What you say makes too much sense, hence why the cable companies won't do it lol
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HBO to Introduce Standalone Web-Only Subscriptions in 2015
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What you say makes too much sense, hence why the cable companies won't do it lol
Guess there had to be some benefits to being American...
Feeling special do we?
The "rest of the world" can just use a vpn or dns service like they did when Netflix was US only.
Television is very different than music. Most people follow a handful of TV shows because watching a series is a big investment in time. Music is for the most part something we listen to in the background while doing other things, and what you feel like listening to can be quite varied. I think this is why people want more choice with music (i.e., all content at one price) but want to be able to target the TV/Movie entertainment they consume.
In HBO Nordic there is a lot of content from other networks. It's not "HBO Only" service. At least Showtime, FX and AMC series are there. (at least some of it)
Basically it is a subscription for 15 USD which for comparison is the same price as Netflix in Scandinavia. We get all the seasons of all the series HBO owns as well as some series they've licensed from other companies such as Walking Dead (not all seasons currently) and Black Flags. As well as quite a few classic movies. The movie selection is neglible compared to Netflix but the number of quality series is outstanding.
We can access our subscription on some newer smart TV's from Samsung, Xbox 360, iOS and Android devices but sadly not Apple TV. Airplay mirroring works but not perfectly. Regular Airplay (which is less bandwidth intensive) is not supported yet.
I use it on my Xbox 360 where it works fine.
Technically it is possible to use HBO Nordic outside scandinavia using a VPN service but you do need a scandinavian credit card.
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"....the first major shift away from cable-only access to premium content. "
Yes..
Now, don't stop there, expand it to outside the U.S and not being a web-only service.... *runs his hand in glee as the he gets HBO on ATV*
Finally, i've been looking for this for a long time..
Next step is make it available outside U.S, or i can just VPN in
While this would get new customers in mass, truth be told, u can just as well get the same exact exact from torrents too.
So really, if it's too much, then users may not pay...
Yes..
Now, don't stop there, expand it to outside the U.S and not being a web-only service.... *runs his hand in glee as the he gets HBO on ATV*
Finally, i've been looking for this for a long time..
Next step is make it available outside U.S, or i can just VPN in
While this would get new customers in mass, truth be told, u can just as well get the same exact exact from torrents too.
So really, if it's too much, then users may not pay...
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More like "You can watch the latest movies unedited and commercial free for about $5 a month, cheaper than taking the whole family to the movies!"
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Yet another thread where "we" consumers want to dictate the pricing of a new model and have the other players just take the massive hit to fulfill our call for cutting our cable bills by 70%, 80%, 90% or more.
Key piece of information missing from this HBO announcement: price. I predict the price will NOT be close to the price we know... that is, NOT $12-$15-$18/month we see when we add it to a cable/sat subscription. It will need to be much higher than that to avoid biting the hand that feeds HBO now. My pricing prediction if it is pretty much HBO GO: $34-$49/month but long shot maybe at $29.99/month. Possibly a short-term trial offer for less. I have zero expectations of it being full HBO unbundled at bundled pricing.
Correct. The other players in the chain will want to make MORE money, not less in any "new model". The al-a-carte model will model pricing such that the handful of channels that "we" want to buy will cost at least as much as the same handful plus the other 185 channels we don't want. Nobody wants to chop 80% or more off of the cash stream that flows through the model now. I'm sure Apple would much rather have it's 30% of $100/month instead of $30% of $5 or $8 or $12/month too.
Sure, but that's naming your own price. The national average is about $70/month. The goal of pricing a "new model" would be to still extract that $70 from us all. I doubt those 3 could be priced at $23.33 each but I could see an average of about $10 per channel (for modestly popular channels) pricing actually flying so that a 7 channel al-a-carte "bundle" works out to $70/month. Those wanting 10 channels pay $100 to help make up for those wanting 4 channels at $40. Net result though should still work out to all of us paying at least as much as we pay now on average (but I would expect that number to actually be higher to have motivated the change).
Also, television has a big subsidy model built into it. Much like iPhones are perceived to cost $199 or $99 or $0 while Apple still gets paid a much higher amount (because subsidizers like AT&T, Verizon, etc cover the difference), those commercials that run on those 185 channels "we" never watch help subsidize the programming running on the 5-15 channels "we" do watch. Kill off the 185 channels and you kill off that commercial revenue. Kill off that subsidy revenue and guess who makes up for that revenue? Else, the quality of the programming on what remains will need to fall to match up with the financial loss.
How much is that commercial revenue? I did the math a couple of years ago. Total commercial (subsidy) revenue is about $54 per U.S. household.
