CBS CEO Forced To Admit Cheaper 'Skinny' TV Bundles 'Inevitable'
from the wake-up-and-smell-the-Millennials dept
CBS CEO Les Moonves hasn't always been a huge fan of change. The CEO likes to whine a lot about how the television landscape is shifting, whether that's the fact that Netflix doesn't have to share viewership numbers in the subscription streaming age, or the way Dish is giving users what they want with DVRs that automatically skip ads. Moonves is also a big fan of pouting and claiming CBS will pull all of its broadcast content off the air if the network doesn't get what it wants (a man, in a very nice suit, threatening to take his ball and go home).But even the change-averse CEO this week was forced to admit that the industry can no longer charge hundreds of dollars for hundreds of garbage channels and continue to call that value and innovation in the face of streaming competition. For all his myopia, Moonves at least has acknowledged that the shift to so-called "skinny" bundles is "inevitable":
"You’ve heard the cliché over and over again, people are tired of paying for things they don’t want to watch. That’s finally going to change. Someone’s going to figure out how to do this and how to give people what they want to watch and it’s not for $100 a month, it will be for $35 or $39 dollars a month where you’ll really get the 12 to 15 or 18 channels that you care about. And not get the karate channel for 25 cents a month."Somebody did try to do this named Aereo, and it was sued into oblivion by CBS and others for its trouble. Other companies like Verizon are also trying to do this, but have been sued by broadcasters for trying. So to be clear, CBS believes "somebody" needs to shake up the stale cable bundle, but it should be CBS that does it.
To Moonves' credit, CBS has done a lot more than other companies to try and embrace the streaming video revolution. CBS launched its own $6 a month "All Access" streaming service in 2014, and in 2015 followed HBO's lead and offered a standalone Showtime streaming platform for $11 a month. CBS is also battling with Facebook, Verizon and others for new NFL streaming rights, and is planning to relaunch a new "Stark Trek" TV series that will be made exclusively available to CBS streaming customers. CBS hopes to bundle all of this into one giant package that bypasses the cable industry entirely.
That's in notable contrast to broadcasters like ESPN, which has pretending that skinny bundle defectors are old, lame customers nobody wants anyway. Given ESPN benefits from having a channel many don't care about forcibly included in core cable lineups, it has been notably more aggressive in defending TV's status quo.
The problem CBS and other broadcasters will face is they continue to believe that streaming content exclusivity is the key to television's future, and that consumers have an unlimited budget to subscribe to dozens of streaming services to get the content they're looking for. The more fragmented content availability becomes, the more likely consumers are to avoid the hassle and cost of hunting and pecking through confusing and often shifting exclusivity windows -- and revert to piracy.
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Filed Under: cord cutting, les moonves, skinny bundles, tv
Companies: cbs
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Well I can dream can't I?
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Canceling CBS
We just cancelled Hulu because it wouldn't stream reliably either.
Netflix and Youtube seem to be the only well known services who can manage to deliver, but so can plenty of little streaming channels. I don't know if our issues are those channel providers or interference in the pipeline.
So, cavet emptor.
OT: We don't do long term contracts anymore ever, because of difficulties terminating terrible services.
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Stark Trek?
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Re: Canceling CBS
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Where's a-la-cart? When can I pick each and every channel I want and create my own bundle?
Why isn't there just a simple price guide.
ABC - $1
CBS - $6
Syfi - $3
ESPN - $10
Home Shopping - $0
BET - $.50
Whatever. Maybe if you bundle up 10 channels you get a 10% discount! These channels can set whatever costs they want from FREE to infinity. If it's FREE people will sign up and if it's to costly, few will sign up. After all, all these channels are already getting paid from by AD's anyway, so they're better off being on the free to cheap end to get more viewers which in turn means you get more money for your ad's.
THIS would be real change. Not this skinny bundle, same old crap!!! Quite frankly I think Cable company's get ripped off from thees Re-Transmission Fee's they have to pay to broadcast channels. Channels, anyone can get for FREE with a Antenna. Where a Cable company is gaining viewers to that channel to make more money on Ad's. Sounds like a scam to me!!!
I got tired of playing this game and cut the cord 4 years ago and haven't looked back!!! All them broadcast channels I get for FREE with my Antenna. Record it all on my Tivo Roamio DVR now with Commercial Skip. Press of 1 button and Bam!!! Just skipped all of the commercials!!!! Watch in the family room and continue in my Bedroom with a Tivo Mini. Can commercial skip and everything else there. Zero monthly costs for me.
I got turned onto another series that's on Netflix to watch called "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". The other one I was told about "The League" has been really funny. Plus second season of Daredevil is out now I need to watch, and so much more. 20 years ago, you may have needed all thee channels. Today? Not really. Of course you may get your content from a number of sources, so it's not as simple as one program guide on a Box. But if my almost 70 year old Dad who lives with me can handle it pretty good, it's not a big deal. I can see new shows coming from TIVO or any number of my TV program App's on my iOS devices. Like NextGuide!
