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ESPN Sues Verizon To Stop New Sports-Free TV Bundles
Mr D from 63 writes: ESPN isn't a fan of Verizon's new way of offering cable channels under its Fios TV service — they're now suing Verizon for it. The lawsuit comes after Verizon unveiled new bundles that allow customers to choose specific packages of channels that can be swapped every 30 days. ESPN claims this offer is not in compliance with their agreements with Verizon. In the U.S., ESPN depends heavily on viewership during the football season, then basketball. "ESPN is at the forefront of embracing innovative ways to deliver high-quality content and value to consumers on multiple platforms, but that must be done in compliance with our agreements," said an ESPN spokeswoman in a statement. "We simply ask that Verizon abide by the terms of our contracts."
If Verizon is in fact breaking a contract it has with ESPN then all I can say is that it is a horrible contract.
I don't watch TV, haven't for more years than I can remember, I don't care for commercials and I don't care for the content. I have 0 (zero) interest in watching any sports on TV whatsoever, never had any interest in watching sports, never will have any interest in watching sports.
Just saying, forcing somebody like me to sign up for a service that provides sports information as part of the package is a 100% way to have me avoid that service.
You can't handle the truth.
There is absolutely nothing innovative about what they do other than pick the pockets of every cable/satellite subscriber in the country. It is attitudes like theirs that are pushing more and more people to just cut the cord and build their own a-la-carte bundles from Netflix or Hulu.
I would gladly pay more for a bundle that did not include ESPN, or any of the other "sports" networks, or Empty-V or any of its myriad clones. Or the shopping channels.
I thought that was the only reason anyone had cable anymore, for the sportsing. Especially since HBONow is finally a thing.
"We simply ask that Verizon abide by the terms of our contracts."
Translation: And force people to pay for stuff they don't want.
Personally, I've *never* (ever) watched any of the ESPN channels and am annoyed at having to pay for them. Sure, I understand that a-la-carte programming *may* be expensive - at the moment - but I imagine business models and revenue streams will adapt as time goes on. In the mean time, Disney can kiss my shiny metal ass.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Well dude, It looks like Verizon was trying to give people the option to vote with their wallets, and ESPN is preventing that (or trying to.)
In the United States, contracts are understood by the letter, so if it isn't explicitly written, then it isn't enforceable (as opposed to say high context cultures, where there's strong enforcement of "implied" language.)
That said, it's entirely possible that Verizon's contract with ESPN is worded in such a way that they can get away with doing this. Verizon seems to think so, but ESPN seems to disagree. So that's where an impartial (theoretically) judge decides the result of how its worded, and how it will be enforced.
First what?
First time you'll ever see me actually root for Verizon? If so, yes. First.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I know if my mother-in-law had just the Hallmark channel, the game show network and one other she'd switch providers, even it only saved her 30%.
Alternatively, if there was a way to just get Netflix to stream random stuff in preselected genres all day I could get her off cable altogether - tens of millions of people just want the TV on all the time because they live alone, but can't stand the crap the broadcast networks have during the day and have no need for ESPN.
The problem is that the only real option you have is abstaining. You don't want this behaviour? No cable TV for you. Because there's no such thing as a "channel mix" that you want. Have you ever taken a look at the average "basic mix" of channels? Nobody, absolutely nobody, on this planet would choose these channels. No matter what his interests.
If you're not happy with this, your choice is to do without. Not only without the channels you don't want, but also the ones that you would want. Don't want Sports and Bible TV? Ok, no SciFi for you either.
And most people would rather grin and bear it than abstain. Essentially what it means to them is that they don't get the 100+ channels promised but actually just about 10, with 90+ more that could as well not exist.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't know if it is integrated with Netflix yet (or ever) but it address the exact use case you're describing. Picking random stuff from the set of all videos I have access to, group them logically into thematic clusters and just keep throwing content on the screen without the user having to invest any mental energy in choosing what to watch beyond "I feel like switching from the comedy channel to the science fiction drama channel."
I've been surprised to see how many people like this method of interfacing with their video content libraries more than selecting something they'd like to watch.
All of these companies are just going to sue themselves into oblivion. They've been raping and pillaging for so long, they don't know how to run an honest business. Too bad they are going to cause so much collateral damage on the way down.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Superbowl was on a OTA channel, no subscription required
Hooray for Verizon for trying to challenge the fucked up cable system. Maybe, just maybe, they see end of "cable" as a thing when anything can be streamed instead and want to stave this off by making at least kind of sane channel choices available.
Well, kind of. I think they made a lot of this mess for themselves. I think the TV channel sources saw the cable companies successfully ratchet up the prices continuously and figured they needed to be in on that money bandwagon. Enter in all the must-carry bundles and tier requirements and all the bullshit that got us to 800 channels of nothing for $150/month (and not even HBO, damnit).
And the cable companies didn't care because they could just pass off the costs to their customers through ever higher prices and announce "Wow! We've added even more high value content, ESPN Classic 4 -- all those great historic bocce tournaments from the 1950s".
And both the channel providers and the cable companies got fat and sassy.
And now everyone hates cable, hates paying $150/month for a bunch of channels they never watch and is dropping it as fast as they can.
You pay for channels you don't want so you can watch the few channels you do want.
The communications director at a local cable service provider once told me the problem with ESPN: it's the most expensive channel in their entire cable lineup. They would love to separate it out and treat it a-la-carte like HBO, but their agreements don't allow for it. Either everyone gets it, or no one does. And he said everyone gets it, because whenever the feed goes out for that channel, their switchboards light up like a Christmas tree. (He also mentioned that the other channel that customers most hate to lose is Lifetime, though that's not nearly as expensive.)
It's extortion, plain and simple. Though ESPN is only partly to blame...the NFL, NBA, and NCAA are also guilty for making game broadcasting rights so pricy.