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Fox, Univision May Go Subscription To Stop Aereo
GTRacer writes "In response to Aereo's recent win allowing per-user over-the-air antenna feeds to remote devices, Fox COO Chase Carey said, 'We need to be able to be fairly compensated for our content. This is not an ideal path we look to pursue [...],' that path being a switch to a subscription model. Spanish-language stalwart Univison may join Fox, per CEO Haim Saban. Aereo replied, in part, 'When broadcasters asked Congress for a free license to digitally broadcast on the public's airwaves, they did so with the promise that they would broadcast in the public interest and convenience, and that they would remain free-to-air. Having a television antenna is every American's right.' A switch to a pay-TV subscription model would stymie Aereo but could hurt affiliate stations."
hope I got in first lol
Can we switch ALL channels to a subscription model? I only watch 5 channels, and I would gladly pay $5 each for those channels and save myself hundreds of dollars per year.
sudo make me a sandwich
If they already provide a free over-the-air signal, in order to be available to the most viewers (and therefore to the most advertising targets), isn't another company extending that viewer base at no expense to Fox, Univision, CBS, NBC, ABC a *benefit* to them?
What part of "broadcast in the public interest and convenience" are they failing to understand? A significant portion of the country no longer owns televisions nor are interested in non-time-shifted content.
Instead of seeing it as a way to increase their viewing area to their advertisers they're alienating their customer base. I quit watching normal TV years ago, if enough stations do this we could reallocate all that useful TV bandwidth to something useful.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I agree. The problem is Mr. Carey defines "fair" in a way that a lot of people define as "ridiculous."
yes, sure, great. everyone gets to set up pieces of metal to resonate at whatever frequencies they
want, and use whatever demodulation they choose
that doesn't really compel anyone to continue to produce 'everyone loves raymond' and transmit it
Let's hope all the like companies do this, it would be great for the American public. Once they do this we can then take the considerable bandwidth that is being allocated on TV and use it for more useful things like next generation wireless devices. I for one must encourage this behavior and the removal of public TV from public airwaves. We also gain the benefit of removing decades old indecency standards from the days of the Model T.
How many people would sign a petition in support of this measure?
Fox is so good at canceling good shows that they thought they'd cancel themselves!
Going subsciption only would turn them from one of the 'Big 4' networks to just another cable channel, like TNT or Discovery. I can't believe that this would be good for their ratings or advertising revenue. I guess they could try to demand premium pricing, like ESPN, but they might not have as much luck with that as they think.
I fail to see why these companies don't have a problem blasting their signal free out into the ether for anyone to receive, but the instant you try to blast it free into the internet for anyone to see, suddenly all the executives start lawyering up.
And, of course, by "may go subscription" you really mean "are spouting entirely hollow threats because everyone knows they're not going to throw away their broadcast money just to spite one company."
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
"We need to be able to be fairly compensated for our content. " - Don't you sell advertisements to get paid? I never recall getting a bill for OTA TV .
Aereo is recording and transmitting free, OTA signals. This is the Betamax case all over again.
He/they already are -- it's called TV commercials.
By the time the signal leaves the antenna, that content is 100% paid for, with a significant
profit margin. Carey should talk with someone more knowledgeable about these inner workings
of the broadcast industry, it might seem a little overwhelming at first, but if he applies himself,
there's a fair chance he'll get it. It's a real eye-opener.
What a ridiculous, childish tantrum.
Their arguments, that format-shifting is depriving them of revenue -- make about as much sense as an angry, stompy blue-faced toddler.
I would say that this stupid, childish dummy spit is aimed purely at screwing money out of Aereo. That in itself is fine. What ISN'T fine, is these overfed elite con artists insulting everyones' intelligence in the process.
Having a television antenna is every American's right.
Fox and Univision aren't quibbling with that part. You can have any antenna you want. They just don't have to grant you access through that antenna since they're the ones who have paid for access to the programs and then redistribute them to those who pay.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Meh.
As title...
Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it.
They're complaining that the courts and government are not protecting their rights. Their copyrights.
