Cable's Answer To A Changing TV Landscape? Stuff More Ads Into Every Hour
from the dancing-in-quicksand dept
As we've been covering, the cable and broadcast industry's response to the shift toward Internet video appears to be a three-staged affair. Stage one was largely denial, with cable and broadcast executives either mocking (or denying the existence of) cord cutters, while going out of their way to try and ignore any data disproving their beliefs. Stage two is a one-two punch of desperately trying to milk a dying cash cow (like endless price hikes) while pretending to be innovative by offering largely uninteresting walled-garden services like TV Everywhere.I'll get to stage three later, but here in stage two, the industry remains very focused on doubling down on very bad ideas in the hopes an increasingly annoyed customer base won't notice. As we've been noting, the viewership for both cable and broadcast TV is dropping, particularly in segments like kids programming, where parents are finding better value (and fewer ads) via services like Netflix. What's cable's response to this growing threat? Start shoving more and more ads into each viewing hour:
"Beset by declines in audience, a majority of U.S. cable networks stuffed more commercials onto their air in the fourth quarter, with Viacom boosting its ad load by 13% across its cable networks; A+E Networks increasing the number of commercials it runs by 10%; and Discovery Communications adding 9% more TV spots, according to research released Wednesday by independent analyst Michael Nathanson. On the broadcast side, Fox raised the number of spots it aired by 15% in the quarter, Nathanson said, while ABC and CBS reduced theirs by 2% and NBC cut its by 6%."Of course, cable and broadcast companies can get away with this because -- despite all the grumbling about cable companies -- the vast majority of consumers continue to pay an arm and a leg for vast bundles of cable content that they barely watch. By the time the numbers start to veer more sharply toward cord-cutting, many of these cable, phone or telco TV operators are going to be well behind the Netflix and Amazon eight ball. That will bring us to phase three, where cable and broadcast companies that refused to adapt will turn to their stranglehold over the broadband last mile, and start extracting their pound of flesh via usage caps.
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Filed Under: ads, cable, cord cutters, tv
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That will bring us to phase three, where cable and broadcast companies that refused to adapt will turn to their stranglehold over the broadband last mile, and start extracting their pound of flesh via usage caps.
Hopefully Tittle II will put an at least temporary road block on these plans. We will need to be very cautious in the legislative side though, they most certainly will try their hand there. My opinion is that we should strike first via FFTF, Demand Progress, EFF, Mozilla and others to out-lobby them and change the laws governing ISPs to allow much more competition.
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I think if ISPs want to bill like utilities they should have their meters regulated like utilities to ensure consumers are getting a fair deal, but that's just me.
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Huh? Is this a sarcastic answer? Forgive me if it is...
If what you say is true, then it's not actually measuring download usage and therefore is not really a download usage meter.
In order for a download to occur, you definitely have to be accepting the traffic (and therefore listening for it). If someone chooses to send you data but your system is not accepting it, then no data is sent.
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You don't have to be listening for the traffic for it to arrive at your modem. It just has to have your modem's IP address in the packet's "destination address" field.
If your system is not listening for it, it will send back a "huh?" packet (ICMP port unreachable or TCP RST). Or it will ignore it, if it has a so-called "stealth firewall". Either way, your modem already received the packet, so it counts for your "bytes received" counter.
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You don't have to be listening for the traffic for it to arrive at your modem. It just has to have your modem's IP address in the packet's "destination address" field."
TCP is connection-based. The actual data transfer does not begin until the receiver has acknowledged the connection.
What you say is correct for UDP communications, but that is not how file transfers are done, because it's an unreliable mechanism: those packets are not guaranteed to be delivered, or to be delivered in the same order they were sent. In order to have that guarantee, you need to have a higher-level protocol (such as TCP, although that's hardly the only one) that implements the necessary corrections. To do so requires the cooperation of the receiver.
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And anyway, even if you could determine whether TCP data was wanted, what about UDP? Do you allow it to go unmetered (with predictable effects when people notice)? Block it completely (and break all kinds of popular things)? How about DNS tunneling, 6to4, VPNs, and any other trick users could do to get around a meter?
The only solution is to reject "download billing" completely. Upload metering is sane, but still annoying—and even more difficult to really explain to users.
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The asymmetrical nature of domestic connection, and the huge disparity in data flows between up and down, especially when watching videos make this a non starter.
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according to these charts, my ISP service was NEVER off, NEVER below the advertised amount, and NEVER varied in any significant fashion... excepting one minor detail: the monthly samknows charts were showing 'normal' 3mps dsl speeds during WEEKS of TOTAL internet outage...
(BOTH from NO USABLE signal at the telephone post, to fried modem(S!) from lightning strike(S!), to fried ethernet ports, etc...)
