Pretty soon the cable monopoly will be looked at like the phone monopoly.
And the tipping point will be LTE/MiFi (and/or FIOS services), coupled with internet content,
I'm moving to a city of <50,000, and they have community based FIOS built out in their Electrical grid, with upto 100mbps service now.
In the end, All of this will expose the fact that the content distribution rights holders (studios, production holding companies, networks)
and not cable is where the big cost uptick is. Bypassing Cable may get rid of 499 channels of crap, but you'll still need to deal with the people who think that a year of Football is worth $1Billion dollars, whether 10 people watch it, or 100,000,000 watch it.
That is why in the Agency Model, it's the rights holder that sets the retail price... so if they want to charge $14.99 for a streaming FB game, Apple charges you rhat, and takes it's cut from the transaction (likely less than 30%), and passes the rest to the content owner. If they raise the price to $16, it's not Apple's fault, and apple will make sure you know it.
Pretty soon the cable monopoly will be looked at like the phone monopoly.
And the tipping point will be LTE/MiFi (and/or FIOS services), coupled with internet content
Do you mean 'viewed in the same light' or 'become as terrible as'? LTE is 2 gigabytes a month for $30. How is that going to enact any change?
The way I see it is that Apple will bypass the cable/satellite providers. You'll get your TV straight from the content creators over your Internet connection, and the C/S providers won't like that one bit. Then ISPs, particularly the ones owned by C/S providers, will start to throttle your connection if you use Apple's stuff (never mind either instating or lowering monthly caps, as needed). Then Apple/someone sues and we get the net neutrality argument settled once and for all. Maybe even with caps being made illegal.
Do you mean 'viewed in the same light' or 'become as terrible as'? LTE is 2 gigabytes a month for $30. How is that going to enact any change?
The way I see it is that Apple will bypass the cable/satellite providers. You'll get your TV straight from the content creators over your Internet connection, and the C/S providers won't like that one bit. Then ISPs, particularly the ones owned by C/S providers, will start to throttle your connection if you use Apple's stuff (never mind either instating or lowering monthly caps, as needed). Then Apple/someone sues and we get the net neutrality argument settled once and for all. Maybe even with caps being made illegal.
as a competitor. No, not right away, but introducing a set of national competitor (scale) against cable cos who have never had to compete to survive... It will be like a pack of wolves descending on a kennel show. Verizon and ATT and Sprint and TMobile... remember almost all give away phone minutes... the only things they can compete on are price per GB, GBs/month, and quality. If for nothing else, PPV and low end internet contracts will dry up quickly (and expanded basic... If all I watch is project runway, I'll get those 4 shows from iTunes over LTE, and drop my internet/expanded basic/VOIP, and drop my costs by $50/month net.
As I stated earlier in the thread... the real money is in the content. Cable is great if you have a monopoly, but that monopoly is probably 5-10 years from imploding for national providers. Terrestial radio bandwidth is the great equalizer, because you don't have to build out the final mile, and competition can be built much more cheaply than redundant fiber/coax to each unit. And content owners love competition as it drives values up.
Cable will squeezed by content owners demanding more value for their content, the competition from LTE, Apple and Amazon and Netflix business models, and a consumers belief that Internet should be open access. Comcast is fighting back by buying content.
Throttling may happen, but it's one thing to throttle pirates... it's another to throttle competitors. Federal Anti-trust is pretty clear on that. If I have a legal right to deliver bits, and a customer buys those bits via your network, in no way shape or form can you mess with them. The fact that most cable is run under regulation will further hamper cable's claim of 'protecting' the quality of their network, especially of cable and internet are on different frequencies in the coax.
In the end, there will be a massive bust/boom/bust cycle... cable as we know it will bust because content prices will sky rocket and users will bypass cable, content rights owners will get a lot of money for out of the competition... but then the market will correct (the 'real' number of viewers will show up, those that bought 'rights to distribute' will die on the vine, and a lot of content will be valued at zero (know one watches it).