But copyrights exist at the discretion of the government. If 17 USC 107 provides a fair use exception to copyright. And if time shifting is fair use. Then there are no rights to protect.
It's not the government's job to protect your IP rights. The government grants you a monopoly covering certain aspects of a work. If the government decides that time shifting is not a violation of copyrights, you don't have that right. Deal with it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Broadcast TV sits right in the middle of some pretty nice spectrum. Any broadcaster who doesn't like the economics of broadcasting is more than welcome to step aside and let us find some more productive use of that spectrum. Not that I think Fox is serious; but I'd be delighted if they were.
A switch to a pay-TV subscription model would stymie Aereo but could hurt affiliate stations
Can they even do this? Don't affiliates have multi-year contracts, with exclusive territory agreements ? Who would agree to be a network affiliate if they could just pull the plug from you at any time?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
When a company is given a BROADCAST license, they have to agree to live up to certain requirements. The main one is that they BROADCAST as effectively as possible. Other agents that assist in ensuring the broadcasting is effective cannot be considered copyright infringers.
This is the same thing as choosing to sell software as a product versus as a service. Sell software as a product and the first sale doctrine ALWAYS applies. Sell software as a product (outright purchase, no pre-agreed termination date), and you do NOT get to apply service-like restrictions on your customers, regardless of the garbage you write into your so-called EULAs.
Nothing forces Rupert 'Goebbels' Murdoch to be a broadcaster. He does so because the competition will eat him alive if he withdraws from this market. However, the market is changing as a consequence of the Internet. Few governments have created a firm definition of broadcasting on the Internet. Clearly, if a company gives up its hard-won over-the-air broadcasting licences, anything it does online will NOT be considered as broadcasting in the legal sense, and other agents could not step in and 'enhance' the 'broadcasting'.
While Yanks may not know this, Murdoch is a cutting edge provider of TV services in other nations, especially the UK. He actually operates the best ISP in the UK in readiness for the day when most people get their TV content over the Internet. In the US, Murdoch famously spent a fortune to establish Fox as the 'fourth' network- he now asks himself daily whether the time has come to give this up. However, US broadcast TV has hardly failed or withered away. ABC, CBS and NBC still have massive output on their over-the-air services, even if audience figures are a tiny fraction of their historical peaks.The owners of these networks, like Fox, also operate basic cable and paid cable services.
The current US government would look most unhappily on any cynical removal from the current healthy broadcast market, and none know this better than Obama's propaganda master, Murdoch. In this light, Murdoch's moaning and threats are no different from when Microsoft throws temper tantrums over the consequence of choosing to sell software as products. Fox/Murdoch needs (at this time) to continue to be a broadcaster, and MS needs to continue to sell its software as products.
Exactly. With the exception of the 27 (or so) stations actually owned by Fox, they have no ability to stop their affiliates from transmitting programs over the air.
My company home page
“Organizations, by their very nature are designed to promote order and routine. They are inhospitable environments for innovation.” (T. Levitt).
“Most innovation fails, but companies that do not innovate fail”. (Unknown).
The problem with NewsCorp, TimeWarner, and all of these media conglomorates is that they want business as usual. For them to innovate anything, it costs money; money that they would rather have lining their pockets for their next shareholder meeting. When another business innovates, and creates a good product, at the expense of the conglomorates, they will lawyer up and try to sue, or aquire, said business. However, this makes the consumers irritated at said conglomorate, and that should, in turn, cause subscription rates or advertisement revenue to go down. Not like that matters though, since the conglomorates have more political and monetary power than the consumers and can just "bully" their way through.
This was an inevitable step once we went down the path of allowing OTA broadcasters to start demanding payments for retransmission on cable (originally "Community Antenna TV"). That was a stupid step to begin with... you're sending an unencrypted signal into my house... why do you care how I get it or if I let a middleman bring it to me? It is also inevitable once the broadcasters started getting bought by pay-TV companies (Disney, Comcast, etc).
