CBS Claims It Will Pull All Content Offline Unless It Can Be An Anti-Competitive Ass
from the baby-talk dept
Contract disputes between cable companies and broadcasters have gotten increasingly ugly as programmers demand more and more money for the same content. These retransmission fee fights often result in consumers not only losing access to content they're paying for, but it places the consumer in the position of PR pinata, as each side tries to get consumers annoyed at the other guy. After a few months of bickering, on-screen tickers and blacked out content, the two sides usually agree to a new confidential contract, which then winds its way to the end consumer in the form of yet another cable bill rate hike.But there's been another troubling aspect to these fights that almost stumbles into net neutrality territory.
Back during a 2010 contract debate between News Corporation and Cablevision, News Corp. took the unprecedented step of blocking all Cablevision broadband customers from accessing Fox content online, whether they subscribe to TV or not. Viacom did the same thing last year when it blocked all CableONE broadband customers (via an IP range block) from accessing Viacom content online. In other words, broadband customers who may even be paying for TV through another provider (like satellite), still found themselves caught in the crossfire, unable to access publicly-available content online.
It's a muddy practice that stumbles somewhere between a net neutrality violation and vanilla jackassery. And it's one of several problems the FCC is trying to resolve after Congress directed the agency to put an end to these shenanigans and re-examine what constitutes "good faith" negotiations after the industry failed to self regulate. As the FCC ponders action, CBS apparently thought it would be a good idea to start throwing threats around. In a recent filing with the FCC (pdf), CBS basically states that should the FCC ban this behavior (which CBS has also engaged in), the broadcaster will take its ball and go home:
"Local broadcast stations have a duty to transmit programming for free, over-the-air. They have no obligation to make any of that programming or any other content available online. The fact that many stations choose to do so for free as a routine business practice is in stark contrast to other content providers, including online newspapers and other media providers such as Netflix and Amazon that place their content behind paywalls."CBS of course made a similar threat during the Aereo trial, stating they'd be pulling all broadcast television off the air if the company didn't get what it wanted (in that case, Aereo dead, in this case, a spineless FCC). From there though the threat gets clearer. Stop us from obnoxiously punishing paying customers for our own inability to get deals done in a civil fashion, CBS warns, or the future of television will die!:
"Prohibiting a broadcaster from limiting access to customers of an MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] with which it is having a dispute in order to protect its negotiating position would be a strong disincentive for stations to make their content available online as a general practice."In other words, nobody will put content online if the FCC prohibits companies from engaging in asinine behavior that hurts paying customers. But CBS apparently didn't get the memo that they no longer have the power they used to. In the new internet video era there's a little something called competition. No longer can CBS sit on its legacy throne, engaging in anti-competitive behavior, flinging threats and pouting without repercussion. With streaming services like Netflix, HBO, and Amazon all vying for consumer attention via original programming, a broadcaster pulling its content offline is a one-way ticket to irrelevance.
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Filed Under: fcc, internet, network television, retransmission fights, tv
Companies: cbs
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"Oh by all means, don't let me stop you from blowing your own foot off."
That'll certainly show their (former) customers.
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At least they won't have to worry
The executives can be happy in their 1950's world of 3 channels..
Although the inevitable outcome does scare the hell out of me... thousands of CBS workers all losing their jobs, watching their pension funds being decimated by all the golden parachutes filling the skies over their heads..
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Please do this
If they were loosing money from online content, they would have pulled their content a long time ago. If they were loosing money and still were chugging along months and months later with the same business model and no changes...then CBS online should pull their content regardless of what the FCC is doing.
But they won't, because $$$$$$$$$
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In essence I have banned them from my viewing habits without nary a threat to do so. Can't tell you how peaceful my place has been ever since the commercials quit screaming and hollering.
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Re: "Oh by all means, don't let me stop you from blowing your own foot off."
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Stomp your foot a little harder, and hold your breath a little longer... you see because when you manage to nearly kill yourself with this tantrum you might scare the other dinosaurs into waking up to reality.
Shocking I know, but there is other content out there that can replace you... and holding consumers hostage will motivate them to click 3 more buttons than before and discover a wide world of content you don't own, don't control, and puts most of your rehashed crap to shame. Once they discover that, unless you are going to put a chicken in every pot and a new care in every garage, they won't come back.
Please plunge your viewership numbers into the toilet, be forced to slash your ad rates, then stand before those shareholder who you owe value to and explain why you decided it was a good idea to stick your dick in a hornets nest and pump away wildly.
Just because you could hold the public hostage before, doesn't mean you can do it now. Prove me wrong, do it again... I triple dog dare you.
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Re: "Oh by all means, don't let me stop you from blowing your own foot off."
Screw CBS. Screw Disney. Screw all of these asshats.