It will be interesting how Apple negotiates it's content portfolio through all this.
Let's say you spend 150 bucks on cable right now and you want to pay 100. you give your $100 to Apple, and they give you 100 "credits." If you spend $50, you only get 30 credits. And if you spend $150 you get 180 credits, or something like that. So Apple sells tiers of credits.
Then you choose your channels off a menu. So ESPN might cost 10 credits, but QVC might cost 1 credit. Again, Apple is selling bundles of credits, not bundles of channels.
Finally, the content providers (ESPN, QVC) get a cut of ALL the credits, not just of the people who spend the credits on that one channel.
Let's say you spend 150 bucks on cable right now and you want to pay 100. you give your $100 to Apple, and they give you 100 "credits." If you spend $50, you only get 30 credits. And if you spend $150 you get 180 credits, or something like that. So Apple sells tiers of credits.
Then you choose your channels off a menu. So ESPN might cost 10 credits, but QVC might cost 1 credit. Again, Apple is selling bundles of credits, not bundles of channels.
Finally, the content providers (ESPN, QVC) get a cut of ALL the credits, not just of the people who spend the credits on that one channel.
Just a thought.
How many credits do I have to spend to get live local news, live sports, live stock market news, live network programming, foreign language SAP audio and emergency alerts?
Cable, satellite, cell towers still have the limits of your Internet requiring of it; poor for all then making stricter Internet policy's when released.
The cable today is poor! We used to have 50 Meg's, per second interment with 50 Gb data cap(meaning in 17 minutes you could reach your cap) with 64 channels for about $180 a month, now we have in different city 12 Meg's a second and 250 GB cap(requiring 24 hours of use to reach cap) and 450 channels for $120 a month for limited time (back to $180)
Assume you like watching pro golf and everything associated with it. Golf channels may not be one of the popular choices and probably aren't. If only 5% of Apple TV viewers are willing to pay for the Golf Channel then it would probably disappear would it not? Some of these "fringe" channels with a small but committed following may only exist because they're included and paid for in a package of channels. In ala carte programming it may not be financially supportable. So you don't get to watch a golf channel.
The expectation that I should subsidize someone's interest in watching golf (which I happen to like to) is plain silly.
Then ISPs, particularly the ones owned by C/S providers, will start to throttle your connection if you use Apple's stuff
Posted in another thread, but applies here as well:
Is DPI allowed in The States? It certainly isn't here in Holland The Netherlands, and our telco KPN who had done it was slapped in the face for doing so. It is a violation of many privacy rights and Internet freedom.
The expectation that I should subsidize someone's interest in watching golf (which I happen to like to) is plain silly.
A lot of less popular stuff is "subsidized" to make it possible. I don't consider it automatically silly to do so. Going to your logical extreme Apple TV might be populated only by movies, cartoons and reality shows if you base it simply on desire to pay for specific a la carte choices and those alone. The Science Channel, Ovation and PBS probably won't be on too many folks top-tier programming lists either but it serves the public (and education) to have them available doesn't it? If few people are willing to specifically pay for them individually should they just be tossed aside as financially unsupportable and thus unworthy?
I love the idea of shows as apps rather than as lineups on channels. The natural mental process is to browse for shows rather than browse by channel. The content providers should love this. It's really foolish to spend advertising dollars and waste viewer mindshare promoting your three letters (HBO, USA, CNN, etc.). The only reason they have to promote their call letters so much is because the way TV is set up, you have to go search for their channel first and then their shows. Nobody really watches a content provider, we all watch a content provider's show. Do you like Suits because it's on USA or are you on USA because you like Suits?
You might not watch suits because it's on USA, but I watch Covert Affairs on USA because I was watching Suits on USA. HAving a show as an app would make commercials in the show the only way for them to cross promote. Having a channel as an app gives them more opportunity to cross promote.
Posted in another thread, but applies here as well:
Is DPI allowed in The States? It certainly isn't here in Holland The Netherlands, and our telco KPN who had done it was slapped in the face for doing so. It is a violation of many privacy rights and Internet freedom.