These day's there are options!!!
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Re:
Why pay AMC $8 a month and just go with $1.50 for The Walking Dead? (Totally random and imaginary numbers.)
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Re: Canceling CBS
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Re: Canceling CBS
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CBS threatening to take it's content off the air?
I quit watching a few years back when they started whoring Microsoft Surface Tablets and Windows Phones. Trying to make it look like the characters, who are supposedly smart people, would use something that nobody is buying -- at any price. That just completely breaks the suspension of disbelief.
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I've said it once, I'll say it again...
We have Kodi in the living room and Netflix in the bedrooms or anytime on a laptop or tablet. Haven't paid Dish or cable in years, except for the cable Internet that is thankfully not Crapcastic or TWC or the other big providers, so no caps.
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Re:
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CBS - No need to pay the $6
I have used it to watch The Amazing Race and The Good Wife when I had problems with the recording (one a seized DVR with a forced reboot and the other severe rain fade during a rare California downpour). No sign up. Just watch with commercials.
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Re: Stark Trek?
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Screw streaming...
In order to get my on demand "video fix" without satellite TV (which I also have, btw), I either have to buy shiny plastic discs, or download episodes like a pirate. Ironically, I can usually torrent an 720p episode in less time than the show takes to playback - and yet I can't stream at 720p without buffering. This always makes me wonder if there's something else at play here.
Either way, fuck streaming video, it's wasteful (I can re-watch a downloaded video over and over without using more bandwidth), it's stupid (I don't actually "own" anything I'm paying for), and it doesn't work worth a shit unless you have plenty of bandwidth and a reliable connection (6mbit DSL yields about ~4.5mbit of downstream bandwidth, and it drops to ~1mbit or less at night when everyone gets home from work).
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Re: CBS threatening to take it's content off the air?
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Re: Re:
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Programming was headed to the trash bin as fast as it could go then and from what I hear hasn't gotten better. They can keep the PPV and OTA, it is no longer worth my time to watch subpar programming given to you as a vehicle to serve you ads.
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Re:
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Re: Stark Trek?
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Re:
The episode was beyond shameful to the US.
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Actually
So we should be having our cake and eating it too.
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Re: Screw streaming...
Bandwidth is a renewable resource.
it's stupid (I don't actually "own" anything I'm paying for),
That's not important to a lot of people, and if you watch it enough it's a lot cheaper to pay for Netflix than to buy everything you watch. Plus you don't have to store and find plastic discs.
Of course if Netflix doesn't work at your house, that's all moot.
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Re: Stark Trek?
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There seems to be this misconception that...
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'Revert' to piracy???
I certainly will not. Although I was working to a cable TV news channel at the time, quite a few years ago I simply dumped cable TV. I firmly believe that if people haven't bothered to pirate a TV series, then it's not worth seeing (just like the cable news channels: there's a reason CNN and Fox don't get pirated).
So I'll not be "reverting." I'll just be continuing to get payback for the decades they screwed me. What these brain-dead morons don't understand is that piracy is their *competition,* and over time it will only become easier and more convenient to get pirated content.
When they offer an easier, more convenient, higher-quality product than the ever-so-kludgy pirate bay, they will be able to charge a premium for it. But they have to do it, because you can't compete on price with free.
Victimizing people with anti-sharing campaigns will only get consumers mad, and disrupting file sharing patterns will only spur the development of more robust technologies, just as the killing of Napster led to Justin Frankel (of Winamp fame) developing gnutella. It's been two decades since the Cult of the Dead Cow started sharing mp3's on their web site, and trying to shut sharing music never worked.
A good example of this is what is happening to music file sharing. Individual songs are no longer shared, nor are many albums, except perhaps for the hottest, newest hit. But usually it is simply so much easier to go to amazon or itunes or wherever to get your music. And, sure, much of it is on YouTube and easily ripped, but for most people in countries like the USA, why bother just to save 99 cents and lose the convenience of cloud storage and so on? And for those for whom 99 cents does make a difference, I'm glad stream ripping is there, just like AM radio was when I was a teen in the 1960s.
The net result on the evolving music scene is that although until a few years ago I'd not paid one cent to the music monopoly mafia in this century, now I do.
Until the tv series producers learn the same lesson, I'll keep on supporting the competition to the media monopoly mafia. If they ever get it right, *then* I might "revert."
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Re: 'Revert' to piracy???
I think you're mistaken. For example:
http://fatorrents.com/Alphaville--Forever-Young-torrent-6091042.html
http://fatorrents.com/Ja y-Z%20-Alicia-Keys--Empire-State-Of-Mind-[320kbps]-True320-torrent-5393940.html
http://fatorrents.com /Men-At-Work--Business-As-Usual-torrent-2509390.html
Pick pretty much any song or album other than the very obscure, and you can almost certainly find it from multiple sources.
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