I'd bet very strongly against that. The cable/satt revenue at $12-$15-$18/month is much too important to HBO to undercut that business. If it's $8/month or so, I predict it will be HBO jr, with much of the more desirable content held back.
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I love the dream as much as the next guy but this one is a mess once we get beyond "I want everything I want for a fraction of what I pay now". Why do the other entities that delivers that everything want to do this? Why doesn't the broadband providers who will take the huge hit we want NOT make up for it with higher broadband rates for "heavier bandwidth users"? Etc.
Take any kind of business accustomed to making $XXX for it's offerings. Now cut that $XXX by 80% or more. How does that business keep on delivering? Even Apple couldn't do that. iMacs "starting at $1099" becomes an iMac at $109. Do we think the same latest & greatest guts will be in the $109 iMac?
We already have free or near free, on-demand television "shows". It's called YouTube. With little-to-no revenue stream, that's a good example of the quality of the programming to expect in the $5-$10-$15/month al-a-carte world.
Key piece of information missing from this HBO announcement: price. I predict the price will NOT be close to the price we know... that is, NOT $12-$15-$18/month we see when we add it to a cable/sat subscription. It will need to be much higher than that to avoid biting the hand that feeds HBO now. My pricing prediction if it is pretty much HBO GO: $34-$49/month but long shot maybe at $29.99/month. Possibly a short-term trial offer for less. I have zero expectations of it being full HBO unbundled at bundled pricing.
Correct. The other players in the chain will want to make MORE money, not less in any "new model". The al-a-carte model will model pricing such that the handful of channels that "we" want to buy will cost at least as much as the same handful plus the other 185 channels we don't want. Nobody wants to chop 80% or more off of the cash stream that flows through the model now. I'm sure Apple would much rather have it's 30% of $100/month instead of $30% of $5 or $8 or $12/month too.
Sure, but that's naming your own price. The national average is about $70/month. The goal of pricing a "new model" would be to still extract that $70 from us all. I doubt those 3 could be priced at $23.33 each but I could see an average of about $10 per channel (for modestly popular channels) pricing actually flying so that a 7 channel al-a-carte "bundle" works out to $70/month. Those wanting 10 channels pay $100 to help make up for those wanting 4 channels at $40. Net result though should still work out to all of us paying at least as much as we pay now on average (but I would expect that number to actually be higher to have motivated the change).
Also, television has a big subsidy model built into it. Much like iPhones are perceived to cost $199 or $99 or $0 while Apple still gets paid a much higher amount (because subsidizers like AT&T, Verizon, etc cover the difference), those commercials that run on those 185 channels "we" never watch help subsidize the programming running on the 5-15 channels "we" do watch. Kill off the 185 channels and you kill off that commercial revenue. Kill off that subsidy revenue and guess who makes up for that revenue? Else, the quality of the programming on what remains will need to fall to match up with the financial loss.
How much is that commercial revenue? I did the math a couple of years ago. Total commercial (subsidy) revenue is about $54 per U.S. household.
I'd bet very strongly against that. The cable/satt revenue at $12-$15-$18/month is much too important to HBO to undercut that business. If it's $8/month or so, I predict it will be HBO jr, with much of the more desirable content held back.
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I love the dream as much as the next guy but this one is a mess once we get beyond "I want everything I want for a fraction of what I pay now". Why do the other entities that delivers that everything want to do this? Why doesn't the broadband providers who will take the huge hit we want NOT make up for it with higher broadband rates for "heavier bandwidth users"? Etc.
Take any kind of business accustomed to making $XXX for it's offerings. Now cut that $XXX by 80% or more. How does that business keep on delivering? Even Apple couldn't do that. iMacs "starting at $1099" becomes an iMac at $109. Do we think the same latest & greatest guts will be in the $109 iMac?
We already have free or near free, on-demand television "shows". It's called YouTube. With little-to-no revenue stream, that's a good example of the quality of the programming to expect in the $5-$10-$15/month al-a-carte world.
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Maybe Cable TV should accommodate both, then? A subscription and a-la-carte pricing? Put a price, or discount, on commercial interruption? Offer cord-free web / app access to the subscribed content?
Otherwise, Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime type of individual services will continue to pop up.
Exactly, we cut the cord because the channels we wanted were only available in the 400 channel tier and the cable company knew that. For us, that left about 380 channels we would never ever watch.
There is another benefit this will bring. About 350 crap channels out of the 400 tier will cease to exist and will force an improvement in programming. Right now everything is subsidized and quality does not matter, because the rating system is so 1950's and out of date.
