Broadcasters Working Hard To Cripple Dish's Consumer Friendly Sling TV
from the get-the-hell-out-of-the-way dept
You might recall that two years ago just around this time Dish technically won the CNET best of CES award for its Hopper auto-ad-skipping DVR technology, but CNET owner CBS trampled its own editorial policies by not only telling CNET to pull the award from Dish, but also banning CNET from writing reviews about the product. The excuse CBS gave was that CBS and Dish were involved in ongoing litigation over whether ad-skipping violated copyright, though of course the real reason was that CBS simply didn't want Dish's consumer-friendly product getting any more media attention than was absolutely necessary.After the rather ridiculous fiasco, CNET reporters resigned and CEA took the "best of CES" honors away from CNET and gave them to Engadget. Fast forward a few years and Engadget has brought things full circle, this year awarding Dish's new $20 Sling TV service with the best home theater product award, best software/app award, and best of CES overall award. With perhaps an extra dash of hyperbole, Engadget declares Sling TV to be the beginning of the end for traditional television:
"Many of us have been waiting, hoping and even lusting after Sling TV before we'd ever heard of it: an internet TV service that gives you the channels you love, on any screen, anywhere, without a subscription to traditional cable or satellite TV service. Our long wait finally, blessedly ended at CES 2015. Sling (don't call it Dish) TV is a big deal, folks. It could very well be the beginning of the end for traditional pay TV here in the US, and that's not something I ever thought possible before this week. That, friends, is why Sling TV is taking home three Best of CES awards, including Best in Show."That's probably overdoing it. While we noted that the service is a big deal because it finally breaks ESPN out of the traditional cable bundle, the lack of live broadcaster channels (for now), the inability to record programs, and the scattershot content catalog don't quite make this a cable TV killer yet -- though it's at least a step in the right direction (2015 looks to be the year streaming video finally leaves the cradle). Of course, like Dish's Hopper DVR, Sling TV very nearly didn't exist, and it came only after Dish was willing to give more than its pound of flesh to change-averse broadcasters.
Dish had to promise ABC that it would disable ad-skipping for some ABC content on Hopper to secure licensing rights. CBS (busy cooking up a $7 a month streaming service of its own) then proceeded to make it clear Dish would have to jump through even more hoops if it wanted similar deals (which haven't been struck yet). Apparently Dish's contract language with broadcasters also includes a clause whereby the satellite provider has to stop advertising the service if it reaches five million viewers, since you certainly wouldn't want a streaming television offering to get too popular and disrupt the cozy cable and broadcast status quo.
And those are only the contract restrictions we know of. Again, ad skipping and streaming TV aren't really all that innovative anymore -- but they are in an industry that fights tooth and nail against a litany of common-sense things consumers want (greater freedom in channel selection, fewer ads, prices that don't skyrocket at four times the rate of inflation). And Dish's uphill fight likely isn't over yet; should the service see any kind of traction you can be sure the cable companies and ISP will come crawling out of the woodwork, demanding the same kind of interconnection deals they struck with Netflix should Dish want its traffic to continue flowing unhindered.
So forget about the best of CES award, we really should be doling out an annual "I ran the gauntlet of protectionist legacy jackasses and still managed to somehow release a consumer-friendly product" award.
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Filed Under: broadcasters, cord cutting, limits, sling tv
Companies: abc, cbs, dish
Reader Comments
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Typo?
Wait, why does ABC care about ad-skipping of CBS content?
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Re: Typo?
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Re: Typo?
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Close but not quite.
Streaming has the potential to actually REDUCE the level of control the consumer has over content. It's all a matter of how content providers choose to deliver it. It's not a foregone conclusion that the new service is an improvement.
Plus ESPN is still force bundled with other things.
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Re: Typo?
It's simply a way to cripple the competition, I expect.
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Re: Re: Typo?
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Re: Re: Re: Typo?
Sorry, I got mad.
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Actually this was in discussion on a list of smaller ISPs, actually WISPa to be specific. It seems as though Dish is talking to providers about distribution deals through smaller regional ISPs. Possibly a smart move by Dish to fend off future law suits with anti-competitive motions...
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It's not piracy, it's abstinence.
#notyourpirate
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Not quite there yet...
Overall though, it's not just that cable bundling is dying and that people want choice via their Internet connection. Ultimately this story is one thing: people are going to pay less for their entertainment and the entertainment and sports industries are going to have to learn to live with less.
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Dish doesn't violate copyright at all.
Dish adds whatever ads they've contracted to add.
Dish broadcasts the complete content, advertisements included.
Dish subscriber records the entire content, advertisements included.
Dish DVR asks the customers if they'd like to skip over the commercials.
Dish DVR customer determines whether they want to or not, and the DVR does what the customer wants with their private personal recordings of the content.
How is this in any way, shape or form violating anything.
It's the same as people have done for decades with VCRs and other PVR technology, albeit, slightly better.