It's not DISallowed, and our government couldn't care less about doing its job anymore.
Bell FIBE offers me unlimited downloads for 10$ with TV packages but its $30 without TV. So +$20 on internet but -$70 for the TV package. but apple wont offer there channels for free.
Maybe Apple can do both, offer something over the net like netflix and make deals with some cable companies so they can add there own app to handle there feed.
remember guys streaming TV over the net is going to take huge amounts of bandwith, especialy if youre a family. I am not so sure the end result will be cheaper than cable.
It may be revolutionary, but Apple will never offer anything free or cheap. To get around the cable companies they probably would have to charge $$$$ to kick back to the cable/ Internet companies and the channels.
I'm guessing you read the report that has Google, and I'd imagine Apple too, negotiating to take over NFL Sunday Ticket when DirectTV's contract runs out next year.
The NFL will likely not go with a single contract model again. They will simply offer it up to subscription via the Netflix Model. They could care less about Apple or Google and whether Sunday Ticket drives users to a platform. The NFL doesn't need a platform.
I mean, I am not taking credit or anything. It's the next logical step in television, and if Apple can make it happen, they will likely have another iPhone on their hands.
Go Apple go! I don't care if they update the AppleTV or if they make a full-fledged television set. I just want to get away from DirecTV (and I love them compared to Dish and Comcast) and get to a la carte pricing. Willing to sacrifice however many chickens is necessary to make this happen.
I feel the same way. Compared to cable in my area, DirecTV is simply the best (or better) option at this time. But I've been with them for roughly 18 years and other than watching my bills steadily increase, I can't say that much has changed in that time frame. I certainly don't feel that I'm getting acceptable value for the amount that I'm paying each month. So within the next 12-18 months, I want to divorce DirecTV and move on to something else, the cost of which must better reflect the amount of programming that I actually watch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwmac
Are you actually serious? It may differ depending on who you use but very simple to go into menu settings and edit your favorite channels and choose your channel list and choose not to display certain channels in your guide. I removed all the channels I don't subscribe to as well as about 100 more I can watch but never will.
That's not what he's talking about. What he means is, in order to receive things like HBO Go, ESPN3 or Speed 2, you must be "authenticated" by your cable or satellite provider to verify that you're paying the mob... I mean, a cable or satellite company for the channel already. And there are now cases where providers may authenticate you for one type of device, but not another! So DirecTV may authenticate you so you can receive HBO Go on your iPhone or iPad, but maybe not on your Apple TV. And maybe Comcast will let you have HBO Go on your iPhone and your Apple TV, but they might decide that you aren't allowed to watch ESPN3 on your Apple TV. That's insane! And it's maddening to the nth degree! How this is legal, I have no earthly idea!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
I still wonder if Netflix might not be a good acquisition for Apple ...
Jim Cramer has been shouting for this for at least a year now. I'm not sure how I feel about that. One advantage of owning Netflix would be picking up their subscriber base and the proprietary technology that they have developed for making viewer suggestions - which is a world better than anything that iTunes does right now (IMO). But on the flipside, Netflix has to pay for content, just like Apple would have to... short of the in-house content that Netflix is now producing, like House of Cards. And from what I've read, there *may be* some sort of legality, a contract wrinkle, that would negate some of Netflix's deals should the company be taken over.
But just for S&G's, assuming a 20% premium over the current market cap, Netflix could possibly be had for about $20 billion. Big money for most, but Apple could write that check and still pay dividends. But now, the acquisition that would set the market completely on its head would be Time Warner/TWX (HBO and Cinemax). That one, at a 20% premium, would probably run in the neighborhood of $70 billion. A lot more money. A lot more risk. And a lot more issues to deal with, including regulatory, I would think. But that (or a similar major content provider acquisition) is what would truly take Apple across the Rubicon. And if Apple had to do something rather drastic, such as discontinue the dividend for a time, in order to make that feasible, I would be more than OK with it.
