Up Is Down, Day Is Night, And Aereo's Shut Down Is 'Pro-Consumer' According To CBS CEO
from the and-by-pro-consumer-you-mean-pro-screwing-the-consumer dept
Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, was one of the more vocal network execs leading the charge against Aereo. He was the one insisting that CBS would move its content off of the public airwaves if Aereo won -- to which many people said that sounded like a good idea, so that others could use that valuable spectrum. Of course, when talking to his investors, Moonves also admitted that an Aereo win would have no real impact on the company, revealing the truth of the matter.Either way, it's no surprise that he'd be delighted by the victory over Aereo. What gets ridiculous is when he claims that it's a "pro-consumer thing." How, exactly, is that the case? If you look at the comments from just about any Aereo user following Aereo's decision to "pause" the service this weekend in the wake of the ruling, it certainly doesn't look particularly "pro-consumer." Aereo user and GigaOm writer Jeff Roberts has what might be the best explanation of how horrible this is for consumers:
But while CBS and ABC investors may be throwing around high fives at the sop from the Supremes, the average consumer just took a bath. Not only did the court just stick it to them by protecting the TV industry’s bundle rip-offs, consumers also lose access to a marvelous technology.You can claim that the networks' win in the Supreme Court was "good" for the broadcast industry (though I'd challenge that assertion too), but to claim in any way that it was "pro-consumer" is just clearly out and out ridiculousness by Moonves.
Aereo, you see, was different. It gave urban dwellers like me a cheap way to see over-the-air shows (which the broadcasters send out for free in the first place, don’t forget) on their computers and phones.
The service, to be sure, was from perfect. The show streams could be choppy, and in the case of sports, the short time delay could be frustrating — I would sometimes learn about a goal on social media right before seeing it on Aereo. And it lacked the lazy, channel-clicking pleasure of TV.
But Aereo did point out what could be: a commonsense way to watch TV over the internet at a reasonable price. Now, we’re stuck instead with the TV industry’s over-priced bundles and, in the case of mobile, a confusing and convoluted “TV everywhere” system that seeks to replicate an out-of-date form of linear TV watching that no one wants in the first place.
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Filed Under: consumers, copyright, innovation, les moonves
Companies: aereo, cbs
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The problem is complex. Advertising revenue supports most of the shows over the air, yet no where near as profitable from a streaming service. Worse, these broadcasts are considered "free" by the public, which hasn't been the case since the advent of TV (the "price" was dealing with ads).
I feel for CBS because it's fighting a losing battle. Moonves may be making asinine claims, but so does everyone else who wasn't born in the internet generation, including 9 people who really shafted everyone.
There's so much back-scratching going on, it's no wonder consumers are getting pissed.
But ultimately, they're the ones at fault. If consumers would voice their opinion by ignoring the content produced by these companies, they will go away and stop suing everyone else.
Though, I doubt we'll ever see consumers making the right decision. They can't seem to live without their NCIS.
Consumers spend more time complaining than actually doing something about it.
For shame.
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What battle?
CBS is a company, not a military fighting some war against an enemy that wants to kill them. All CBS needs to do to remain profitable is to supply consumers with a product or service that the consumers want at a price they are willing to pay. There is nothing but their own stubbornness stopping CBS from doing so.
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If anything free content with advertising and other ways to generate income is the way to go, people have so much entertainment on the internet that is free and normally of higher quality than tv and they have to compete with that, if they do not it is their own downfall they will speed up.
Lets not even discuss movies, there are at most 10 movies a year that me and my wife watch or want to watch...that is only 15 hours of entertainment, why would i pay as much for those as i do for tv for a year, things are changing and it can only get better for consumers as monopolies fall by the wayside.
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If it's *my* antenna, then nobody is rebroadcasting anything.
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Quack Quack
Is that a duck too?
That's the problem with the current court. They make up really bad rules and like to pull things from their nether regions.
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Been there done that, turns out they didn't listen. We had not watched OTA tv for years (we cannot get a digital signal due to buildings and trees despite being a few miles from the biggest transmitters in the region). We subscribed to Aereo. Now the advertisers will never get my eyeballs on their ads again.
ps it turned out there wasn't much worth watching, but we have one sports fan in the hhold and that's why we tried Aereo.
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Actually, cable TV is headed for a much quicker death than broadcast TV.
Cable TV prices have gone up 300% the last 11 years, that's unsustainable. More and more young people are becoming 'cord nevers', and plenty others are becoming 'cord cutters' because the price has gotten too high for the value you get from cable TV subscriptions.
These are all very similar to the warning signs about the newspapers collapse. For years newspapers shrugged it off, and pointed to record profit numbers. But when newspapers finally fell, they fell very hard and very fast.
The same will happen for Cable TV, they'll fall very hard and very fast when they do.
Broadcast TV may be losing viewers and money overtime, but they were nowhere near as profitable as cable TV. Hence they'll likely hang on for a while in a slow decline, but cable TV won't.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8qgehH3kEQ
I used to watch, but after things like the above link, I just could not deal with it any more, despite being fairly decent for its Drama elements.
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Re: NCIS
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Viewers can bitch all they want. When have the networks ever cared about them?
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It is pro-consumer, but not in a way that will please his investors, shrinking his customer bases will hasten the end. The more people that find out they can cut the cord and still get entertainment, the more advocates for cutting the cord there are promoting cord cutting. Actions like this can only promote Netflix over the TV companies.
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Because it's not clear they can. The ivi ruling found that a similar service can't just pay the fees...
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"The Seattle-based ivi launched a service in 2010 offering packages of TV signals from broadcasters to ivi subscribers — without compensating broadcasters for the retransmissions. Ivi was charging its own customers $4.99 a month for the streaming service while refusing to pay the shows' owners.".
It seems, according to the above that Ivi was not paying at all or not paying everything that was due.
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That's wrong. Read the actual ruling, in which everyone agrees that ivi was paying compulsory rates under Section 111. But the court said they were ineligible for that exception to copyright law, because they're not a "cable systems."
Key quote:
In other words, an internet company is not eligible to just pay compulsory retransmission fees...
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Look at how much the music cartels wanted from online services even in the face of evidence it lowered copyright infringement.
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Obviously there are idiots who think the above is true, like the OP.
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I don't get it..
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Im saving some money! Thanks Fox/CBS
I wonder if I will be able to find what I want to watch elsewhere???????? For free.
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I've Got Better Things to do
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i ask you, how the fuck can a cable system be the same, under any stretch of the stupid imagination, as an over the air system? what was needed here was people who were totally unbiased looking at each system and making the sensible conclusions, not a bunch of pre-paid law enforcers who get a bit of help from one side, particularly when the haven't got a clue as to modern technology!
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It's not like Aereo was removing broadcast network ads and inserting their own. Like cable networks do...
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It's the monitor from Brazil
Their computer monitors are the best example--a fifties-looking 9" CRT with a giant magnifying glass in front of it.
It occurs to me that Aereo was the manifestation of that monitor--a completely convoluted solution to work within the arbitrary boundaries of a corrupted government.
Perhaps it is best that it failed, so that the problem of copyright must be addressed head on. It would be a shame to distort our technological future like that.
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Irony
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Re: Irony
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MAFIAA Free for around a Decade now and am very happy !
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As far as the people renting antennas from Aereo are concerned, CBS actually did follow through on their "threat" to stop broadcasting altogether. Can't see how this benefits CBS, but consumers have a lot better choices available out there to choose from.
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