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The Problem With Cable Is Television
Saul Hansell writes in the NY Times about how various services offered by cable companies affect their spending and their revenue. As it turns out, a lot of the cost increases and investment needs are coming from television and video services rather than internet connectivity. The scramble for high-def and rising licensing fees for programming seem to be the biggest headaches for Comcast and Time Warner right now. Quoting:
"By all accounts, Web video is not currently having any effect on the businesses of the cable companies. Market share is moving among cable, satellite and telephone companies, but the overall number of people subscribing to some sort of pay TV service is rising. (The government's switch to digital over-the-air broadcasts is providing a small stimulus to cable companies.) However, if you remember, it took several years before music labels started to feel any pain from downloads. As the sour economy and the Web start putting more pressure on the cable companies, they may be forced to consider breaking up the big bundles of channels they now insist that consumers buy and instead offer individual channels or smaller groups of channels on an à la carte basis."
What I want:
HBO
History Channel
MSNBC
CNN
CBC
BBC
Comedy Central
Showtime
Science Channel
PBS
Animal Planet (for my daughter)
Cartoon Network (for my daughter)
VH1 (for the wife)
That's it. I don't watch and don't care for the rest of it, because it's mindless brain drool, and a lot of what is on the stations I listed is also mindless brain drool, just less of it than elsewhere (like Oxygen, MTV, SPIKE, ABC/CBS/NBC, etc.). That's 13 channels I would watch, and watch at least once a week. I would pay a dollar a month for each. That would give them $13 a month they're not getting now. I would not pay more than $1 month, because frankly, TV is a big time suck and mind poison. but that's what I would do, and I am certain there are many people who agree with me.
I don't want the Food Channel. I don't want ESPN. I don't want "Desperate Housewives" or "American Idol". It's crap. I don't want it in my house.
But I am willing to pay for the good stuff, if I can be certain I will get GOOD STUFF.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I guess the problem is that majority of programming suck, or at least that the broad scope of programs available through a cable package is so diverse that many only enjoy a small handful while the rest that falls outside the individual field of interest is uninteresting.
The tactic employed is to bundle "high quality" channels with "low quality" channels to ensure that if you want to buy the thing you are interesting you also have to buy a lot of crap that you don't are about. Selling individual channels, or smaller bundles, would mean you could probably ensure that what channels you get are those you actually want to watch; but it would also mean that a lot of marginal shows and channels would go out of business.
Of course personally I believe that this is pretty much inevitable and that shows and programming enjoyed by a smaller minority will have to find other ways to reach their targeted audience (like say the Internet). And it probably wont stop there either. In fact I would go so far as to say that over the next two decades the traditional way (in so far as something as new as cable can be said to have a tradition) of watching TV will change in many different ways. Using myself as an example I don't watch TV. Not because there aren't shows I would be interested in, but because I simply can not tailor my day around a programming schedule (nor am I inclined to buy a cable package and a Tivo like device). For me the only option when it comes to watching shows is getting them online (and I am sad to say the options for doing that legal is severely limited in my Country); so for the most part I just have to do without until reality catches up with technology and gives me options suited to my lifestyle.
The Long Now Foundation
They just don't get it, we don't want to subscribe to a hundred channels. What we do want is watch what we want when we want and not have to subscribe to half a dozen services on top of our ISP fees.
.. Television. I mean, for me, why pay extra to watch television on the Internet ?
.. :) It depresses me as to all the innovators can see as to the future of the Internet, television and adverts. Back to the sixties I guess :)
If the telecoms want to make real money out of IPTV they need to stop subscribing to rights to channels and instead buy up their own material and repackage it for their own subscribers, else all they are doing is relaying terrestrial TV to an audience that can already get on
If may come as a surprise to the telecoms that IPTV is a bandwidth hog, but not the rest of us. What they need to do is provide a high definition broadcast grid for live video, the rest to be provided in a peering arraignment to the local ISP switching center. The consumer then selects from a list of older tv progs and movies and they are delivered overnight to a DVR or set-top-box.
You pay for what you watch when you watch. Latest movie, ok top dollar, old movie, $1:00 a time. You also pay for online game subscriptions, video telephone, research and reference like the Wolfram|Alpha project.
Of course even 'passive viewing' is old century for the current wired generation, they're more into making and being in their own personal movie
See also:
Regular columnist Bill Thompson wants it all. And he wants it now.
Of course this is a generalization, but in the main the paradox is that free content usually ends up not being worth paying for because quality producers won't make it for long leaving largely low cost/low quality content over the long run. Quality producers and distributors stick to channels where the business model provides a sufficient fee structure (ad revenue, subscribers fees, etc.) via channel control to provide them revenue and profit. But consumers will only pay for content they value--both in quality and speed. The problem right now is most US internet connections are mostly too slow to provide high quality and delivery speeds that will command cable TV-level fee structures for advertising and subscriber fees. The US is way behind the EU in this. So the cable companies and telcos have a huge investment in infrastructure ahead of them before they can profit in the general market. Which is why they want a tiered internet--to phase infrastructure in slowly and match costs and revenues better to stay profitable. Their greed early on has them no painted into a corner--but you can bet they are figuring out how to make to consumer fund their rescue.
Cable set to the side. Forcing me to pay taxes and then using those taxes to benefit someone else is theft. Theft from me and my family. You think taxes are good, then defend taxes, don't dispute that they are theft though. If I stuck a gun in your face and demanded 20% of your money it would be armed robbery. When the government does it, it is called taxation. And I personally could not care any less than I do now, (zero), if Billy-Joe Bob gets anew heart or not. He could die before I walked across the road and pissed on him if that was all he needed. I also don't care if your mewling brats get an education or if your parents have to eat roadkill. Taking my money to benefit you and yours is fucking wrong,immoral and exactly what the founders of the USA were dead set against.
Then pack the fuck up and leave. Nobody is stopping you.
The United Arab Emirates have a 0% tax rate; perhaps you should consider immigrating there.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Quite right. It is no coincidence that most of them have fantasies of societal collapse followed by a "Mad Max"-type future where "real men" and their shotguns get to rule the day.
They never seem to get it that a "working" example of a "libertarian society" is ... Somalia. No functional central government to rain on the "real men's" parade there at all. Everyone there is free to conduct "free enterprise" any way they see fit. Curiously however, libertarian immigration to the Paradise in Mogadishu remains rather low.... perhaps not enough pamphlets at the weekly meetings at the temple of the Goddess Alyssa Zhinovievena?