Coming Set-top Box Mandate May Help Break Pay TV Firms' Hold Over Viewers (latimes.com)

Joe_Dragon sends a report from the LA Times about proposed regulations that could disrupt the cable industry's hold on consumers by targeting set-top boxes. These boxes are required to view most pay-TV programming these days, and consumers often require multiples if they have more than one TV. The rental fees add up to almost $20 billion in revenue for the industry each year. Yet the technology within these boxes is nothing special, and alternatives could easily arise if there was incentive to create them. "The changes aren't coming fast enough for some lawmakers and consumer advocates as well as tech companies such as Google Inc., which are eager to jump into the set-top box market. They want the Federal Communications Commission to require that pay TV providers make their services more easily compatible with third-party set-top boxes or similar devices. ... Such a mandate could allow consumers to access their pay TV and streaming services through one device instead of having to switch between two or more. And it could lead to innovations such as an ability to search for programming across services to determine, for example, whether a movie is available on Netflix or on-demand via a pay TV provider."

Comments

Tivo will do this already

[cruff]

And it could lead to innovations such as an ability to search for programming across services to determine, for example, whether a movie is available on Netflix or on-demand via a pay TV provider."

A recent Tivo can do this. It can show you the various sources from which a movie or series is available.

Re:Tivo will do this already

[gstoddart]

And, just like happened when Cablecard came out ... the cable companies will do everything in their power to make sure it doesn't work ... either they'll just dig in and refuse, or they'll just add on additional fees.

If anybody thinks the cable companies will allow this to happen without trying to gouge people and make up the shortfall, they're delusional.

The cable companies simply don't give a crap about consumers. They never have, and never will. And they sure as hell aren't going to make it easy to stop paying them.

Honestly, all they have to do is seem so grossly incompetent as to not be able to make the system work. And that should be shockingly easy.

But don't start thinking this will work any better now than when cable cards came out in the first place.

Good luck ...

[gstoddart]

The cable industry has far too much power, far too many lobbyists, oh, and did we mention they pretty much run the FCC these days?

There is simply no way in hell these companies will allow anything to happen which cuts into profits. They'll stop it dead in its tracks, or make anything so onerous and impossible that it won't actually work.

Since they mention this in the first paragraph ... this will be exactly like the old black rotary phone ... even if you no longer have it, they're going to gouge you for "touch tone dialing" and pretend like it costs them anything.

Which means they'll charge you whether or not you have their box, will charge you to connect your box to their stuff, will charge you for the privilege of connecting your box to their stuff and for maintaining the infrastructure, and will find all sorts of ways to keep gouging consumers.

These companies have strangleholds, and monopolies ... they sure as hell aren't going to accept any regulations which cost them money. They're far too entrenched and feel they're entitled to that money.

And they have far too many fucking politicians on the payroll whose job it is to entrench in law their revenues.