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Cable TV's Password-Sharing Crackdown Is Coming (bloomberg.com)
Charter Communications' CEO, Tom Rutledge, is leading an industrywide effort to crack down on password sharing. It's a growing problem that could cost pay-TV companies millions of subscribers -- and billions of dollars in revenue -- when they can least afford it. Bloomberg reports: Cable and satellite carriers in North America have lost 3 million customers this year alone. But the prevalence of password sharing suggests many of those customers, and possibly many more, are watching popular shows like "The Walking Dead" for free, robbing pay-TV providers and programmers of paying subscribers and advertising dollars. Most pay-TV companies only require users to re-enter their passwords for each device once a year. During contract negotiations this fall, Charter urged Viacom Inc., home of Comedy Central and MTV, to help limit illicit password swapping. The cable company wants programmers to restrict the number of concurrent streams on their apps and force legitimate subscribers to log in more often, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. ESPN, meanwhile, has reduced the number of simultaneous streams that it allows on its app to five from 10 and is considering cutting that to three, Connolly said. ESPN wants to work more closely with distributors to validate subscribers when there are high volumes of streaming on its app outside the cable company's territory.
With every passing year it becomes more of a pain in the ass and more expensive to "consume content". I cut the cord almost ten years ago and now only pay for my DSL connection and Netflix. I would never in a million years pay for multiple streaming packages and/or cable tv or satellite tv.
Never...
If anything, this amalgamation of absolute fucking crap that continues to roll downhill, masquerading as the current content consumption paradigm, has me watching less "tv" and reading more.
Thanks!
We need a law to prohibit all terms in a contract not specifically related to the acquisition and distribution of said content. Problem solved. How many times a app requires someone to reauthorize really? I would assume they were talking Netflix...
Why the hell is this a problem for government to solve?
WTF do you want? The fucking logon police?
Talk about overweening statism...
If a company wants to charge for their content, let them figure out how to prevent users from sharing logins.
I'm sure all of those millennials sharing their parents' passwords will immediately sign up for cable as soon as the restrictions take effect.
$n.nn for two screens $n.nn + $5 or so for 4 screens.
Seems pretty dang simple to me.
Rather than trying to police the mess that is "is this a shared PWD or is this a mobile user or is this a legit user that moved their cable box for the night?" they just limit concurrent streams to whatever you've paid for.
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If everyone paid for their own share, those of us who are honest wouldnâ(TM)t have to pay extra to subsidize the free loaders. I canâ(TM)t wait til everything is a la carte also, so I can pay for a particular NFL game or ESPN in general without subsidizing shit like PBS or CSPAN
The way things are going at ESPN, PBS and CSPAN are going to be subsidizing ESPN.
Dunno if you caught pics of NFL stadiums lately, but lots of fans are showing up disguised as empty seats.
The networks and the NFL have an obvious vested interest in not showing that, but even in last Sundays Steelers-Patriots game (probably the two best teams in the NFL right now, that had huge playoff seeding implications), I caught one aerial view that for a few short seconds showed a shitload of empty seats. The network cut to another view pretty fast...
NFL empty seat images
The more you tighten your grip cable companies, the more customers will slip through your fingers.
Yaz
Netflix DVD catalog is VASTLY bigger than the streaming catalog. It has almost every movie ever made. In addition, you can rent a DVD, watch it, sneakernet it over to your buddy, who watches it. Then post it back to netflix. No password needed.
The only significant drawback is that you might have to wait a few months for the newest TV series to appear on DVD - unless you can pick them up on broadcast. Just think of it like if they had come out a few months later. In some ways that is nicer, because you can binge them if you want without waiting a week between eps.
>>...when they can least afford it
Go on, tell me another one!
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Sounds like cable is about to shoot itself in the foot.
Meanwhile, Netflix doesn't complain about shared passwords, even allows users to set up multiple profiles on each account so it's easier to share.
I hope netflix has enough bandwidth to absorb all the new customers that are about to join up.
Just limit it by MAC to a certain # of devices, and let the user delete devices from time to time. Apple does this already, so does Adobe CC, and Google Music. It's not that hard.
The whining is coming not from the content providers, but from the cable companies, because they're the obsolete ones getting screwed. Viacom doesn't care because the more streams there are (regardless of shared login) the more $ they get to charge advertisers on OTT.
It's simple math: a+b = cable companies just need to die already.
-SM
It seems like I'm being asked to log into my Roku apps on a monthly basis already, how much more do they want?
I use my parents' cable account password to access streaming apps on my Apple TV for the providers that require a cable password after we cut the cord. I'd gladly *pay* individual providers for streaming instead if they provided it rather this stupid cable password requirement.
with overage charges and now this. It's funny that they had 8 years to do these things and restrained themselves and for some reason in the last year or so they've gotten a lot bolder. I wonder if something happened about a year ago to change their outlook on customer service and how much they can get away with...
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"Cable TV's attempt to boost Netflix subs is coming" - corrected headline
You are taking the "content" as a given. It's not. The content doesn't materialize of its own accord from the vacuum. Someone produces it, and unless they are making art for art's sake, they have an expected return.
The device MAC address gets registered with the ISP/TV provider as "allowed"
The device's MAC address is invisible after the first hop. Unless you are saying that the device reports it over its own private channel. But then you would just use a device where you can easily spoof a MAC address.
Now if the device had to check in from the home Internet connection every 30 days to get an authorization token, that would be almost reasonable.
I won't buy the disc. I won't pirate it, either, but when AMC makes $1.40 per subscriber that can DVR every show on AMC, paying $25.00 for a season of The Walking Dead is absurd. Instead, they get nothing from me except what Netflix pays them, and I watch the full season when it becomes available there. I'm a patient person, and don't give a crap about spoilers, and I have plenty of other shows to watch in the meantime.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
You can get PBS ala-antenna
Cable companies: "We need to government to protect us from our theiving customers." Also cable companies: "But government regulation is bad! We must end net neutrality!"
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
... It's a growing problem that could cost pay-TV companies millions of subscribers -- and billions of dollars in revenue -- when they can least afford it. ...
My office mates are looking at me funny, because I quite literally laughed out loud when I read that.