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Cable Companies Despise PVRs
My position that I expressed in my speech and that was inaccurately portrayed: PVR functionality should be provisioned from the headend for the following reasons (which ultimately will benefit consumers):
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VOD servers cost much less
- If video servers @ $350/stream (Soon Component cost declining 40%/year
- @ 10% simultaneous use, costs $35/sub.
- PVRs cost >10X more
- When simultaneous use = 50%, server costs will have declined >5X
- Disk noise wakes my wife
- Replay box hot enough to fry an egg -- Is that a feature?
- Disk size limitations mean obsolescence, esp. with HDTV
- Available on every set-top in house Average of 1.7 PVRs/PVR household
- No pro-activity/anticipation required
- Records multiple concurrent shows
- NW storage could always have max. res.
- Uses existing deployed base
- Moving parts break more often
- Box complexity means more crashes & customer support costs
My basic thesis is that PVRs + Satellite will eat cable's lunch, and since it's unambiguous that cable needs to get the copyright clearances to offer programming from the head-end, they should start now. It is the case that I suggested that if a Supreme Court case was brought on the legality of each feature of PVRs were brought, some would lose. I also suggested an alternative business model to make everybody happy to avoid the all-or-nothing result that has been occurring in the RIAA vs. Napster wars.
I suggested that consumers pay 1 cent per commercial skipped (which is about the same as what advertisers pay). That would be equivalent to $10/thousand commercials skipped. I think that's reasonable. I also suggested that targeted advertising could be a win-win for all involved by delivering ads in areas that are of greater interest to the viewer so that there would be less incentive to skip and fewer ads would have to be delivered due to the higher prices paid for the targeted group. I also predicted that this dynamic combined with competition between satellite and cable would ultimately make both services free."
What I don't understand is if I pay for cable programming, why the hell am I double-taxed by having to watch ads?!!!
They've been ripping me off for years, even before PVRs existed!
BASTARDS!
Hey, I'm only applying the same specious reasiong the media companies use to call me a pirate, a criminal and an ingrate!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I would assume the cable companies would love PVR's. I got HBO only after I got my TiVo, b/c now I can watch the Soprano's when it fits into my schedule, not theirs. It's not quite on demand programming, but the benefits and features cost the cable industry nothing.
Cable companies, on the other hand, have to deal with advertizers who are seeing their dollars, potentially, go to waste on PVR users.
P.S. I love my TiVo, I am watching a lot more TV than I ever did before, and a lot fewer ads.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
So enjoy it while you can. I do. I watch (some) commercial TV and I don't watch the ads. Many execs would have you believe that this is some sort of theft. But as Robert Heinlein said:
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statue or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
The problem for cable companies isn't that they're afraid you'll swap programs, or even that you won't watch commercials. They don't really care about that.
The problem with a standalone PVR is that you've gotten features from someone else, and the cable company won't be able to get ahold of that money.
For example Cablevision's digital product includes video on demand. They've got a bunch of series available for that... and to get a certain channel's programming on demand, you pay an additional fee. If you have a PVR, you probably won't be buying their VOD entrees, since you'll just tell your PVR to grab them for you.
The bit about satellites is also telling. Cable companies can do VOD, because they've got a nice fast low-latency pipe between your house and their systems. CV does VOD by shipping the video over their cable-modem network. When you pause it, it stops coming at the other end. Naturally, that's not very feasible with a dish. They'd like to hype that as something that makes them better than a dish, but DirecTiVo is their worst nightmare, because it gives you the benefits of their VOD service, while giving you two tuners so you can record anything you like, instead of the selection of shows the cable company has available.
Aren't they going to create a bandwidth crunch with 90% of the video being "demanded" in prime time?
Why wouldn't it be very much more to their advantage to have "offpeak pricing" for customers with PVR's that were willing to record content at times convenient for the cable company? And have the PVR owner pay for the storage facility?
Seems to me that if video-on-demand takes off cable companies will be faced with either expensive infrastructure costs... OR ticked-off customers trying to explain to their kids why they can't watch "Lilo and Stitch" tonight.
Or are the cable companies planning to build special you-don't-control-it-we-do PVR's? In which case you'd think they wouldn't want to make the PVR companies angry, unless the cable companies want to do all their own R&D...
Or are the cable companies just planless and clueless?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I think the point is that he is signing up for premium channels (and he might not without a PVR). The cable companies does make money on premium channels. I guess not 100% of the premium fee goes to the premium company.
After testing PVRs in 2000, Comcast found that downloading programming to a hard drive in a consumer's home via a PVR such as TiVo, which satellite leader DirecTV uses, threatens the lifeblood of TV entertainment, Roberts said.
After reading this, one might walk away thinking that that Comcast invented TV entertainment. While nothing could be further from the truth, it's precisely this kind of arrogance that will lead to the demise of companies who, rather than seeking to understand what consumers value, work to shackle them with tight controls over how, when, and for how much various shows can be viewed.
Is it any mystery that consumers will attempt to minimize the level of harrassment by commercial entities attempting to sell them the latest and greatest of everything from the latest super-steam-powered convection oven to tampons? The reason that cable owners are concerned is that they assumed that they would be able burn the candle at both ends, charging for both content and ads, ad infinitum. PVRs enter the market, and now PVR owners, who maximize their enjoyment by skipping the cruft, are being branded criminals.
What can be learned here? For starters, there is no comparison between Napster users and PVR owners. Perhaps most important, though, is that there's a real honest-to-goodness clue here with respect to consumer interests. The issue is not that people are using PVRs, but whether or not the cable industry will have the foresight to adapt their business model, rather than force feed its 'content' - replete with all of the ad-gak - to its customers.
Cable companies, on the other hand, have to deal with advertizers who are seeing their dollars, potentially, go to waste on PVR users.
This may be discussed below, but I haven't seen it...
Here is what I don't understand. Let's say I tape all of my Monday night shows for 2 hours using my PVR. As far as my satellite company is concerned, I *watched* those shows and all of the accompanying ads. Chalk up another viewer with the other 10 million that watched the same thing. So where's the problem here? Just because my PVR recorded the show for me doesn't change the fact that the show was "watched". Unless the cable and satellite companies are reporting true viewers versus virtual viewers, in which case they're the dolts that are counting the viewship in a bizarre manner. Once the show has been aired, what do they care if I watch the commercials or not?
Another thing I notice is that the cable companies are the ones complaining. I don't see the major networks crying foul : NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox (here in the States, at least). Or are they raising a stink as well and I'm just not reading the right articles?
However you look at it, though, it just boils down to control. These execs are pissed that the public actually has a modicum of control over how and when they view their television, and the lack of their precise control is what they're truly pissed about.