P.S. A side benefit of such an acquisition is that it might make both Jim Cramer's and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera's heads explode. So, so, so many positive things might come of that...
Comments
Pretty soon the cable monopoly will be looked at like the phone monopoly.
And the tipping point will be LTE/MiFi (and/or FIOS services), coupled with internet content,
I'm moving to a city of <50,000, and they have community based FIOS built out in their Electrical grid, with upto 100mbps service now.
In the end, All of this will expose the fact that the content distribution rights holders (studios, production holding companies, networks)
and not cable is where the big cost uptick is. Bypassing Cable may get rid of 499 channels of crap, but you'll still need to deal with the people who think that a year of Football is worth $1Billion dollars, whether 10 people watch it, or 100,000,000 watch it.
That is why in the Agency Model, it's the rights holder that sets the retail price... so if they want to charge $14.99 for a streaming FB game, Apple charges you rhat, and takes it's cut from the transaction (likely less than 30%), and passes the rest to the content owner. If they raise the price to $16, it's not Apple's fault, and apple will make sure you know it.
Originally Posted by TheOtherGeoff
Pretty soon the cable monopoly will be looked at like the phone monopoly.
And the tipping point will be LTE/MiFi (and/or FIOS services), coupled with internet content
Do you mean 'viewed in the same light' or 'become as terrible as'? LTE is 2 gigabytes a month for $30. How is that going to enact any change?
The way I see it is that Apple will bypass the cable/satellite providers. You'll get your TV straight from the content creators over your Internet connection, and the C/S providers won't like that one bit. Then ISPs, particularly the ones owned by C/S providers, will start to throttle your connection if you use Apple's stuff (never mind either instating or lowering monthly caps, as needed). Then Apple/someone sues and we get the net neutrality argument settled once and for all. Maybe even with caps being made illegal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Do you mean 'viewed in the same light' or 'become as terrible as'? LTE is 2 gigabytes a month for $30. How is that going to enact any change?
The way I see it is that Apple will bypass the cable/satellite providers. You'll get your TV straight from the content creators over your Internet connection, and the C/S providers won't like that one bit. Then ISPs, particularly the ones owned by C/S providers, will start to throttle your connection if you use Apple's stuff (never mind either instating or lowering monthly caps, as needed). Then Apple/someone sues and we get the net neutrality argument settled once and for all. Maybe even with caps being made illegal.
as a competitor. No, not right away, but introducing a set of national competitor (scale) against cable cos who have never had to compete to survive... It will be like a pack of wolves descending on a kennel show. Verizon and ATT and Sprint and TMobile... remember almost all give away phone minutes... the only things they can compete on are price per GB, GBs/month, and quality. If for nothing else, PPV and low end internet contracts will dry up quickly (and expanded basic... If all I watch is project runway, I'll get those 4 shows from iTunes over LTE, and drop my internet/expanded basic/VOIP, and drop my costs by $50/month net.
As I stated earlier in the thread... the real money is in the content. Cable is great if you have a monopoly, but that monopoly is probably 5-10 years from imploding for national providers. Terrestial radio bandwidth is the great equalizer, because you don't have to build out the final mile, and competition can be built much more cheaply than redundant fiber/coax to each unit. And content owners love competition as it drives values up.
Cable will squeezed by content owners demanding more value for their content, the competition from LTE, Apple and Amazon and Netflix business models, and a consumers belief that Internet should be open access. Comcast is fighting back by buying content.
Throttling may happen, but it's one thing to throttle pirates... it's another to throttle competitors. Federal Anti-trust is pretty clear on that. If I have a legal right to deliver bits, and a customer buys those bits via your network, in no way shape or form can you mess with them. The fact that most cable is run under regulation will further hamper cable's claim of 'protecting' the quality of their network, especially of cable and internet are on different frequencies in the coax.
