Check the back half of this video. I think it is actually a remarkably insightful glimpse into the future of the internet and television. Pretty interesting to think of the implications of big time college sports if these changes happen, given their utter dependence of big bundled cable service plans.

Good stuff.

What I wasn't seeing until now is just how to get more bandwidth cheaply given that currently the internet company is also your cable company that owns the bandwidth -- and the inherent conflict of interests that goes with it. Our government to the rescue!

Everyone on the Interwebs wants to kill off the BTN model, and perhaps that will happen, but I don't see where conferences will not be able to still make plenty of money with conference-only or bundled subscriptions given the growing uniqueness of must-watch live television. With ESPN and Fox producing or owning the rights to so much content, they will become your cable company. You can order a la carte, but the happy meal bundle will be there and will be priced very attractively to families (i.e. the "family bandwidth plan").

That was good stuff. Thanks GTS.

Pachter is a complete idiot. He has made so many idiotic predictions its hard to take him seriously.

Be careful posting on this information. I posted on ithis subject months ago and posters laughed me to scorn. They said it would be many years before the technology was available to make a difference. Yet, I know one person in the know that has invested $70,000,000 who said Internet TV as a way of life is just 3 years away. Then I started observing the major news networks investing in Internet news and realized it was just around the corner. As far as universities are concerned I was surprised when researching the subject that Liberty University seems to be the school way ahead of others in this area. Budget wise you would think the larger universities would be the leaders of the pack.

If his prediction is accurate a lot of small cable companies will be put out of business just like a lot of small cell phone providers were put out of business

(04-10-2013 07:13 AM)solohawks Wrote:  If his prediction is accurate a lot of small cable companies will be put out of business just like a lot of small cell phone providers were put out of business

Who owns the fastest broadband in an area will survive.

What this guy does not address is the lack of high speed internet in many rural locations. In eastern Massachusetts, Comcast Xfinity and Verizon Fios both offer superfast internet in the same locations. In northern New Hampshire, there are still places that don't get even DSL, let alone FTTP (Fios) or DOCSIS 3 (xfinity). His model only works where someone is offering FTTP or DOCSIS 3. In all likelihood, 80%+ of American homes will have DOCSIS 3 access within the next 3-5 years. Due to expense, though, I don't see FTTP reaching 50% for at least 10 years, maybe longer. The other possibility is that 4G wireless will be priced for unlimited home use. In the mean time, most Americans will have one choice for superfast unlimited home broadband, their cable provider.

(04-10-2013 07:13 AM)solohawks Wrote:  If his prediction is accurate a lot of small cable companies will be put out of business just like a lot of small cell phone providers were put out of business

You think the big businesses that own our government really care about saving small businesses? I don't...

(04-10-2013 08:40 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(04-10-2013 07:13 AM)solohawks Wrote:  If his prediction is accurate a lot of small cable companies will be put out of business just like a lot of small cell phone providers were put out of business

You think the big businesses that own our government really care about saving small businesses? I don't...

+1

(04-10-2013 08:40 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(04-10-2013 07:13 AM)solohawks Wrote:  If his prediction is accurate a lot of small cable companies will be put out of business just like a lot of small cell phone providers were put out of business

You think the big businesses that own our government really care about saving small businesses? I don't...

oh no i did not mean to imply that at all! I believe that 9 times out of ten regulations strangle small businesses and price them out of the marketplace.

just wanted to point out that when the market place becomes national, small business gets shut out, shut down, bought out, etc. it was true of early cell phones and early internet providers and it will be true for internet tv.

he suggested in the video that comcast would partner with xbox to offer their cable service via the new xbox. say comcast does that and then time warner partners with playstation. boom you now how have a cable duopoly and over time all other medium to small "mom and pop" cable providers will be forced out of the market place b/c they cannot compete.

heck, even pro wrestling is a good example of this. there used to be dozens and dozens of promotions that promoted regionally, but when the market place went national they all fell to the wayside and now we have 1 giant wrestling promotion.

people lament giant corporations that control everything yet that is the path we set up for ourselves

Right now to the best of my knowledge WiMax is only being deployed in a few rural areas likely subsidized with some form of government grant or incentive.