WEEKS of 'normal' signals indicated on the charts, when i could not make a connection AT ALL; WEEKS of 'normal' connection indicated when THERE WAS NO SIGNAL AT THE POST, THEIR modem/router was NOT PLUGGED IN, or (later) FRIED, and/or our computers were inoperable...
WEEKS...
but the damn charts they are sending me over the 5-6 months these issues occur don't show a blip, a hiccup, a jiggle...
bull-fucking-shit, says i, and tell them where to stuff their lying router...
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Unfortunately, there are people out there who "need" to get cable because they ABSOLUTELY must have their sports channels.
The Cable industry knows this and won't give up their cash cow that is the sport channels without a fight, even if it means increasing fees.
They know die-hard sports fans would pay up anyways.
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I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the latest surge of people leaving cable was due to this very issue.
Since broadcasters think their ads are why people are tuning in, let them increase the number of ads. This will only ensure their demise, which can't come sooner.
Unfortunately, what's left is the crap like Hulu, which not only infuses ads into their streaming services, but charges people for the privilege.
It will be this that is truly phase three: make people pay for both the service and the ads, just like it was in the "good old days", where choice never existed.
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How does that prove that cable operators won't turn to usage caps to squeeze their customers?
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Verizon charging Netflix is the start of phase three. Charge the content providers to gain access to the end users is a form of bandwidth throttling, and of replacing income lost to cord cutters.
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42 minutes of show.
That's a 6 minute difference.
3 minutes per half hour.
I remember when cable shows, you know, because we paid for them, didn't have commercials.
Now look at it.
Streaming services will do the exact same thing and AdBlock won't help you out (especially now that even more companies are paying to make it worthless).
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Nostalgia stations like MeTV either cut footage (like on their Star Trek reruns) or speed it up slightly (Batman and most other shows) to get more than 8 minutes of ads per hour.
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Stuffing more ads into TV programs will work
Or in the same way that laying off a batch of people to boost the stock price will help save a failing company.
And for all three I say, if it doesn't seem to be working, then do more of it, faster!
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Same Cost
We have Verizon,Brighthouse and Wow services to choose from. All come with the same 150 dollar a month bill. The only difference is the provider UI
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Where I am, internet + cable TV is cheaper than internet alone, which is the only reason I have cable TV at all. However, I don't actually watch it. I haven't even hooked up the converter.
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It's $192.55. So, not the same price at all. Service is the same though at a shitty 1.5 downstream.
Happy to report that I don't pay the modem rental fee though. Haha, I really worked them over!
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Actually it looks like the original article was retracted because the numbers were wrong.
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Due to reduced ridership, we are again raising fares
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The reality is that most shows now feature 100% commercial time, if you count the station ID bug that often features an ad for a different show, not to mention the always popular pop up ads for yet another show. And it often isn't just one bug. Some networks have three, the station id bug, a second one for the next show ad and a 3rd for the twitter channel. For me, those networks are now on my don't watch list.
It really is getting to the point where it would be cheaper to drop cable altogether and go old school. Just buy DVD/BR bundles of series I want as they come up during sales. No buffering or bandwidth issues. Just watch the shows I want with no bugs, pop ups or other ads.
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Indeed, the term "death spiral" comes to mind.
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The no ads part only applies after you have ripped them, and got rid of whatever crap the MPAA insists that you cannot skip at the start of the film.
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It's been my habit of ripping all DVDs before watching them (for this exact reason) so long that I forget that it's not something that everybody automatically does. I encourage it, though -- it makes DVDs much more palatable.
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Are we counting 'self promotions'
In other words: those 'ads' that the networks don't get paid for?
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Doing the Math
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No they won't, that isn't how percentages work. You can't just multiply 13 by 12 to get the increase. With a 60 minute show, starting with 20 minutes of commercials and increasing by 13% every quarter, it would be 33.9 minutes of commercials after 3 years, and it would take over 8 years to be entirely commercials.
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Ad nausea
I've taken to streaming from sites other than Hulu because hearing that shit over and over is starting to affect my brain. I hear that shit while I'm trying to sleep. OP cable's plan is just going to make cable the more inconvenient option... And with fixed schedules and ads on top of the huge monthly fees, it was pretty fucking close to begin with.
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/s
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Network Provided Steaming and On-Demand are worse
The commercials on-line are more irritating because they repeat the same two or three over and over in every break. That doesn't encourage me to buy the product, it makes me swear to never buy it.
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Public Health Measures
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I thought everyone with an IQ over 50 was already skipping commercials.
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Hidden Elephant in the Net Neutrality debate: Retransmission Fees
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