Comments on: Bassackwards TV

By: XCableGuy

XCableGuy — Sat, 27 May 2006 01:14:58 +0000

Isn’t the phrase “Watch what we paid for” less than accurate–at least when it comes to ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX in their traditional broadcast network models?

While you might be paying Cablevision (or most other major cable operators) every month for the privilege of getting the local outlets of those networks in your market, for the most part the cable operators don’t pay for those signals and have fought tooth and nail not to do so. The ongoing skirmish over “retransmission consent” has been boiling up to what might now become the full-scale battle royale, as there have recently been cracks in the cable stand as hard-line smaller tv station owners such as Nexstar have been willing to hold their broadcast signals off cable for months until the cable companies have written them a check for those signals. Since the networks are no longer paying local stations to carry their programming as they once did, those stations are turning to cable to make up that hole in their budgets.

I get Hunter McDaniels point, but I am not sure that I object to part of my cable bill going for “Lost” instead of to Lifetime or SpikeTV, though I am sure that I will end up paying more for THAT privilege. If cable ever went to a true “a la carte” and you could buy it by just the channels you wanted, just how many more people do you think would want to pay for ABC over ABC Family, NBC over CNBC, MSNBC, & ShopNBC, etc.?

The economics of television keep shifting on a daily basis.

By: Hunter McDaniel

Hunter McDaniel — Thu, 25 May 2006 17:04:09 +0000

The big networks really want two things which are somewhat contradictory. First given that customers are only willing to pay $x per hour for entertainment, they would like to collect all of that $x without sharing any of it with intermediaries like the cable companies. Second, they would like to control the distribution channels (a la de Beers) in such a way as to create artificial scarcity which keeps up the price of $x.

The telcos want to end network neutrality, which would work against the media networks’ first objective but would further their second objective.

As as consumer, my interest is the exact opposite of the telcos.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Thu, 25 May 2006 16:29:13 +0000

If the big networks eventually want to do away with the middlemen(Cablevision) and use Internet VOD then it makes sense to keep cable companies using old technology for as long as possible. All they need are some good standards and a cheap MythTv type box that plugs into TVs. The big networks could agree on the tech standards and create their own cable box which would only require a broadband connection.

They’re probably going to standardize on BitTorrent, a good codec and use Linux for the OS. And maybe they’ll do the RedHat/Open Source thing and use MythTV as a foundation.

Here’s a quote from the guy who started the project:
“I got tired of the rather low quality cable box that AT&T Broadband provides with their digital cable service. It’s slow to change channels, ridden with ads, and the program guide is a joke. So, I figured it’d be fun to try and build a replacement. Yes, I could have just bought a TiVo, but I wanted to have more than just a PVR â€” I want a web browser built in, a mail client, maybe some games. Basically, I want the mythical convergence box that’s been talked about for a few years now.”