We had to press "skip ahead" or "Fast-forward" to flash through the advertisements, which we laboriously did.
Now, here's Dish with something that makes our lives better and easier, automating that manual process, but still, completely under our control.
WTF CBS? WTF ABC? WTF FOX?
Get over yourselves - your product ain't that great to start with, then you f with our controls on what we do with it once we've recorded it?
I'm glad Dish stood up to Fox regarding Fox's attempt to steal more money from dish customers for their crappy news product. I don't miss Fox News at all, and hope it never comes back.
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Re: Dish doesn't violate copyright at all.
Gah, except for the ad skipping?
*scrabbles for crazy pills*
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Re: Re: Dish doesn't violate copyright at all.
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Re: Dish doesn't violate copyright at all.
It isn't. But back at step 1, the content providers are refusing to license the content unless Dish agrees to disable ad skipping.
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Re: Dish doesn't violate copyright at all.
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Make a competing product!
If I had a-la-carte cable channel selection AND the option to pay extra money per channel to have NO COMMERCIALS They would be getting my money no problem.
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So instead of maybe being a customer this is a deal breaker in no uncertain terms. Instead I will continue as I have for many years with no tv service at all and have become accustom to that. That means all the broadcast services will reach me with no commercials.
This is what I demand and will accept nothing less on. The cord was cut long ago and it will remain that way. I see no value in outrageously expensive poor programming. I do not look forward to another rerun, another reality show, nor another ripoff of some idea that passed through in movies.
Nothing in this article convinces me to change my mind in that choice but rather reinforces the continued abstinence is a good decision.
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My Tivo's Placeshifting Gotchas
http://pr.tivo.com/press-releases/roam-free-baby-nasdaq-tivo-1062178
That sounded great to me. I could be rid of my trusty Slingbox, and the added complexity. But every time I've tried to use the Tivo streaming functionality, I've found a DRM douchebaggy impediment. Here's a list of what I've found.
1 Did not work with my Android, only worked with Apple. OK, Android was added later.
2 Would not work on my wife's iPhone on AT&t, only over WiFi.
3 Would not work on my Android phone, because phone was previously rooted.
4 Does not work out of country. (OK, pretty common restriction, but that's over half of my use cases, and my Slingbox does it fine.)
In all, it fails in just about each of my family's usage scenarios. So, thus far, I am pretty much f@#$d, so I have only used it in my home over the LAN. Yay! TV content I bought in my very own home! I re-installed my Slingbox.
It seems like Tivo worked very hard to make sure I could not use the place shifting feature. And succeeded.
Now, tech is hard enough to get to work when everybody is trying to make it work. When certain switches and gates are put in, with the express purpose of making the tech NOT work, well, chances are the content will not flow, both from the gates working as planned, and also from random false positives or other glitches.
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It always starts out well....and then....
It may only be twenty bucks right now, they they don't have nearly as many channels as cable. If they add more channels guess what? That's right my friend! The price just went up. Soon you will pay as much as cable is today. And eventually they'll all start arguing about the same stuff as they are today-money. Price just went up again. And guess what now? TNT or ESPN just got dropped from the line-up.
The article in the link here:
http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/05/sling-tv-announced/
states ""On Now" on the different networks, letting you pick whether to "Watch Now" or "Start Over," both features being self-explanatory, although "Start Over" does depend on the content rights for each network."
I don't pay for cable anymore. However, I DO pay for internet. And I can get the same content AND more, and I'm paying eighty bucks a month for it. And when I pay more than twenty or whatever it will EVENTUALLY go up to, and I can do the same things they are spouting, i.e., "Watch Now" or "Start Over", AND I can watch them without ads WTH would I want that product for?
But I guess all of this is a moot point. We have caps on our internet. Basically, if this happens it move move cable television to the internet.
And somebody has to get paid.
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Re: It always starts out well....and then....
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Exciting times ahead, I hope the MAFIAA goes belly up.
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Dish CAN be stopped!! It's easy!
Slingtv and HBO's own live streaming service will kill the cable companies unless the capping begins. Netflix, Amazon and even Hulu subscribers will turn to Slingtv and HBO and a good ol antenna and look it's only $35 a month as opposed to paying $90 a month without HBO. I only have cable for ESPN,CNN and Disney. So now I can get them all for $20 and I can kill cable. When I cancel cable my monthly bill will be $55 a month just for Internet. So let's add this up, Internet $55, slingtv with an add on $25, HBO's streaming service $12 and a antenna FREE, total cost =$92 a month. My current bundle is $170. So I'll take the $92 any day.
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Re: Dish CAN be stopped!! It's easy!
Or just do what Comcast does: charge you more for internet-only service than for internet+cable TV. But that would be less evil than usage caps, so would be less appealing to the cable companies.
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Re: Dish CAN be stopped!! It's easy!
Just one more reason we need lots of competition in broadband internet service.
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