Posted on 02/07/2007 6:16:11 AM PST by presidio9
A proposal to make Major League Baseball's "Extra Innings" exclusive to DirecTV has drawn the ire of Sen. John Kerry.
The Massachusetts Democrat said he plans to raise the matter with the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing Thursday.
"I am opposed to anything that deprives people of reasonable choices," Kerry said in a statement. "In this day and age, consumers should have more choices - not fewer. I'd like to know how this serves the public -- a deal that will force fans to subscribe to DirecTV in order to tune in to their favorite players. A Red Sox fan ought to be able to watch their team without having to switch to DirecTV."
"Extra Innings" is a service that allows viewers to watch games involving teams not in their local markets. In past years, the service has been available through a range of providers, but a pending deal would make the service only available to DirecTV subscribers.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is a scheduled witness at Thursday's hearing of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
A few points. First, I like NASCAR and MLB. I used to like NASCAR a lot more, but that's beside the point. Again, it's all lumped into "entertainment," so whether people choose between NASCAR and MLB or MLB and NFL, it's still choosing. People make a choice how to spend that money.
For most people, the entertainment budget is a fixed amount. Thus, if ordinarily a person goes to X football games a year and Y baseball games, an increase in attendance of football games will require a decrease in attendance at baseball games--simply because there isn't enough money to go around.
Second, I don't see why you think DirecTV isn't a mainstream product. Where I used to live, in a rural area, everyone had a Dish. No one had cable. Where my old man lives, in a suburban area, it's pretty evenly split, judging by the number of dishes that I see attached to the sides of houses. I now live in an urban area, and I see fewer dishes--but to say that dishes aren't mainstream I just don't think is correct. Cable is certainly afraid of the dish, and I think the fact that the FTC (wrongly) blocked the DirecTV and Dish Network merger a few years back due to antitrust concerns demonstrates that dishes have significant market power.
Third, whether you understand why MLB is making this decision just isn't relevant. Again, I suspect that it feels that DirecTV will promote MLB more heavily, and given DirecTV marketing of the Sunday Ticket (how many commericals have you seen for Sunday Ticket? How many for Extra Innings?--there might be something to the theory of promoting interbrand competition), but even if this is wrong, it's MLB's perogative to market its product however it pleases.
Kerry's anti-capitalist stance is simply big government nanny-stating. He's a punk, and a statist.
Except when it comes to choice of school, right?
"A Red Sox fan ought to be able to watch their team without having to switch to DirecTV"
Those who live in the Boston area probably still can. Those in California, if there are any, can watch the games shown on ESPN like the rest of us. Who cares about a Red Soxs fan in California?
So far as the niche market goes, I note that the FCC's most recent report (Feb. 2006) notes that DBS subscribers make up 27.7 percent of the multi-channel video programming distributorship market, while cable makes up 69.4%.
Interestingly, though, DBS marketshare increased 10% from 2005 to 2006, while cable market share dropped approximately 5% over the same period.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-263763A1.doc
Niche market? You be the judge, but closing in on 30% of the market doesn't seem like a "niche" to me.
I recently switched to DTV, and was promised I would get the locals. I got them all right, just not in HD. Had to buy the outdoor antenna and now get the locals OTA in beautiful High Def.
That's why we're angry. Of course they have the right to do it, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
Why doesn't Kerry act like a Senator and propose a bill ending MLBs monopoly?
Tell that to the NFL and their exclusive package with DirecTV. All five TV contracts with the NFL combined now equals 3.1 Billion dollars a season. Without the exclusivity of the DirecTV package, the NFL TV contracts could not have come close to this dollar amount.
Just as long as the Senate makes HBO free and allows Starz to carry all HBOs movies at no additional cost, I'll be happy. Can I get some ketchup with my baseball please?</saracsm>
I can get CBS and FOX but not ABC. On Dish these were taken off down here. I ger Los Angles CBS and the only reason I would watch them is for the football games.
That statement was true then, probably still is. I haven't been plugged into a phone line for years and I still have two movies that should be paid for from about 3 or 4 years ago. You can find them in one of the menus. Kids figured out they could watch FREE movies. I pointed out the falacy of their thinking when I discovered what they were doing.
