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Price Dispute Means 800k Customers Lose TV Channels In Sweden (telecompaper.com)
Z00L00K writes: Due to a conflict between the cable operators and the channel providers, 800,000 to 900,000 customers will lose some of the most-viewed TV channels in Sweden, among them Eurosport, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. Additional customers in Norway will also lose channels. This is caused by a considerable hike in price for the channels from the provider Discovery Networks. However the amount of money involved is still kept secret for negotiation and business reasons. "Telenor Broadcast arm Canal Digital said Discovery Networks has told it that it will withdraw its channels from Canal Digital Sweden and sister company Bredbandsbolaget from 01 February. This follows Discovery's attempts to raise prices and pay for a number of channels that viewers had not chosen. This will affect their approximately 800,000 customers while a new contract is negotiated. Telenor Sweden customers will not able to watch Kanal 5 or the other Discovery channels until a deal is reached." Considering that Sweden has a population of almost 10 million the impact is noticeable.
I'm one of the affected Norwegian customers, and frankly couldn't care less that some channels are gone. What -I- want to know, is why I cannot buy broadband without having to pay for a lot of nonsense TV content. No one in my family watches TV anymore, and the consumer authorities have already pointed out repeatedly that this bundling practice needs to stop.
I was somewhat amazed by the claim that Eurosport was one of the most viewed channels here. So for fun I went to mms.se to check how they did yesterday. Three of their shows climbed above 5000 viewers, with one peaking at 35000. Most were in the 1000-2000 range.
The issue is even bigger here in Norway, where it affects almost 1 000 000 customers. Since our population is about 1/2 of that of Sweden, it means that almost 20% of Norwegian TV customers are currently missing all of DIscovery Networks channels, including several national ones.
Logarithmic TV FTW !
Discovery used to be pretty good, maybe 15 years ago. Now it is all reality TV with fake drama to disguise the fact that the same things happen over and over. It went from being one of the best channels to one of the worst, or maybe it's just in the middle because most of the rest suck just as bad. I know I'm going to get backlash for being one of those guys, but I'll say it anyway: ditch your TV subscription and get your shows over the air and online. Yes, yes, I'll concede you may want satellite if you live out in the boonies because OTA is out of range and you can't get decent internet speeds.
Price Dispute Means 800k Customers Lose TV Channels In Sweden
Slow down, Mr Headline. They haven't lost them yet.
This follows Discovery's attempts to raise prices and pay for a number of channels that viewers had not chosen.
Huh? Discovery wants to pay for some extra channels?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Given that it would be trivial for consumers to be able to pick the channels they want individually on a website and then pay for them for them individually, the fact that bundling is still occurring is a sign that there's an industry here that deserves disrupting. And lo - Netflicks is doing exactly that. Let's hope for some legislation to mandate a 'pick the channels you want' option...
The subscirption TV model in use today is bulky, expensive, and antiquated. Now excuse me while I go back to watching Netflix.
The quote in the summary is literally the entire article. The added text around the quote actually makes the summary quite a bit longer than the linked article.
Ah. Alas another example of the law of supply and demand failing because the client is not the client and the supplier is not the supplier, as everything is forced through middlemen.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
People are sick of these perpetual price increases. Cable is the only product I can think of that is constantly decreasing in value yet always increasing in price, well above the rate of inflation.
Enough is enough.
I cut the cord back in July, and I've not missed it. And better yet, my dollars are no longer fund channels like MSLSD or CNN.
Corporatism != Free Market
Television is a medium, so called because it is neither rare nor well-done. -Ernie Kovacs
again?
Last year, same issue, different channels:
http://www.sydsvenskan.se/kultur--nojen/700-000-hushall-kan-mista-tv-kanaler/
So a few thousand Swedes might lose access to Shark Century, Ice Road Fuckwits and Cannibal Hillbillies of Alaska?
Oh, the humanity!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
You're stating what's obvious to nerds and people who are aware of alternatives, but for the rest of the world, things like Netflix are just words they hear a few times per year.
So yes, the more the old telecom powers lose their grips on their markets by asking for more money instead of less, the more alternatives are getting known by necessity.
Coming soon to computers in your area: a more consumer-friendly, untraceable Torrent interface.
TV is DEAD, long live the TV.
...ok then, we'll just increase the number of ads and cover our usual income that way.
Advertisement revenue on traditional TV has been on a downhill run - the short term solution puts the FINAL nail in the coffin for TV, and that is the
In Sweden (or Norway, Denmark etc.) we pay for 3 licenses:
1) The National TV license. This one is MANDATORY if you have a television. It's roughly 300$ a year, and you can't opt out unless you have NO TV or RADIO.
2) The second license is the one you pay for your subscription channels, that is...if you want something BESIDES the NATIONAL "we-will-kill-you-with-culture" channels.
3) The THIRD license is the forced Advertisement which consists of pretty exactly 5 minutes of ADS (30-50% Casino/Gambling ads) and 2.5 minutes of ADS and SPONSORS for the TV channels next tv programs, which they will repeat over and over until you're a dumb monkey salivating as you try to reach the remote, now that finger pressing is just a body-twitch.
The worst part is that you PAY for all of the other stuff and STILL get forced to watch those horrible repetitive Casino-this-gamble-that ads.
I rarely watch "broadcast" television anymore, I usually spend my time on the internet, and/or watch PAID for documentaries and movies on Netflix and other services where I can TURN off the goddamn ads!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
...in the long run. No cable company should ever have paid anything for any channel or broadcast that carried advertising. Either ordinary (ad supported) channels or premium (no ads) channels. Period. Now look what a mess we have. Cable companies caused this, and when they first did, they weren't even competing with anyone.