In the end, there will be a massive bust/boom/bust cycle... cable as we know it will bust because content prices will sky rocket and users will bypass cable, content rights owners will get a lot of money for out of the competition... but then the market will correct (the 'real' number of viewers will show up, those that bought 'rights to distribute' will die on the vine, and a lot of content will be valued at zero (know one watches it).
It will be interesting how Apple negotiates it's content portfolio through all this.
What about something like this:
Let's say you spend 150 bucks on cable right now and you want to pay 100. you give your $100 to Apple, and they give you 100 "credits." If you spend $50, you only get 30 credits. And if you spend $150 you get 180 credits, or something like that. So Apple sells tiers of credits.
Then you choose your channels off a menu. So ESPN might cost 10 credits, but QVC might cost 1 credit. Again, Apple is selling bundles of credits, not bundles of channels.
Finally, the content providers (ESPN, QVC) get a cut of ALL the credits, not just of the people who spend the credits on that one channel.
Just a thought.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bucknbn
What about something like this:
Let's say you spend 150 bucks on cable right now and you want to pay 100. you give your $100 to Apple, and they give you 100 "credits." If you spend $50, you only get 30 credits. And if you spend $150 you get 180 credits, or something like that. So Apple sells tiers of credits.
Then you choose your channels off a menu. So ESPN might cost 10 credits, but QVC might cost 1 credit. Again, Apple is selling bundles of credits, not bundles of channels.
Finally, the content providers (ESPN, QVC) get a cut of ALL the credits, not just of the people who spend the credits on that one channel.
Just a thought.
How many credits do I have to spend to get live local news, live sports, live stock market news, live network programming, foreign language SAP audio and emergency alerts?
The cable today is poor! We used to have 50 Meg's, per second interment with 50 Gb data cap(meaning in 17 minutes you could reach your cap) with 64 channels for about $180 a month, now we have in different city 12 Meg's a second and 250 GB cap(requiring 24 hours of use to reach cap) and 450 channels for $120 a month for limited time (back to $180)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Assume you like watching pro golf and everything associated with it. Golf channels may not be one of the popular choices and probably aren't. If only 5% of Apple TV viewers are willing to pay for the Golf Channel then it would probably disappear would it not? Some of these "fringe" channels with a small but committed following may only exist because they're included and paid for in a package of channels. In ala carte programming it may not be financially supportable. So you don't get to watch a golf channel.
The expectation that I should subsidize someone's interest in watching golf (which I happen to like to) is plain silly.
Posted in another thread, but applies here as well:
Is DPI allowed in The States? It certainly isn't here in
HollandThe Netherlands, and our telco KPN who had done it was slapped in the face for doing so. It is a violation of many privacy rights and Internet freedom.A lot of less popular stuff is "subsidized" to make it possible. I don't consider it automatically silly to do so. Going to your logical extreme Apple TV might be populated only by movies, cartoons and reality shows if you base it simply on desire to pay for specific a la carte choices and those alone. The Science Channel, Ovation and PBS probably won't be on too many folks top-tier programming lists either but it serves the public (and education) to have them available doesn't it? If few people are willing to specifically pay for them individually should they just be tossed aside as financially unsupportable and thus unworthy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by tundraboy
I love the idea of shows as apps rather than as lineups on channels. The natural mental process is to browse for shows rather than browse by channel. The content providers should love this. It's really foolish to spend advertising dollars and waste viewer mindshare promoting your three letters (HBO, USA, CNN, etc.). The only reason they have to promote their call letters so much is because the way TV is set up, you have to go search for their channel first and then their shows. Nobody really watches a content provider, we all watch a content provider's show. Do you like Suits because it's on USA or are you on USA because you like Suits?
You might not watch suits because it's on USA, but I watch Covert Affairs on USA because I was watching Suits on USA. HAving a show as an app would make commercials in the show the only way for them to cross promote. Having a channel as an app gives them more opportunity to cross promote.
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
Posted in another thread, but applies here as well:
Is DPI allowed in The States? It certainly isn't here in Holland The Netherlands, and our telco KPN who had done it was slapped in the face for doing so. It is a violation of many privacy rights and Internet freedom.
