Charter Communications Refuses To Air Antenna Manufacturer's Ad
from the the-'plug-ears-and-chant-loudly'-business-model dept
There's a lot of talk about "cord cutting" going around. On one hand, the techier side of the spectrum feels this is the new normal and that it spells out the eventual demise of cable companies. On the other hand, cable companies are stating loudly that this isn't happening and displaying chart after chart of flat (or slightly declining) subscriber counts as evidence that things are still "pretty OK." In between, you have the public, which is blessed with more options for content consumption than ever before. Sure, many of them still have a cable line running to the house, but it's debatable how much of that piped-in content is being consumed via the cable box. After all, most cable providers are also ISPs, which brings content into the home via services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu.
Cable and satellite companies have long fought against having to inform its current (and potential) customers that their services aren't needed to receive free, over-the-air TV. This is why many networks are battling antenna manufacturer Aero in court -- to protect the carriage fees they receive from cable companies. If the cable companies lose subscribers, they lose these fees. Cable companies aren't happy about these antenna manufacturers either, and are pushing back by limiting the reach of their advertising. Vidiot sends in this GigaOM story about Antennas Direct and its run-in with Charter Communications.
You don’t need a cable subscription to watch ABC, CBS or NBC – but don’t expect to learn about alternatives if you’re a Charter customer. Over-the-air antenna maker Antennas Direct recently wanted to buy some air time on Charter‘s cable channels to explain how TV viewers can access these channels without a pay TV subscription.
“We thought it was a fairly benign message,” Antennas Direct President Richard Schneider told me Thursday. Charter disagreed – and rejected the spot for competitive reasons.
While Antennas Direct may compete somewhat with Charter's core business, its purchasers are limited to free, over-the-air channels. Charter offers many channels (along with phone and internet services) unavailable over the air, along with premium offerings. Someone knocking a handful of channels out of the hundreds available shouldn't be a concern -- unless cord cutting is more a threat than these companies want to admit. Charter's refusal to air this aid is an implicit admission that cord cutting is more of a problem than it's willing to state in public. As Richard Schneider, president of Antennas Direct, points out in a blog post at the company's site: “When a multi-million dollar antenna company can strike fear into the heart of a 7 billion dollar giant, you know your message has merit.”
Along with giving people a viable reason to ditch their cable subscriptions, these antennas offer something else the cablecos can't: uncompressed HD. Ever-expanding channel lineups have run headlong into bandwidth limits, forcing cable companies to compress their HD offerings. Not that you'd know it from cable company advertisting or their channel lineups, which list dozens of HD channels, most of which are delivered in less-than-true-HD form with compression that can run anywhere from 1-40%.
So, while there's nothing wrong with Charter's actions from a business perspective, blocking a few "competitor's" ads isn't going to save it for long. After all, more and more people are getting their advertising (and other information) from a variety of screens, rather than relying on TV broadcasts. This ad shutdown does nothing for Charter and gives Antennas Direct a huge boost in publicity. Maybe it would have been smarter to just let these ads run in their "normal" environment, commercial breaks, where the message would have become background noise for fridge runs and bathroom breaks. Instead, Charter has allowed Antennas Direct to walk away with the win and spead its message to savvy internet users, most of who are more than happy to ditch services they find incomplete, limiting or unnecessarily expensive.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: antennas, competition
Companies: antennas direct, charter communications
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Final Proof
/TAM
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Final Proof
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Final Proof
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Final Proof
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Final Proof
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I no longer own a tv and don't want one in my house. It's nothing but an extreme annoyance of constant state of bombardment over commercials and ads. I can do without that and have a much more peaceful life.
Best yet, I don't have to pay for such dubious entertainment with no value at all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
1. It does compete with basic channels and that does cut the bottom line for Charter.
2. With people leaving cable channels for online viewing, it's forcing the ISP side to invest in infrastructure to support online viewing.
3. Like Mike stated, they seem to be shortsighted and believed that loosing the few customers from the commercials was more beneficial than giving the company a huge advertizing boost in viral ads they will probably see now.
