TV Networks Finally Discover Live Streaming; Still Get It Really, Really Wrong

from the of-course-they-do dept

Over and over again people have pointed out that one of the reasons people flock to "unauthorized" versions of content is that legitimate versions aren't available. For a decade or so, it's been odd that network TV has been generally resistant to embracing the internet. A big part of the reason, of course, is money driven, since they make so much cash from cable deals (even if their content is free over the air). The fight with Aereo, of course, is not so much about copyright as it is about retransmission fees that the networks can get from cable. So it might seem like a bit of progress to see that the networks are finally moving towards live streaming of content.

While many shows are now available online, they usually aren't available until hours (or sometimes days or weeks) after things air. And while, yes, we're now a DVR world, where people don't always watch shows when they air, there is still a sizable population of fans of shows that like to watch them in real-time. In fact, many have said that the supposedly evil internet is actually making them more interested in watching live, because they can share the cultural experience more widely via things like Twitter and Facebook. So, recognizing that reality, making it easier for people to view the content live at the same time, such as via online streaming, makes a lot of sense. Kudos to the networks for recognizing that, about a decade later than they should have.

Disney's ABC network will become the first broadcast network to stream its shows live online through an ongoing service, starting with viewers of its TV stations in New York and Philadelphia on May 14 and expanding to its other stations by the end of the summer.

Okay, that's the good part. But, given who we're talking about, of course there's a catch. There's always a catch:

Starting on July 1, Disney will only provide its WATCH ABC service to subscribers of cable, satellite and other TV subscription services that have agreements with ABC to offer the service to their subscribers in New York and Philadelphia. Subscribers must provide an authentication code to be granted access to the shows.

Later this summer, Disney said it will expand use of its WATCH ABC service to authenticated subscribers that receive its TV stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, Raleigh-Durham and Fresno, California.

Remember, this is free, over the air, network television we're talking about. But they're so frightened of pissing off the cable/satellite guys from whom they make boatloads of money, they won't offer the content to cord cutters -- only to people who are already paying ridiculous sums for cable/satellite TV.

Oh, and rather than make it work on any platform, it appears to be specific to certain devices:

The app will initially allow users to be able to watch the service on Apple's iPad and iPhone and on the Kindle Fire device, and later this summer on Samsung Galaxy devices.

Oh, and they're not done with the bad ideas either:

The report also claims that in the future, ABC will “withhold its most recent TV episodes from the free versions of Hulu and ABC.com, further limiting access to paying subscribers of cable and satellite providers only.”

Way to take a good idea (live streaming) and make it completely crappy and pointless again (locking it to devices and existing overpriced pay TV offerings while taking away the value for everyone else and further fragmenting the space).

Filed Under: authentication, cord cutting, fragmentation, live streaming, network tv, pay tv, tv
Companies: abc, disney

Hilarious And Ridiculous: Networks Threaten To Pull Channels Off The Air If Aereo & Dish Win Lawsuits

from the call-their-bluff dept

The entertainment industry has a long, long history of claiming that if copyright law doesn't go their way, they'll all go out of business. It's the adult version of "if you don't do it my way, I'm taking my ball and going home." If court cases don't go their way, or if the law isn't changed, we've been told over and over and over again for the last century (and more frequently in the last two decades) that the industry will take its ball and go home, because they won't create under such awful circumstances (even if those circumstances really aren't particularly different than they've operated under for years). The latest? First, Fox's COO, Chase Carey, claims that if they lose the Aereo case, they might shut down Fox, the network TV channel, and move all its content to cable TV channels.

“If we can’t have our rights properly protected through legal and governmental solutions, we will pursue business solution. One solution would be to take the network and make it a subscription service. We’re not going to sit idly by and let people steal our content.”

That came out about the same time as another quote from a TV exec, Garth Ancier, who has worked at Fox, NBC and WB, basically saying the same thing, arguing that an unnamed "two" of the four major networks are considering shutting down if the Aereo case (and possibly the Dish Auto Hopper case) goes against them.

“I know two that are talking about it,” he says, leaving open the possibility that the others might be as well. He declines to specify which, saying he’d heard it in a “talking over coffee” setting and didn’t want to betray a confidence....

“To say it’s serious is probably an overstatement,” Ancier says. Rather, it’s a contingency plan the networks in question are keeping in their back pockets in case they can’t prevail over Aereo and Dish in court or find some other way to stave off the threat they represent.

Let's be the first to call bullshit on this. No networks are stupid enough to shut down over this, and if they are, good riddance. Put that spectrum to better use. First of all, network TV shows get a lot more viewers. By a wide margin. Yes, there's an occasional cable show (Game of Thrones) that sneaks in to the top ratings, but it's pretty rare. The cable shows that get the most viewers are still viewed a lot less often than most network shows. If you look at Nielsen's latest rankings for last week, the top 10 network shows all scored higher ratings than the top cable show (Walking Dead). And by the time you're at the 4th most popular cable show, you're talking about a show that's getting just around half of the tenth most popular network show.