It's not DISallowed, and our government couldn't care less about doing its job anymore.
It may be revolutionary, but Apple will never offer anything free or cheap. To get around the cable companies they probably would have to charge $$$$ to kick back to the cable/ Internet companies and the channels.
Simpflying control of current TV is definitely needed,
but what a huge task which the TV signal providers will fight to the end.
Initially HDTVs were designed to use a standard PV control inside, but the providers blocked that.
The current Apple/TV box does add nice function, but it makes TV control even more complex.
This situation boils down to control and power over the customer.
I don't see a resolution anytime soon to this mostly political non technical problem.
The NFL will likely not go with a single contract model again. They will simply offer it up to subscription via the Netflix Model. They could care less about Apple or Google and whether Sunday Ticket drives users to a platform. The NFL doesn't need a platform.
Holy crap. Check out what I said here.
I mean, I am not taking credit or anything. It's the next logical step in television, and if Apple can make it happen, they will likely have another iPhone on their hands.
Go Apple go! I don't care if they update the AppleTV or if they make a full-fledged television set. I just want to get away from DirecTV (and I love them compared to Dish and Comcast) and get to a la carte pricing. Willing to sacrifice however many chickens is necessary to make this happen.
I feel the same way. Compared to cable in my area, DirecTV is simply the best (or better) option at this time. But I've been with them for roughly 18 years and other than watching my bills steadily increase, I can't say that much has changed in that time frame. I certainly don't feel that I'm getting acceptable value for the amount that I'm paying each month. So within the next 12-18 months, I want to divorce DirecTV and move on to something else, the cost of which must better reflect the amount of programming that I actually watch.
Are you actually serious? It may differ depending on who you use but very simple to go into menu settings and edit your favorite channels and choose your channel list and choose not to display certain channels in your guide. I removed all the channels I don't subscribe to as well as about 100 more I can watch but never will.
That's not what he's talking about. What he means is, in order to receive things like HBO Go, ESPN3 or Speed 2, you must be "authenticated" by your cable or satellite provider to verify that you're paying the mob... I mean, a cable or satellite company for the channel already. And there are now cases where providers may authenticate you for one type of device, but not another! So DirecTV may authenticate you so you can receive HBO Go on your iPhone or iPad, but maybe not on your Apple TV. And maybe Comcast will let you have HBO Go on your iPhone and your Apple TV, but they might decide that you aren't allowed to watch ESPN3 on your Apple TV. That's insane! And it's maddening to the nth degree! How this is legal, I have no earthly idea!!!
I still wonder if Netflix might not be a good acquisition for Apple ...
Jim Cramer has been shouting for this for at least a year now. I'm not sure how I feel about that. One advantage of owning Netflix would be picking up their subscriber base and the proprietary technology that they have developed for making viewer suggestions - which is a world better than anything that iTunes does right now (IMO). But on the flipside, Netflix has to pay for content, just like Apple would have to... short of the in-house content that Netflix is now producing, like House of Cards. And from what I've read, there *may be* some sort of legality, a contract wrinkle, that would negate some of Netflix's deals should the company be taken over.
But just for S&G's, assuming a 20% premium over the current market cap, Netflix could possibly be had for about $20 billion. Big money for most, but Apple could write that check and still pay dividends. But now, the acquisition that would set the market completely on its head would be Time Warner/TWX (HBO and Cinemax). That one, at a 20% premium, would probably run in the neighborhood of $70 billion. A lot more money. A lot more risk. And a lot more issues to deal with, including regulatory, I would think. But that (or a similar major content provider acquisition) is what would truly take Apple across the Rubicon. And if Apple had to do something rather drastic, such as discontinue the dividend for a time, in order to make that feasible, I would be more than OK with it.
P.S. A side benefit of such an acquisition is that it might make both Jim Cramer's and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera's heads explode. So, so, so many positive things might come of that...