So, it's not a question of them not giving me something. It's a question of them TAKING AWAY SOMETHING I DID HAVE. Something I liked alot. Something I paid a lot of money for. These are two completely different situations.
It's not good business to tell good customers to take a hike. Why is it good business over the long term to make your product available to only 15 million people when it had been available to almost 100 million previously?
The NHL has done something similarly stupid. They signed a deal with the Outdoor Life Network, now called Versus. I am a hockey fan, and I can't tell you what channel Versus is on. They got more money from Versus than ESPN offered, but their audience is minuscule and people are forgetting about hockey.
Baseball is losing the younger generation because they insist upon putting playoff games on way past the bedtime of anyone East of the Mississippi. Now they're taking out-of-market games away from people who've been supporting them for years.
And, AS WE HAVE SAID, they have a right to do it. But that doesn't mean it's a smart thing to do. Obviously, you are either not a baseball fan, or you don't root for a team outside of where you live. For those of us who fit into one of those 2 categories, this is going to be a very sad summer.
I followed baseball religiously up until the strike about a decade ago. The players set a date, as the date approached, they realized they had screwed up in setting the date and if they played one more week, they'd get a whole months salary where as they wouldn't get paid that last months salary with the original strike date.
In that one last week Randy Johnson threw a no-hitter and I think a 2-hitter. That combined with another couple good pitching performance from other players caused my fantasy baseball team to drop from 1st to 2nd place overall as I lost ratio on 10,000s of a percentage point. Suffice it to say that when the difference in winnings from first to second was almost $2,500, I was pissed as all heck.
From that day forward I vowed never to watch/follow or care about BB until every player that struck was out of the game. I sumped my fantasy teams and my stratomatic team that I had for over a decade also. I will never return to baseball ever, period. I only read about BB when they have strife. I will not go to a game with free tickets. I will not watch it on TV, ever. If BB is screwing over very loyal fans like yourself, my attitude is great, I hate BB. Nothing personal against you btw.
As a side note. Hockey shot itself in the foot because it, like baseball, believed their stupid records were more impotant than the game itself. At least the hockey owners were smart enough to realize that the whole season had to be killed to prevent the players union from pulling the same b.s. the baseball players union pulled when they struck near the end of the season in order to cancel the World Series.
If any owner other than Marge Schott had proposed they use replacement players and finish the season, the owners might have pulled their head out of their arses and had a World Series that year.
DirecTV is a niche market. Satellite may be, but that isn't what I said. DirecTV makes up approximately 60% of the satellite market, which translates into roughly 16% overall. That means MLB would be willingly decreasing their available subscribers by a factor of six. Why the hell would they do that?
EchoStar has been gaining faster than DirecTV, by the way, so I'm not sure DirecTV is really the beneficiary of overall DBS gains.
OK, where's the "Scrappleface" link? LOL!
Hills mostly. I suppose I could put up a large antenna but I would still need cable or satellite unless I was willing to settle for the three majors. None of the cable providers service this area.
What is so hard for you to understand about this? I just told you that MLB would be removing the ability that roughly 70% of the video market currently has. How is that not preventing people from watching games? You could at best make the case that it's not preventing people from watching the games - just making it considerably more difficult.
I never said I want MLB to televise every game. I never said I wanted MLB to change. I'm happy with what they offer now. This isn't even about MLB. It is about DirecTV. I can state that over and over and you'll still probably call me a communist (or a fascist) and attack an army of strawmen you think represent me or my views.
I don't advocate forcing any private business to do anything. If they violate the law (even in spite of their antitrust exemption) then they had better deal with that. I'm simply voicing my opinion as to why I think it's stupid.
I don't like Kerry. Just because I think he's an anti-American sack of crap, however, doesn't mean he occasionally stumbles upon something I agree with.
If you ask me, though, buying out your competition is the anti-capitalist move of the two. I advocate competition, not an artificially limited supply market with artificially limited demand.
Strawmen, my gluteus maximus. In your first post you showed support for the government mandating how and where a private business should sell its product. If you don't think that's fascism, fine. But don't tell me what you don't advocate when in your very first post on the subject, what you now deny is exactly what you were advocating. I assume this means you are now retracting that comment supporting/advocating John Kerry's plan to control private business(es)?
For once I agree with Kerry. Congress should also abolish the NFL Sunday Ticket as Specter has criticized.
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