For FOX, though, I don't think their #1 TV property (a little thing called the NFL) is going to be real happy at all with them becoming 'yet another cable station'.
No, this is just an empty threat because they did not get their way. You see this behavior a lot in toddlers and people of that level of development.
Interesting, so they figure if they go cable-only they can try to get more money than they otherwise might via retransmission fees.
I'm not so sure that the cable carriers would be heartbroken to see this happen. Right now I suspect they're mostly having to pay Fox for the "privilege" of carrying the over-the-air content, but a change like this might well mean that the network was paying to be carried instead.
fencepost
just a little off
I think that it is a great idea to make people pay for Fox News. Perhaps then fewer people will actually watch and parrot it!
Could care less if they go subscription. There are maybe 4 channels I watch on a regular basis on cable. Currently I am heading towards cancelling my cable, as it is just not cost effective to pay for hundreds of channels when I only want a few.
I would be happy to pay for only the channels I watch, plus have on-demand content when I want something more. The networks and cable companies need to change their models fast, they are losing thousands of subscriptions to Internet content like Netflix and Hulu.
"Having a television antenna is every American's right."
Can't every american get his very own antenna from Walmart?
There's two things you're missing:
1) OTA networks get paid fees by cable & satellite providers for their content (disputes over these fees sometimes result in certain networks being dropped temporarily by cable & satellite providers). I'm sure Fox & friends would love to charge Aereo similar fees, but that would upset the incumbent providers who are threatened by internet providers like Aereo.
2) Networks are able to geographically limit their coverage (even on satellite providers) which allows them to sell local, regional and national advertising. If Aereo allows people living outside New York (or god forbid, outside the US) to view NYC OTA feeds, they wouldn't be extracting the maximum ad revenue possible.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
It seems to me that Aereo is a centralized equivalent of a Slingbox, just, well, centralized.
So of that's the case, the complaint by broadcasters would be, what?
- Infinging on sales of any mobile app they have to enable place-shifting their programming?
- The age-old argument that time-shifting is wrong? We fought that fight and won I think.
- Opposing Aereo because they mess with various ratings and data collection? This, BTW, I believe would be enough to justify the fight by itself.
- Opposing Aereo because they don't want to have to buy the data *again*? See above.
Same fight going on with Dish and the Hopper. Lack of 'control', which in the current environment is really failing to reocgnize that fight is already lost. We can place-shift, time-shift, do both at once. We have multiple ways. If these channels expect to be able to get me to pay for content with my eyeballs (commercials), or a mobile app for convenience, and get more and more revenue for the same content, they have a challenge. I'm not far from focusing my interests on programming that is given to me cheaply, be it Neflix or YouTube, or something else. The dinosaurs are fighting it out, but they will lose.
And I can't see this fast enough. Adapt or die, losers.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
This Fox COO is making dumb threats. As one with an inside-view of how broadcast TV is made available to viewers, I can tell you that this action if taken will result in no good for Fox.
Basically, there is in many areas at most a 15-20% marketshare for OTA broadcast TV, and the rest get their TV from cable or satellite. For Fox to be able to charge the "freeloaders" viewing by broadcast, they would have to implement some kind of scrambling of the broadcast signal.
Scrambling the signal would require hardware on both ends: 1 scrambler at the broadcast transmitter, and 1 descrambler at each viewer's house (many).
How many currently free viewers do you reckon are going to start paying Fox for hardware/subscription to view their 1 broadcast channel that they used to get for free? My bet is nearly none. So their 15-20% share would drop to ~ 2-5% costing them 10+% of their viewers. Look at that number, then think of the nation-wide ad revenue for the corporation it could represent, and plop that figure onto the table of the shareholders' meeting....
I Dare Fox to pull from OTA and go subscription only. They really as a network have only about 6 hours of programming a day. all the rest is created by the local stations.
Go ahead Fox... pull out and go Subscription only. I DARE YOU.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Good, let Fox univision and all the other broadcasters abandon the airwaves so we can free up that valuable RF for some real wireless broadband.
