[opendtv] Re: Verizon's TV strategy sounds like a mess
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 03:18:28 +0000
Monty Solomon posted:
Verizon's TV strategy sounds like a mess
http://bgr.com/2017/12/11/verizon-streaming-tv-go90-nfl-what/
False premises usually lead to false conclusions. I don't see Verizon's
strategy to be such a mess. Here's the false premise:
"DSL Reports is quoting sources as saying that Verizon's long-awaited IPTV
service - basically, cable that uses the internet rather than a coax cable to
communicate with a set-top box - has been cancelled ..."
Hardly "the Internet." IPTV simply replaces the channel-divided MPEG-2 TS, or
analog, TV broadcasts, strictly inside the MVPD walled garden, with
packet-switched Internet *Protocol* delivery. Not "over the Internet," but
rather, *also* strictly inside the MVPD walled garden. It's merely a change to
the content delivery protocol, not to the garden walls. Same MVPD cabled
infrastructure, same business model, different delivery method. Matter of fact,
FiOS TV service, which emulates the old cable TV broadcast scheme very closely,
already uses IPTV for the on-demand programs. The walled-in on demand service,
has been IP all along.
The article repeats that losses of subscribers to the legacy MVPD model
continue to accelerate. Well, why would anyone think that a change to the
protocol would make any difference? Verizon is right. Rather than tweaking the
protocol of a business model from the last century, it makes more sense to
break outside its garden walls. As in:
"Verizon is also reportedly considering a dedicated live TV streaming service
to rival DirecTV Now (and get the company's foot in the door before it's too
late), but execs can't agree on what the service should look like."
Exactly. The only question should be what formula to adopt, to be an attractive
alternative to other OTT sites such as Hulu, DirecTV Now, and so on. So, not
such a mess. The article also mentions an ad-supported service OTT service
Go90, which so far is supposedly a dud, but without explaining why. Sounds like
emphasis on what "millenials" are supposed to like, but at least at first,
haphazard execution and a bad user interface. If Verizon is thinking along the
lines of resurrecting Go90 and making it better, I'd say they are on the right
track.
"So what's Verizon's strategy here? It doesn't have a proper live TV streaming
service, but it's continuing to spend billions on content for go90, a
non-subscription platform that even its own partners say is worthless. In the
meantime, it's still trying to coax life from Yahoo, while also spending
serious R&D dollars on developing an IPTV platform before throwing it all away."
The IPTV platform is out. The author's confusion is in assuming that Go90 is
IPTV. Wrong. It is instead an ad-supported OTT service, unwalled. Do it right,
should be a good option. We've seen that use of ad-supported streaming is on
the increase, so I'd say, not a bad strategy. Have I seen any ads for Go90? Not
a single one.
Bert
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