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Author Topic: Netflix Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-06-2016 08:38 PM                     Yep. I think a bunch of these cable channels are going to disappear one way or the other. I'm surprised some of these channels still even exist under the current business model. All of the non-premium networks depend to some degree on commercial advertising to pay the bills. The network isn't going to sell many spots to advertisers if its ratings are shit. But how can the ratings be any better than shit when the programming blocks are filled with reruns of reality TV shows and infomercials? Under an a la carte arrangement most of those shitty networks would die very much deserved, long overdue deaths. That's really the lesser of the two evils for satellite/cable TV providers. Their other choice is to stay the course, keep passing along frequent price hikes from networks down to subscribers and continue net subscriber losses due to cord cutting. Eventually the cord cutting will put them and even the better cable TV networks into crisis. This is why networks like HBO are now offering the de-coupled HBO NOW option. They can't afford to be totally dependent on the cable TV subscriber model. They have to diversify with a backup plan in case the traditional cable TV industry implodes on itself.  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 06-06-2016 10:18 PM                        Bobby Most of those "shit" cable channels are part of larger media companies like Time-Warner, NBC Universal, Disney, etc. I doubt they sell any advertising directly for content on those networks. Most likely they use them as add-ons to help attract big advertisers to the main network. Since most of those networks do not have (much) original content, there is very little cost in providing them. They might go away if no one wants them as part of an ala carte model, but the threshold would likely be pretty low to keep those channels.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-06-2016 11:49 PM                     Yes, I understand the shit cable channels are owned by giant global media companies who own a portfolio of other TV channels, some less shitty than others. They also own movie studios, music labels, etc. That doesn't make their shitty filler channels on the dial less shitty. It's like a package of Milk Duds with goat poop pellets mixed in with the candy. Traditional pay TV customers have been getting price gouged for this garbage over the past decade. I can only guess it's to help prop up the stock prices for investors. For more and more people the product isn't worth the money and they're looking for ways out. Netflix and rabbit ears is one alternative. There are others, such as illegally downloading torrents. As little as 10 years ago there were no real alternatives at all. Then there's the quality of content itself. I don't think there's enough in the way of great movies, TV shows and music to sustain the current business model. Due to less than a handful of global companies having a stranglehold on content production and distribution they've deliberately allowed things to get stale. They've interrupted the natural cycle of big changes in entertainment style that used to take place every few years. It's not healthy. In the long term something will happen to shake things up, violently even. The current situation with American-flavored global media companies reminds me a lot of the Big Three auto manufacturers in the 1960's & 70's. They kept doing things the same old way until they started getting their asses kicked by foreign competition. I think the same thing can happen here. What Netflix and Amazon are doing could just be the beginning.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-07-2016 08:28 AM                        "It's like a package of Milk Duds with goat poop pellets mixed in with the candy." ...never heard it said any better, or more accurately. Let's face it, the consumer has ALWAYS been at the whim and mercy of the media conglomerates, just as exhibition also has been. The trick to NOT be at their mercy is to not let them convince you that you HAVE to see this or that product they seduce you into thinking your world will end if you don't see it and see it NOW. Will-power will thwart them every time. The strange thing here in Brooklyn is that Cablevision cabled this bourough LONG after Manhattan got cable service -- I am talking like a decade later. Why? Because our borough president and city council wouldn't give a license to them until the company made some concessions; some had to do with stuff like maintaining street repair where they had to dig to lay their wire, etc., but the BIG stumbling block that Cablevision (Optimum) just wouldn't swallow was that council insisted that the company offer a "Basic" service for around $15-$20 a month. In the beginning this included all the broadcast stations and a handful of other channels thrown in, so you got about 25 channels, mostly stations from other markets. It basically was a way for people in poor reception areas could get decent TV reception. Thing is, Brooklyn doesn't have a lot of high-rises and most places, and what people didn't realize, for what they were paying even that absurdly low price for cable service, with the addition of a decent rooftop antenna, they could do just as well. But of course, once you have the cable, it was also a way to get cheap(er) internet service; cheaper, anyway than you could get if you moved off the Basic plan to their "triple play bundles" (triple bundles-o-shit) for $100 a month.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-07-2016 12:22 PM                     I'm kind of surprised the cable and satellite service providers aren't culling some of the more worthless channels from their lineups. The only purpose I can see for keeping them is upping the channel count for marketing boasts. I don't care about having 100, 200 or even 500 channels. Most of it is shit I gotta click past to get to a good channel. Maybe the cable companies can deal with channel bloat just fine, but I know it's tough on the satellite companies. They can squeeze only so many channels on those "birds" orbiting at 25,000 miles above the surface. My Dish Network dish is doing quite the balancing act; it's aimed so it can get signals from 3 different satellites. It was a huge production for Dish to transition from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4. They had to swap out satellites and swap out customer receivers. I imagine they'll have to do the same thing again with HEVC. I still miss the DishHD package I had several years ago. It had nothing but HD channels, about 50 or 60 of them. This was also a time when many of the channels were still showing content relevant to their network names. I was paying a little over $50 per month for that package plus several HBO channels. The channel selection was actually better than what I have with Dish's "Top 120" package, which is the basic level offering. I'd have to upgrade up to their most costly package to get back some of the channels I used to have with the DishHD package. Considering what many of those channels are showing now, I'm not really missing anything. I'm wondering how much impact Time-Shifting is still having on cable companies. I record a couple or so different shows to my DVR to watch later. I always fast-forward past the commercials. Some of these commercial breaks are freaking long, 4 or 5 minutes in some cases. The cable and satellite companies never would have incorporated DVRs into their receivers if not for the Tivo's onslaught umpteen years ago. Streaming services like Netflix take it a step farther. There are no ads to skip. An hour TV show episode originally from a regular cable network actually gets finished in roughly 40 minutes. The show's pacing is actually a little better without the ad interruption. When you binge watch it's a little more like watching a long movie.  |  IP: Logged Harold Hallikainen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 906 From: Denver, CO, USA Registered: Aug 2009 posted 06-07-2016 09:12 PM                        A couple comments. I believe that program suppliers require CATV companies to take programs as a package. Want the popular channel? You have to carry these several less popular ones. Another point is that these channels charge the cable system per subscriber, whether the subscriber watches that channel or not. I think ESPN is over $5 per subscriber. I imagine it would be a lot more if the cable company only had to pay for the people who actually wanted it (as in a la carte). Third, local TV stations charge the cable companies to carry their programming. TV stations have been increasing their rates substantially over the years. This has led to blackouts as contracts expire and negotiations continue. Though broadcast (send the same thing to everyone) is more efficient and less expensive, the cost of wired bandwidth has dropped so much that it's affordable to pay for a separate stream to each subscriber. I think the future of television is streaming with each user getting their own stream. People may want to watch live TV, but even with live, they'd like to pause and replay a section. This pretty much gets us back to a separate stream per user. I was really surprised when AT&T bought Direct TV. It seemed like a step in the wrong direction. Harold (currently watching election results on the CBS News stream on Roku)  |  IP: Logged Evans A Criswell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1579 From: Huntsville, AL, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 06-21-2016 03:48 PM                        I ditched cable in June 2013 and have occasionally used Netflix but I have noticed that the number of movies to choose from isn't that great. Netflix seems to prefer resolution over frame rate in their encoding and although the picture resolution is OK at normal viewing distance, the lower, jumpy frame rate on anything changing quickly is quite distracting. I was paying about $150 a month for cable and was never finding anything worth watching on TV. I've saved over $5000 in the past 3 years and my internet bill has been around $50 a month compared to around $200 it would have been with cable and the home phone (which I ditched as well). I was hoping in the early days of Netflix streaming that they would be able to just convert all their DVD library to online streaming but it did not work that way. Once every few months I get on and watch a few things and see what has changed because I can quickly exhaust everything I'm interested in on there.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 06-24-2016 12:04 PM                     Commercials are the main reason why I've never had cable, aside from a time more than 20 years ago when I lived with an idiot roommate who wanted it and another when I moved into an apartment where the previous tenant forgot to cancel the cable "service" and I was getting it free for a few months before they switched it off. I've always accepted over-the-air TV as having commercials because I DON'T pay anything for it- they get their money selling ad time. No matter how you explain the cable business model, the bottom line is that someone is getting money both from advertisers AND viewers, and viewers are paying to watch commercials, and that isn't right. Netflix started out pretty good, I was even willing to forgive their technical shortcomings. While some things have improved, their interface on newer devices is disturbing: at the end credits of movies, it shrinks the picture into a small box (much like some cable channels do) and tells you to hurry up and watch something else. Some jerk there came up with a way for their system to do this automatically so they don't even have a real human deciding when to do this. The whole point of Netflix is that you watch what you want, when you want, with NO interruptions- if I didn't want to watch the end credits, I'd pick up the remote and interrupt them myself.  |  IP: Logged Sean Weitzel Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 619 From: Vacaville, CA (1790 miles west of Rockwall) Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-24-2016 07:00 PM                     When I had a C band satellite dish system, it was possible to order channels via a package or a la carte. I've never been able to determine why that was either not offered or not feasible with dvb satellite and digital cable. Anyone know?  |  IP: Logged Harold Hallikainen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 906 From: Denver, CO, USA Registered: Aug 2009 posted 06-24-2016 08:26 PM                        I think the cable and satellite industry offer packages because al la carte would make the individual channels cost more since each channel would have lower subscriber numbers. As mentioned before, I think ESPN charges cable and satellite companies $5 or more per subscriber whether the subscriber watches it or not. If half the subscribers signed up a la carte, they'd have to pay $10 per month for ESPN to get the same revenue. Providing the content to people who don't want it lowers the cost to the people who do want it. On advertising, it's pretty typical for publications to have a "dual revenue stream" consisting of subscription revenue and advertising revenue. Most newspapers operate this way. In fact, advertising on media where the subscriber paid for the subscription is seen as more valuable since the subscriber apparently actually wants the publication and is more likely to read it and see the ad. Cable channels also benefit from this dual revenue stream. Many movie theaters also use this dual revenue stream. Advertising allows them to charge lower subscription fees or lower admission prices. Consumers are free to choose a lower priced product with advertising or a higher priced product without advertising. Harold  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 07-02-2016 02:06 PM                        Now I know I’m old and old-fashioned but I like to read for entertainment and get away form the screen sometimes. Not always but sometimes it is nice to be caught up in a good book – even if you read it in digital format it is quite pleasing and you don’t have to worry about goat turds in milk duds then. Now I know were in the movie exhibition business but still reading is much better than goat turds. Not that I have tried a goat turd And yeah, before Bobby points it out, I have been away for a long time but I'm still a smart ass!  |  IP: Logged

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