The world would be a better place without their antiquated, racist, misogynistic programming where the highlight of such piss poor programming has a show where two people are battling a hacker by using a single keyboard together.
I'm so looking forward to the day where the Emmys and Oscars are battled out between Amazon and Netflix original broadcasts.
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Re: Please do this
These threats are childish and that multiple broadcasters have already followed through with blocks with relative impunity just helps drive home the point that a regulator needs to step in. Quite like two bickering kids at a kindergarten.
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A little dramatic...
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And they wonder....
The Legacy cable broadcast companies are like... they are like grandparents with Alzheimer's and I think it's time we put them in the old folks home.
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Re: Re: "Oh by all means, don't let me stop you from blowing your own foot off."
They could lose out to some ad-hoc group of people publishing on their own site, or via Youtube, such as Star TrekNew Voyages. It is no longer necessary to have the involvement of a large company to produce a T.V series.
.
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Re: Re: "Oh by all means, don't let me stop you from blowing your own foot off."
I'm surprised you didn't include Grammys in your comment :) We've been slapping that industry around awhile!
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Re: Re: "Oh by all means, don't let me stop you from blowing your own foot off."
I'm so looking forward to the day where the Emmys and Oscars are finally acknowledged by the public for what they really are: a self-serving promotion founded, financed, and run by the same big Hollywood studios that essentially put themselves on both the giving and the receiving end of these so-called "awards".
When Amazon and Netflix start receiving anything more than a possible token showing at these awards, it just means that they have finally become part of this circlejerk.
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CBS bluster
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Re: Re: "Oh by all means, don't let me stop you from blowing your own foot off."
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/digital-tv-storms-golden-globes-ousting-old-favorites-053548401--fi nance.html
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LOL
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Re: Re: "Oh by all means, don't let me stop you from blowing your own foot off."
Oh MAN but you got that right! That's like my favorite example of how bad TV is at getting computers right. My dad was watching that show when I came over one day, so I watched a few minutes until that scene. I actually did a spit take and burst out laughing at how stupid they were... and remember, the lady in the scene is SUPPOSED to be some kind of Uber-genius.
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Please
Let them go please whoever can cause them to, there threat is not a threat it is is a reward to all those that have ever fought against copyright maximalists.
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Re: Re: Please do this
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Re: CBS bluster
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I honestly thought they had stopped advertising colour me embarrassed for that , i wonder how they can justify this to there customers and why they do not care about how many are stopping watching liveish tv
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Simple solution
they use the airwaves at our pleasure...
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Re: At least they won't have to worry
Duet, Sir!
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Re: Re: Please do this
The UK broadcasters fund it with help from the government but realistically they are in the process of using the internet to provide a better tv viewing experience, i don't use it much but most people do use it all the time and it is completely free to use although you have to buy a freeview box which costs under $200, but which right now supplies almost 100 channels, some rubbish but some that show old movies or documentaries etc.
If the US government had, like in the UK, forced the broadcasters to fund the system then the US would not have a problem with cable as you could easily buy the right to access a pay channel on its own on the same box.
Some people would buy cable but it would be those that did not know better and not for the average person. Damn i can even get all the important sports channels for a very small monthly fee if i was a sports nut.
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Go ahead CBS, make yourself scarce...
You killed off the best show you ever aired, "Stalker".
What you have now is drivel.
Goodbye CBS.
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Re: And they wonder....
I wonder who will turn up for their funeral.
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Good riddance to bad programming.
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But why are our shows on pirate sites?
Oh, wait, people actually wanted to watch the shows that they took offline and this is the only way to do it? And now CBS and its advertisers aren't getting anything out of it?
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Re: CBS bluster
Well there is the show that mentioned in 2014 and was still being talked about here on Techdirt that at least one person claims to watch. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140924/14422128627/another-story-fake-brilliant-inventor-is-scor pion-walter-obrien-real-computer-security-genius.shtml
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Television is already dead to me
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I had enough of it all and Cut the Cord after paying Comcast for a number of years for TV service. All I pay for now is Internet and Netflix. I get all my Broadcast TV with a Antenna and use a TIVO to record it all. Then I SKIP all their commercials and it doesn't cost me a penny and 100% legal.
Once in a while I see the dumb banner scrolling complaining how there's a blackout on DirectTV or Comcast for such and such channel and I just laugh. All this does is get more people to cut the cord and/or pirate. Keep it up and you'll have no one left to pay.
Quite frankly I think Cable Company's should just completely stop having Broadcast Channels on their service. Maybe have some type of service. They'll install a Antenna for you, you just have to be signed up for 1 year or something to cover the cost. Have a Antenna input in the Cable Box that will record all the broadcast channels, along with the cable channels. Now no one is paying Re-Transmition fee's!!! See how they like that. It would be 100% legal. Each house has their own antenna and DVR.
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