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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."
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?
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.
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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!
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."
"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 .
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'.
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 don't know who that "everything must be free" crowd are. Personally, I would gladly pay for quality content if that content is made available to me in a convenient way. This boils down to two things: 1) I must be able to pay for it once and stream it when I want it (i.e. no subscription), and 2) it must not be bundled with some other crap. I'm fine with time-limited rentals, DRM etc. Just make it all easy and convenient and get rid of all the bullshit.
Oh, and forget the word "cable". And the general idea that I need to subscribe to a load of crap to get a few things that I actually care about. I want to pay only for what I actually want, and no more than that.
I'm more than willing to pay a dime (or several hundred dimes) if I can actually get easily accessible things that I want to see.
For example, I have a Netflix and Hulu subscription. Why? Because streaming content, my choice of what I see or don't see, no advertisements, and no contract. I'm happy to pay for it, because it gives me what I want, when I want it, and doesn't get in my way.
Conversely, I'll never pay for a cable subscription again. Cable requires (at least in my area) a 2 year contract, gives me 100+ channels of crap with only 3-5 that show something that I'd like to see (but only shows what I want to see at certain times of day), and forces me to watch advertisements. Why would I pay to watch advertisements? I'd be 100% ok with ad supported free channels, but if I'm paying for it, it had better not have ads.
Here's a suggestion for the cable companies out there. Turn your network into the Netflix of TV. Basic premise is that you can watch the last 3, or 5, or maybe the entire season of a specific show. For news, show the last week. Give it to me searchable, and let me pick up from where I was watching last time. Make it available for a reasonable, tiered price (eg, it's ok to charge extra for premium channels like HBO or Starz), and don't force me to sign a contract. Finally, get rid of the advertisements. Or, maybe give people the option to pay 75% the normal subscription price if they'll watch an advertisement at the beginning of the content.
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