to YouTube. Bieber was discovered and signed by rhythm and blues star Usher, who was impressed with amateur YouTube clips of the teenager singing. Eight of the top 10 most viewed YouTube videos of all time are music videos."
So here's a perfect example of the kind of disintermediation that is possible with search and on demand access to content...
"Today's king and queen of pop, teen sensation Justin Bieber and the eclectic Lady Gaga, are viewed by a much larger audience than the most popular MTV performers of yesteryear. As they battled to see who would be the first entertainer to top one billion views on YouTube, Bieber was recently collecting 3.7 million hits a day, Lady G: 1.8 million. Michael Jackson and Britney Spears are distant runners-up, each with about 600 million total views."
The kids have already abandoned the MVPDs in droves. The rest of us can't be too far behind.me another walled garden like the MVPDs. I am not.
Bert is concerned that the Internet will become another walled garden like the MVPDs. I am not.
What the congloms really want is to monetize their content in EVERY way possible. By driving up the price of the MVPD services they are enabling the transition to an ala carte world in which the consumer will pay for the stuff they want.
Bert is concerned about Apple's "closed" ecosystem. I just think of it as another store like Walmart.
But iTunes provides a good example of where things may be headed. Apple currently holds the credit card information for more than 100 million customers. They have a huge business selling gift cards for the iTunes store. When you enter the iTunes store there is a small area on the menu bar that tells you how much money you have in your iTunes account. This balance goes positive when you redeem a gift card, or when an automated credit is posted to the account. For example, parents can set a music budget for their kids; once a month a credit is posted to the kids accounts and deducted from the parents credit card.
So today we are writing a check to Cox Cable each month for about $90. It's not much of a leap to cut the cord and put that money into my iTunes account, then rent/buy what I want on an ala carte basis. The problem is that the congloms will not let Apple sell ESPN or many of the cable networks that we watch today. But that could change soon... 

Regards
Craig


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