I think right now if I owned a TV station or radio station that I'd be thinking about placing a WiMax transmitter or two on my stick and offering low cost internet subscriptions and link the login to a splash page that offers my livestream (restricted to user IP's to avoid out-of-market contract issues) as well as apps for my content.

Why should I let cable, the legacy phone company or the cell companies get all the data network subscriptions and why would I not offer such a service to help push my content?

It won't happen as suddenly as you think. There are still a lot of us old farts around who will be resistant to change, since they didn't grow up in an age where electronics were readily available. I spend more time reading books than I do watching TV, and they aren't electronic books either. I have a massive private library, and I've read them all multiple times, except for the 26 books I've acquired in the last month or so. I'm slowly working my way through those...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-5757878...nly-model/

Did you guys check out this link?

This Aero company is angering the Big 4 TV Titans so much that they are threatening to take their ball a go home.

It sounds a lot like a Jim Delaney threat to me, but ya never know. If the Big 4 became cable networks, what would separate them from say Turner or Viacom other than legacy?

Sports would also play a key role in this because the NFL and others major leagues have guaranteed broadcast rights that they really seem to value.

If this were to come to fruition, I think you would see the reappearance of syndication for OTA stations. OTA stations are not going away and they will need entertainment content. So they would have to get it from somewhere. So OTA stations could become like radio currently is, where there are a ton of shows, but only a select few have a true national coverage.

I have heard that one possible model would be an OTA light version (I.E. No sports and high priced entertainment shows) and a Cable/Satellite Full Version. However, if that were the case, outside of news what would be the purpose of paying your affiliate fees and aligning with a network? That would open the door for other non broadcast networks, like Turner, to affiliate with OTA stations, if all that they are going to be offered is news.

I always love the "taking your ball and going home" response because it allows for so many intriguing possibilities and discussions.

The cities who command the utility easements should think like Lafayette, Louisiana. Why should the pipe owner be the content provider. The infrastructure needs to be separate from the programming/streaming.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10158583-76.html

(04-10-2013 07:13 AM)solohawks Wrote:  If his prediction is accurate a lot of small cable companies will be put out of business just like a lot of small cell phone providers were put out of business

I'm not passing a value judgment as to the ethics of this. I'm merely stating this sounds plausible, and maybe even potentially likely. Betting against government fiscal solvency and for big business lobbies are among the surest bets I can imagine. Another route to achieve the same effect is line sharing requirements. Sonic.NET was born when line sharing was required. (It no longer is thanks to John McCain) Sonic delivers GIGABIT connections for $100/mo. They can saturate your crappy Cat5e jank Linksys wired network with a pipe for $100/mo. No caps. No filtering. No port blocking. Too pricey? They can deliver "only" 100 mbit for $29.99/mo. Yea -- you heard me ... 4 to 20 times most of your home connections for less than half of what you're currently paying. In the UK line sharing is the law of the land and they have over 200 broadband ISPs as a result.

(04-10-2013 09:08 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Right now to the best of my knowledge WiMax is only being deployed in a few rural areas likely subsidized with some form of government grant or incentive.

I think right now if I owned a TV station or radio station that I'd be thinking about placing a WiMax transmitter or two on my stick and offering low cost internet subscriptions and link the login to a splash page that offers my livestream (restricted to user IP's to avoid out-of-market contract issues) as well as apps for my content.

Why should I let cable, the legacy phone company or the cell companies get all the data network subscriptions and why would I not offer such a service to help push my content?

WiMax is dead. The only serious deployment of WiMax ever was Sprint's previous (non-LTE) generation of 4G through Clearwire, which had PITIFUL data speeds because they overprovisioned the hell out of the network and it had horrible market penetration. THAT ... BEING ... SAID ...