FOX actually puts on some very interesting and good shows. Without FOX, we wouldn't have X-Files, Fringe, Firefly (yes they did cancel it), Simpsons (Season 1-10, the rest don't exist), and Futurama (Season 1-5). They're about the only one crazy enough to try shows like X-Files, Terra Nova or Fringe. You knew going in that Fringe was going to have a limited audience but FOX still gave them enough time to completely the main story arc.
Then we can reward Aereo for killing Fox.
Now that I think about it, I'm surprised Aereo won that ruling. Sure, every consumer has the right to receive a broadcast signal on an antenna and record it for time shifting purposes, and ostensibly with Aereo you simply outsource those functions to them. But there's a crucial difference: Aereo is not located on your premise; it's remote. That means in order for the signal to reach you, Aereo must transmit it from the remote DVR to your premises. I mean, isn't that a re-transmission by definition? And if so, is Aereo legally entitled to retransmit without compensating the original provider of the signal?
Probably not a popular opinion here on Slashdot, but legally speaking I'm surprised Aereo won. Of course, IANAL and all that.
THIS is why their temper tantrum is sound and fury signifying nothing.
Related: I hate Fox's NFL intro music; it sounds like a ensemble that forgot exactly how the middle part of Jingle Bells goes.
actually, if they went to a subscription concept they'd lose a ton of viewers and basically go out of business near instantly.
Threats from North Korea and/or photoshopped missiles from Iran carry more substance than this.
So they're going to screw over their 185-odd affiliate OTA stations as well as the general public? Fuck you, Fox, go right ahead and try that shit, I hope you go bankrupt.
In all seriousness: This has to be some sort of a stunt/bluff. They'd screw themselves over and piss off everyone if they actually did this, and it would serve them right. Stop throwing temper-tantrums, Fox and Univision, and get into the 21st century already.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Aero is not only costing them nothing, it is actually increasing their value slightly (even though they don't actually bother to measure the value that is being increased), but the very thought that someone might be making money that isn't going directly into their pocket pisses them off so badly they can't even see business sense, much less logic.
Until they take it away...HAM frequencies aren't written in the constitution, and congress has proven to be motivated by corporate money.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It is the major media companies that sell their channels as bundles, not the cable companies. There is a reason that the cable companies work on a few high budget, good television shows to attract people to their networks.
ON tv and sports vision used to be on UHF. On tv folded. sports vision moved to cable later became sports channel later fox sports and then all the local teams dumped fox and started up CSN.
It depends, of course. There is no value added - it's just extending the signal. This should make is crystal clear:
If you're a cable provider sending a digitally encoded, real-time TV from the CBS network of a re-run of Big Bang Theory, yes.
If you're a cable provider sending a digitally encoded, recorded TV from the Netflix servers of a re-run of Big Bang Theory, no.
Both times the same entity (the cable provider) is sending you digital data over their digital network of an identical program. See how obvious is the distinction is when you spell it out?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The networks don't know how to share.
Should Fox and Univision decide to opt out of the over the air (OTA) signals and lose their licenses I predict the next act will come from the FCC who would then see cable, satellite and streaming as open to the same regulation, restrictions and or "requirements" as OTA signals.
I for one would welcome a fresh approach to Cable, Streaming and Satellite that once again put the American public center stage and the shareholders to these media giants a distant second.
To Fox: "Bring it On Baby!"
It'd be neat to see all the major networks go subscription and suddenly tons of local TV shows/stations sprang up like back in the day using local artists and shows.
The NFL Broadcasts it's NFC division games on FOX. I don't think they'd be happy to lose half their Sunday audience.
The sad thing is, if my neighbor paid me $ so that I would cut down a tree in my yard to give him better reception, the broadcasters would probably claim that I'm profiting from their content as well.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I can hook a slingbox up to my rented apartment in NYC to watch tv while I am in California.Similarly I am renting a space from Aereo. It is small, about the size of a tv tuner, but a space none the less. Seems ridiculously cut and dry to me..
They can run 10 channels instead of 60 for much much less outlay and get 80% of the payment.