I'd say it's a big win for Antennas Direct, they get more ad views and no loss in revenue to Charter to air their ads...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Really? "Savvy internet users" don't know about TV antennas?
This may be news, then: You can go to a local Radio Shack or even less specialized retailers and get an antenna for less than the $195 package from this place catering to "savvy internet users". (THOUGH to be fair, having all in one package with amplifier and instructions is SOME value for those who've never done it before.) But in urban places an UN-amplified omni-directional may be better than the package I looked at.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Really? "Savvy internet users" don't know about TV antennas?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Really? "Savvy internet users" don't know about TV antennas?
Read again, you completely missed the point before launching your usual impotent attack.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I cut the cord
I have a good antenna on the roof and even here in Pittsburgh, with all it's hills I get over 30 channels. 10 or 12 that I actually watch.
A dedicated laptop with a wireless mouse is my set top box, DVR, and DVD/Blu-ray player (that I never use any more). I also have a 4TB hard drive on the network that has more movies & TV shows in it than I'll ever watch.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I cut the cord
I had satellite for a few years, left it for 10 years, then had it again, it was the exact same programming !!!! rubbish..
I already pay for the adds that come with free to air programming, and for the station to make money off the adds they need viewers (not prepaid clients), therefore the quality of the programming has to be better for that reason.
Everyone pays for the adds that are on free to air, you pay for them by paying higher purchase prices for every product you buy..
why pay twice.
Free to air, only means it's provided free, you still pay for it..
With every purchase you make..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: I cut the cord
BTW, HD TV is heavily compressed whether over cable, satellite or broadcast. Bandwidth will always be a problem.
BTW2, FTA, cable or satellite, I think that internet TV will blitz the lot soon.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bought two, then made my own.
"amplified" one at a rummage sale.
Was happy to get at least some of the wasted cash back.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Bought two, then made my own.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
in the real world it is common for a company to not want to advertise for their competition, they have every right to choose on a commercial or ethical basis not to engage certain clients.
In the real work, in the TD world everything is something... !!!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
how accurate are cable statistics?
So for the last year I've had the potential for cable tv, but never actually hooked it up to a monitor. I haven't watched television for many years now, but if you asked Comcast, I would be one of their happy little tv customers. I wonder how many other people are in my situation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Cable is getting to possessive about how anyone can watch TV also. Clamcast now requires that all TV's have to use a set top box for any use over basic of which there is a fee for each, of course, also. Its possibly going to a point where your cable firm knows what and when you are watching. Don't want to use their silly remote with the expensive looking, over sized “on demand” button and like the one that came with the TV much better. The tuner was better also.
For these and other reason have cut the cord long ago. The bill was usually around 100-150/month for the few channels watched out the the huge bundles had to purchase. Have saved literally thousands in fact its getting closer to a five digit savings! It seems to me that this is another form of copyright extortion by high media overcharging. (the damned things were already paid for once)
So they cost to much, provide questionable service(s), are a potential privacy leak, force unwanted equipment on subscribers, force subscribers to pay for said unwanted equipment, put the one channel we want into a huge money wasting bundle, ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
They have their faults, but...
They have never notified me of a bandwidth cap.
They don't bow to the pressures of RIAA and as far as I know, aren't a member of the 6 strikes rule coalition.
I tend to have very few problems with my service.
Sure, the DVR sucks and I was a little pissed when they disconnected me when my neighbor switched to dish, but as a whole they aren't a bad provider.
As a whole, they've stuck up for me. So I'm going to give them a pass when they decide not to air commercials for an antenna company.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Amazon Prime> Cable
Public Access> Hulu
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's rather unfortunate the 7 billion industry can use its current deep pockets to block new multi-million competitors eh?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Minor mistake in copyediting
Correction: they rejected the spot for anti-competitive reasons.
;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That antenna won't work on all stations.
List of low-band DTV stations in the USA - W9WI.com
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]