Properly provisioned HSPA+ 42 (T-Mobile, AT&T previous gen 4G) can already reach real world low end DOCSIS 3 speeds (~20 mbit). Properly provisioned LTE (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint current) 4G can reach real world mid range DOCSIS 3 speeds (~50 mbit). The tech is there, your provider is just jamming more people onto the spectrum space to save money and increase profit.

(04-10-2013 09:12 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  It won't happen as suddenly as you think.

This is quite true ~ the shift to a new model take much longer than it take to imagine a shift to a new model. People were pointing out that cable would undermine the dominance of broadcast network TV a decade before it actually happened. The cable cutting phenomenon is going to be similar.

(04-10-2013 09:12 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  It won't happen as suddenly as you think. There are still a lot of us old farts around who will be resistant to change, since they didn't grow up in an age where electronics were readily available. I spend more time reading books than I do watching TV, and they aren't electronic books either. I have a massive private library, and I've read them all multiple times, except for the 26 books I've acquired in the last month or so. I'm slowly working my way through those...

I also don't think it will happen suddenly, although it's not so much about the "old farts" (albeit there's some of that).

Entertainment isn't a commodity. That's is, we're not talking about widgets. For the most part, we don't watch networks as much as we want specific shows and events (just as we rarely care about which studio releases a movie outside of maybe Disney/Pixar). The thing is that very few specific shows and events are self-sustaining on their own financially - in order for shows and events to ever be produced, you need the scale of other shows on a network or from a particular production company to pay for them. Mad Men could never, ever get produced in an environment that is truly a la carte. Never. It needs both the subscriber fees for AMC itself and the leverage of other AMC shows that Mad Men fans may or may not ever watch (e.g. The Walking Dead) for it to get produced. This is the case for well over 90% of the shows on TV. This is different than, say, music, which is a comparison that a lot of people like to make in terms of how the Internet has impacted distribution. Taylor Swift album sales aren't paying for Jay-Z productions at Universal Music Group (both artists are under that label). That's really the root of any issue with a la carte and how so many of the discussions about it are waaaaay too simplistic. Too many people are assuming that a la carte would mean that they get to choose from the lineup of networks and shows that exist today, which will end up NOT being the case. Instead, a la carte means that they would get to choose from a very limited number of networks and shows because only a small percentage of them could survive in that environment. Maybe people will argue that this is how it should work, but people need to realize in the vast majority of cases, the only reason why your own favorite network and TV shows exist is because a whole bunch of stuff that you're complaining that you never watch is paying for them.

At the end of the day, much of this is form over substance. We might end up receiving entertainment primarily via the Internet instead of cable/satellite. I could easily see that. What we now know as TV networks might drastically change. I could easily see that, as well. However, does that mean that we're going to be (a) paying less money for such entertainment or (b) really moving away from buffet pricing and towards an a la carte model? I would say no on both fronts. The push against basic subscriber fees is as much about corporate profits for the cable service providers as it is about supposed consumer choice. If you actually think that Comcast is going to be charging you less money in an a la carte world (considering that they also control much of the nation's Internet broadband infrastructure), I would call you INSANELY naive beyond all reproach.

On the second front, people WANT all-you-can-eat buffets of programming when looking at their actions. Look at the 2 dominant alternatives that people that have "cut the chord" use for watching shows: Hulu and Netflix. Hulu is the result of the TV networks having realized a few years ago that people don't want to go to individual network websites to watch shows (the essence of a la carte on the Internet), but rather they absolutely want them all in one place for one price. That is NOT a la carte. This is the exact same thing as cable pricing except that it's in the form of Internet streaming: I'm paying for access to hundreds of TV shows that I may not ever watch for the ability to watch the handful of shows that I actually do want to watch. The same principle is in place with Netflix - the value proposition for Netflix streaming is that it has the scale to provide thousands of options that you may or may not ever watch.

