Posted on 04/09/2013 4:05:52 PM PDT by servo1969
After winning a major court battle last week, Aereo has Fox Television so freaked the network is considering becoming a cable channel, which would mean yanking their broadcast from the public airwaves:
At the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual trade show on Monday, Carey, the News Corp. president, said, “We will continue to aggressively pursue our rights in the courts, as well as pursue all relevant political avenues, and we believe we will prevail.”
Carey added: “One option could be converting the Fox broadcast network to a pay channel, which we would do in collaboration with both our content partners and affiliates.”
That might seem like a counter-intuitive move if you are still under the naïve belief television revenue is all about eyeballs. But that is simply not the case anymore. Television networks and those who own them (like News Corp.) make a fortune from cable television. That is the golden goose these days, not ratings.
Let me explain:
Right now, you and I pay outrageously expensive monthly cable bills because we are forced to pay for dozens of channels we never watch. Even if you never watch MSNBC, you are still subsidizing Rachel Maddow and every other channel in your cable package because most every network in your cable package receives a monthly fee for every customer forced into a cable package that includes them.
How do you think all these lousy networks manage to stay alive? Trust me, MSNBC is not making a whole lot of money from advertisers with fewer than a million viewers. What keeps junk like Oprah and MSNBC afloat is the monthly fee we involuntarily pay when we are forced to purchase packages that include 200 channels even though all we really want is Fox News and Turner Classic Movies.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
That roof antenna is nothing to sneeze at these days. I was surprised to find out you can get a lot of basic cable channels for free now.
Nope. How else would they get the kids to sex?
IIRC, "a la carte" cable programming would require congressional deregulation of the FCC. There are also powerful lobbying interests for the telecom industry that are very against it, so they have plenty of congresscritters bought and paid for to keep it from happening.
Or you can get access to live streaming games online. I am considering the same thing... every day i get a bit closer.
NCAA had the tournament games streaming live, free, this year.
I cut back cable a couple years ago. Have an Apple TV puck and Roku puck. Netflix is awesome. There are other excellent sources, like Hulu. And Crackle, which is free. And you can spend thousands of hours on YouTube (lots of great movies, documentaries, and how-to videos). Broadcast TV sucks. Cable packages are expensive and limiting. The Internet and streaming services are great and inexpensive.
“IIRC, “a la carte” cable programming would require congressional deregulation of the FCC. “
Common misconception. Cable operators are perfectly free to offer a la carte services at any time — although they want everyone to blame Congress and the FCC.
Cable operators don’t want a la carte — they can charge more for more channels.
It would take FCC regs or Congressional action to force it.
Carey, the News Corp. president... added: “One option could be converting the Fox broadcast network to a pay channel, which we would do in collaboration with both our content partners and affiliates.” ...Television networks and those who own them (like News Corp.) make a fortune from cable television... Right now, you and I pay outrageously expensive monthly cable bills because we are forced to pay for dozens of channels we never watch. Even if you never watch MSNBC, you are still subsidizing Rachel Maddow and every other channel in your cable package because most every network in your cable package receives a monthly fee for every customer forced into a cable package that includes them. How do you think all these lousy networks manage to stay alive? Trust me, MSNBC is not making a whole lot of money from advertisers with fewer than a million viewers. What keeps junk like Oprah and MSNBC afloat is the monthly fee we involuntarily pay when we are forced to purchase packages that include 200 channels even though all we really want is Fox News and Turner Classic Movies.Pay TV should be (and should have been) a la carte, always, with a basic fee to pay for the bandwidth delivery. But first, NPR and PBS delenda est!
The fees the cable companies pay for programming are based on the number of customers reached. The broader the carriage the lowers the cost to the company.
If they went a la carte you would have about six channels people would be willing to pay for...and you’d pay about the same. Don’t forget you are paying for the plant as well. And that ain’t cheap to construct and maintain.
I think we’re headed to ala carte service. Remains to be seen what form.
Netflix, amazon, huku and others are offering a wide variety. Netflix will be showing 15 new episodes of Arrested Development.
We have everything on DirecTv, but could do without most of it.
Even HBO and others offer episodes on line. Perhaps the cost will someday be less than a monthly subscription to 5-10 different HBO channels. Most just repeating their first run programs.
I look forward to first run movies. Give it to me for less than two movie channels and I’ll order up.
That will never happen because cable companies are monopolies within their franchise areas. There are literally no overbuilt communities of any significance in America today. No competition means nothing to force them to do business any differently than what they have become accustomed to.
Ah, but the problem is sports. That’s about all I watch, and right now I’m enjoying MLB, but I won’t get many football games in the fall. :-(
At the root of almost every problem, you will find its fertilizer - government. Cable companies are government protected monopolies, and the satellite companies don’t really provide much competition. Then you have the regulations concerning public access, what you pay for public TV, and other regulations, and the result is the mess we have now.
I was talking to my wife about this just tonight. I am sick of paying for the outrageous number of channels we never watch and never will watch. We finally got enough monthly bandwidth from our ISP to make Netflix a workable option and we like it. After the next and final season of Breaking Bad we are canceling the cable. Eff ‘em unless they give me ala carte channel choice.
Aereo has commercials, so what’s the problem?
The reason why Fox is upset is because Aereo is taking their signal and re-broadcasting it to others without paying them. Cable and satellite companies typically pay stations and networks for the right to distribute their programming to subscribers. What Aereo is doing is theft.
Nope.
What Aereo is doing is merely to provide its subscribers with a well-provisioned remote TV antenna with which to receive broadcasts they would in any case be entitled to receive, if they could be bothered. The courts said so.
Cable and satellite companies typically pay stations and networks for the right to distribute their programming to subscribers.
That's ass-backwards.
Aereo is acting as a power-amplifier enabling the stations to reach subscribers they otherwise would not be able to reach, or who wouldn't take the trouble to receive them without Aereo's assistance. Thus, if any financial exchange is in order, it should be in Aereo's favor, not the stations'.
All I would want are FNC, Science, NatGeo, the various History Channels, and maybe G4. I don’t have time for anything else.
Many types of Espn for sure, NBC too.
So Fox should put all its programming on Fox.com. Problem solved. But they won’t, none of them do, except ESPN. Americans are forces into ridiculous cable plans for basic channels.
CB and a shortwave, too?
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