Like Futurama, Babylon5 or any programming that is bloody brilliant ***IF YOU LIKE THAT SORT OF THING*** won't be made. If it isn't made, you won't be ABLE to buy it.
And they won't try. No guaranteed 30% ROI p/a.
According to the "everything must be free" crowd that dominates the internet, they must offer the same quality programming with the following criteria. You can't charge to view it. You can't put in advertising. If you do the ads must be completely skippable via adblock plus so nobody will view them anyways. You can't do product placement because that's just crass commercialism. It must be without DRM, and once you got it it must be perfectly OK to give copies to your friends. Without any significant revenue stream, how would anyone afford to produce any entertainment?
And no, the Neflix model won't scale up to produce the same variety of entertainment you are used to that exists now on cable. $20 dollars per month can only be split so many ways.
Producing entertainment at the production values people now expect is very expensive. The money is going to have to come from somewhere. If you don't want to pay for it, nor watch any ads, the market will react. They will simply stop producing new content. Get used to watching funny cat videos on youtube, because thats all you are going to get when nobody is willing to pay a dime for their entertainment.
Does anyone know what FOX's obligations to the NFL are, in terms of broadcasting? Are there other content deals that might *require* free-air broadcast distribution as a condition of the contract? Let's remember that being on a broadcast channel is still considered a prestigious position, to some degree -- remember when Monday Night Football was "relegated" to ESPN?
A bunch of fans sweet-talked CBS/Paramount into allowing them to continue the original Star Trek series on the internet. See http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/ and the download pages at http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/?page_id=74
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
54 million Americans get their tv exclusively over the air. None of the big 4 are alienating that many of their audience.
What they *will* do, however, is go crying to congress after they finish losing their court appeals.
What's the big deal? How do they lose money when Aereo brings more viewers? It's not like Aereo absorbs all the signal and they have to boost the transmitter power.
I quit TV late 2007, my life improved without TV. My "subscription model" is Amazon Prime, maybe twice per month. Hollywood. owns FCC & too much of Congress, so cable & satellite networks have to pay to do service for Hollywood but I do not care. We read. We talk. We do sex. We do not miss TV. Our mutual Christmas present was a 60" Samsung plasma screen. In over 3 months, it has displayed less than 12 movies, 0 TV shows & maybe 3 hours of Youtube. Our lives are better w/o TV.
While Hollywood is dedicated to perverting our society, I am have uncommon sense enough to avoid Hollywood products and better enjoy life w/o Hollywood.
Tiny local providers, late 1960's or 1970's, everyone thought the idea that anyone would pay for TV was insane. Surreal. The cable companies had a pitch: Since you are paying for it, we won't have to run commercials! It will be commercial free!
Stop laughing. Stop it! Stop!
As we move to streaming we will reach a point where we can watch most shows on our schedule, any tome any where. Even the big sets now have Internet access. , Once a critical mass is reached free streaming of broadcast content will end and everyone will pay for viewing time or bandwidth used for streaming. They aren't streaming for our benefit and where there's a buck to be made they'll go after it. Make access easy, give good quality, let us watch what we want when we want. Set the hook and reel us in. Create the market, create the mind set, and create the pay scale. Ever subscribe to a sporting event? A major event? It's downright expensive and makes several months of satellite or cable look cheap. Quite possibly broadcasters, or some broadcasters will choose to go with this model and give up the broadcasting with all the expenses ant time involved. It'll be a lot more convenient, but I'm willing to wager it will not be free.
The big screen is going to remain the main bread and butter for TV. Applications are fine for the 2 or 3" crowd, but who really wants to watch movies or even their favorite show on a 3" screen unless you are traveling. BTW we have Satellite, cable. OTA, and streaming. I've not watched a national network in 3 weeks. I do not like Fox's format, but I believe they are number one for all head to head comparisons for news and talking heads. CNN which was top just a few years ago is now at the bottom of the heap and the big 3 aren't far behind CNN. It's not that Fox is good, but the others are so bad.