So, maybe the "networks" in the future will be Hulu, Netflix, and sports platforms like ESPN3 that are delivered on the Internet. Those are still all built on the principle of aggregating a ton of content on a buffet basis as opposed to a true a la carte model. The thing is that the price for each of those "networks" will rise as they obtain the same amount of content as exists on cable today, so I doubt that there will be any discount to the typical consumer once you add those all up in the future assuming that consumers still want all of the same shows and events that are available today. We've talked a lot about the form of receiving content (Internet vs. cable/satellite), but the substance and costs are eventually going to end up being the same.

Riffing on Frank's comments.

Recently one of the executives at Netflix said they are racing to become HBO before HBO becomes Netflix. That is they want to be a content producer who makes must watch shows to get that subscription fee and handle delivery before HBO severs its marriage with cable/sat.

I read a recent article where an agent or producer said the budgets for shows on HBO, AMC, Netflix are huge compared to ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox because they have to have a show that people will not give up. If I tried to cut AMC from our package my family would kill me before they'd let me give up Mad Men and Walking Dead. But the funny thing is, we never watched a Mad Men episode when it aired until Sunday. We started watching on Netflix got caught up, then watched last season on demand with our satellite company. Walking Dead we started on Netflix as well.

(04-10-2013 10:19 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Riffing on Frank's comments.

Recently one of the executives at Netflix said they are racing to become HBO before HBO becomes Netflix. That is they want to be a content producer who makes must watch shows to get that subscription fee and handle delivery before HBO severs its marriage with cable/sat.

I read a recent article where an agent or producer said the budgets for shows on HBO, AMC, Netflix are huge compared to ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox because they have to have a show that people will not give up. If I tried to cut AMC from our package my family would kill me before they'd let me give up Mad Men and Walking Dead. But the funny thing is, we never watched a Mad Men episode when it aired until Sunday. We started watching on Netflix got caught up, then watched last season on demand with our satellite company. Walking Dead we started on Netflix as well.

What will be interesting to see is if Netflix has to eventually adopt TV-like scheduling in order to make productions like House of Cards pay off. As a consumer, it's great to get all episodes of a show from day 1. From a business perspective, though, it may behoove Netlifx to ferret out episodes over a longer period of time since their model is completely about month-to-month subscriptions. If Netflix only gets one month of subscription revenue from producing a show with HBO-level production values, that's going to be VERY tough to sustain. They may need to at least put up new episodes in chunks so that they're spread out over 3 months or more.

(04-10-2013 07:08 AM)Rabonchild Wrote:  Be careful posting on this information. I posted on ithis subject months ago and posters laughed me to scorn. They said it would be many years before the technology was available to make a difference. Yet, I know one person in the know that has invested $70,000,000 who said Internet TV as a way of life is just 3 years away. Then I started observing the major news networks investing in Internet news and realized it was just around the corner. As far as universities are concerned I was surprised when researching the subject that Liberty University seems to be the school way ahead of others in this area. Budget wise you would think the larger universities would be the leaders of the pack.

Think about your last statement for a moment and clarity will dawn upon you. Who are school presidents at large state universities? They are faculty elite who have advanced within the system of higher education largely because they vanguard the power of that structure. Such persons are seldom people of vision because they are rewarded for protecting the status quo.

Who are the conference commissioners? They are largely former network people, or cable television insiders, or attorneys who have represented that industry in the past. They were hired by the conferences and university presidents because of their ties to the networks and their expertise in writing and negotiating contracts with the networks.

The reason the television deals are of long duration is that it not only benefits the networks to tie up their product for years thereby putting the leverage in live sports broadcasting product acquisition in their favor as it plays out against the trends, but the university presidents clamor for it because they want long term guarantees of income, even if they could make more from contracts of shorter duration. They are not business people, they are bureaucrats.

Unfortunately the other unnamed entity that will protect the status quo is government. They would lose lobby money and cooperation on pet projects if they permit the system to change, or at least change before their old business partners can find a new way to make a buck off of the changes. Either way it will be interesting to watch.