No network with any business sense at all is going to give up that prime position for getting viewers, and shunt themselves off into the hinterlands of cable TV. And, seriously, if they do want to cede that position, I'm sure there are plenty of smart folks willing to take over that position. And, of course, nothing that Aereo or Dish Hopper is trying to do does anything to threaten the traditional business model of network TV in the first place: ads. In fact, both serve to increase viewers. The real issue is that the networks have gotten fat and happy off of the money they get from cable and satellite companies for carrying the networks, and they don't want that gravy train to go away. So, an artificial situation came up that let them get lots of money, and now that it might go away (and reality is that it won't go away for a long long time) they're threatening to take their ball and go home?

This is clearly bullshit whining from the networks hoping that lawmakers will protect their revenues from cable and satellite providers. It has nothing to do with "stealing content" as Carey claims. Policy makers would be well served to call the networks' bluff. Let the cases play out and let's see (1) if the networks really give up their prime real estate and (2) if others don't rush in to make use of it.

Filed Under: auto hopper, cable, chase carey, copyright, garth ancier, hopper, nab, network tv, threats
Companies: abc, aereo, cbs, dish, fox, nbc

Frost & Sullivan Analyst Apparently Has Never Heard Of Network TV: Says Video Can't Be Free To Consumers

from the this-is-why-fewer-and-fewer-people-trust-analysts dept

It's really stunning to see people who obviously should know better continually insisting that content can't possibly be free to consumers. We've been seeing a lot of it in the news business lately, as newspaper execs who have built up an ad business for many years seem oblivious to the fact that consumers have almost never paid directly for news. And now that same sort of ridiculous thinking is showing up in the video market. Christopher Schneider points us to an article written by Dan Rayburn, who apparently is an analyst at Frost & Sullivan, but who appears to be wholly unfamiliar with network TV in claiming that video content can't possibly be free:

Frankly, I don't see where this idea of "free" comes from. Video content costs money to produce, to distribute and to consume. Yet even with those costs, many seem hell-bent on the idea that business models can somehow survive based on the consumption of free video content supported solely by an ad model. But in reality, that simply can't happen.

It comes from basic economics, Dan, combined with knowledge of how network TV has worked for many decades. In some businesses consumers pay for stuff. In others, third parties do it. In network TV, advertisers have always paid the freight. You would think that a big-time analyst would be familiar with that. But, of course, it looks like Dan doesn't get the economics right either:

If people are not willing to pay a content owner for their content, then it's not worth anything. That's the bottom line.

Dan, how much did you pay for the air you breathe? Ok. How much is it worth? Your "bottom line" is flat-out wrong. Value and price are two different things. Value plays into the demand curve, but price is set by the intersection of supply and demand. If something is priced at zero, it doesn't mean it's valued at zero.

In the comments, after people point out Dan's seeming blindspot for the largest distributor of video content for the past seven decades, Dan tries to redeem himself by pointing out that networks today get additional money from MSOs (cable/satellite providers) to get carried (you may have heard the recent battles over some of these). Of course, that's a recent phenomenon. For years, network TV was very much for free to users, despite the fact that "video content cost money to product, to distribute and to consume" and even as people were not willing to pay the content owner for it -- but it was still worth quite a bit to them.

And, of course, even in the case with cable and satellite fees, Dan's still wrong. People don't pay their cable provider for access to network TV (they can already get that for free). They pay for the bundle of channels, of which the network channels are not very important to most users, since those are accessible over the air (and, yes, in some cases people have trouble getting local stations). Hell, if we want to go by analogy, let's be direct: sure, people pay for cable TV, but they also pay for their ISP bill (sometimes to the same company).

Furthermore, Dan's analysis of YouTube's profitably seems woefully confused as well. He uses Viacom's filings in the YouTube case, which have already been shown to take statements out of context, and whose comments all refer back to a few years back rather than today. Yet, recent studies have suggested that YouTube may actually be profitable, or at least getting pretty close to it. Even Google has hinted at YouTube's profitability -- and some have pointed out that Google's dark fiber ownership could mean that its bandwidth bill is a lot lower than some analysts think.

Basically, there's proof that free-to-the-consumer video has worked in the past, and can work again. On top of that, there's growing evidence that Google is at least close to profitability with free-to-the-consumer video online, and the models that are working there are only likely to continue to grow. These are the sorts of points and trends you would expect an analyst following this market to know, so it's a bit surprising that this particular analysis seems to be lacking them. And people wonder why companies are looking to dump their analyst spend budgets lately...

Filed Under: economics, free, internet, network tv, video

Network TV Just Now Realizing The Media Landscape Has Shifted?

from the it-took-that-long? dept

As we watch the newspaper industry struggle with trying to respond to changes in the market that were obviously on the way a decade ago, it's funny to see network television just waking up to the same issues. Apparently, they're just now (?!?) realizing that the advertisers who kept them in business all these years have many other options on place to advertise -- and the viewers who used to have three options for what to do on a weekday night (ABC, CBS, NBC) now have hundreds of channels, billions of internet websites, movie rentals, video games and many, many, many other options. Yes, the market has shifted -- but that shift began quite a while ago. The fact that the networks are just now realizing that maybe they need to treat the business slightly differently certainly seems like they're a bit late to waking up to reality.

Filed Under: business models, network tv