All I can say is it's about damn time! Hopefully the rest of these networks will realize this is the future of TV and do the same.
The problem is we need a total shift in content delivery for a company to make that kind of offering, since the big cable conglomerates make too much money with the current system to change anything.
Before a Napster or iTunes like revolution was needed to change that, and with the monopolistic practices of the big companies along with the lack of a Steve Jobs-like visionary to arm-twist to get things done, things have to chug along more slowly.
What HBO is doing is saying why are we letting our distributors make all that money, when there is a demand for this and we can cut out the middleman? Eventually I suspect most content providers (at least those not bought up by the big cable conglomerates) will follow HBO's lead and do the same. There are also still thorny legal roadblocks to stream live TV that need to be overcome.
I suspect around $15-20 a month will be the pricing, since they need new adopters to make this viable, and if they overprice the service, people won't use it.
So I don't suspect a shift until the cable companies realize that content-provider streamers are cutting into their business or that a truly easy method of signing up for and watching these streams exists.
Would love to see Apple be the one to do that, but I'm not holding my breath.
Yep, that is exactly what they will try, but the good news is that the reason for them needing $70/month average is to subsidize hundreds of channels that no one watches. If consumers refuse to pay, then the providers would be forced to adapt. If you want to make this happen long term, then you will have to forgo having everything you want today and just unplug until the providers get the message that they need to streamline and reduce costs.
Forgot to say, if they removed the commercials, then I would be fine with $70/month. If fact, for any old farts out there, that is how HBO started out. So give us an option, commercials then cheap, no commercials pay a little more.
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As of right now, that's true. Anyone who's paying for cable that wants HBO is most likely already subscribing to it. HBO probably isn't the only channel in the package they want so they will agree to pay for the package and add HBO on. Anyone who refuses to pay for HBO but still has cable won't pay for this anyway. If they're unwilling to pay the $12 extra month or whatever, they're not going to pay it directly to HBO either to get a streaming subscription. So right now you're essentially looking at the market of non-cable subscribers who can't get HBO without basic cable. For HBO, that's new revenue in addition to their current subscribers. I don't think there's anything right now to suggest that a lot cable subscribers are going to suddenly ditch cable altogether because of this. That may change but right now, believe it or not, a lot of people are still willing to pay for cable and additional services. About 85% of Netflix subscribers also subscribe to cable too.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
While there is truth in the comment, how practical is that? I'd like my next Mac for $100. Let's all stop buying Macs until Apple gets the message. I want my next car for $100. Let's all stop buying cars until the car makers get the message. Etc.
If they remove the commercials but want to make up for the loss in commercial revenue, the starting price to just cover that (removal) is about $54/month. That's for NO channels- just making up for commercial-free. Add the approx. 10 channels "we" want at realistic al-a-carte pricing and I would expect that typical 10 channel package to be about 30% higher than the current national average at about $70/month per household PLUS making up for this $54/month to deliver commercial-free. In other words, 200 channels bundled at about $70 or 5, 10 or maybe 15 al-a-carte channels at about $100/month PLUS about $54/month.
I know that looks crazy but you can go explore the math yourself. Look up total television commercial revenue and total number of U.S. households. Divide to get the "per household" number. Then, step out of the consumer shoes and into the shoes of the other players in this chain. Why does a Comcast just roll over and take the big hit to let a "new model" from an Apple take all that revenue? Won't a Comcast make up for the loss in higher broadband rates? How do the artists that make the stuff "we" do want to watch maintain the quality of what we do want to watch while receiving 70%, 80% or 90% less revenue than they get now PLUS the loss of the commercial revenue subsidy to boot?
The dream falls apart as soon as we take one step beyond our own "I want everything for nearly nothing" thinking. Try applying that same kind of dreaming to anything else: I want everything I buy from Apple for 85% off. Even Apple couldn't make that work.
When Spotify starts charging $115 per month for their service, then your argument will make sense.
Cable sucks. They force people to subsidize channels nobody watches. Strictly based on the ratings, there is no way that CurrentTV (now Al Jazeera) should have made money. They didn't have any viewers. But since the cable companies holds subscribers essentially hostage by only delivering the channels we want with the crap we don't, everyone gets paid... even the idiots that don't have viewers.
A la carte subscriptions will a) allow consumers to choose, b) pay the people who are producing, and c) by cutting off the money, weed out the crap.
There is no reason for this not to happen other than the bloody cable companies.
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I amended your statement to be a more apples to apples comparison. It isn't just the price that is the problem, it is the price and getting a bunch of crap you don't want.
A la carte subscriptions will a) allow consumers to choose, b) pay the people who are producing, and c) by cutting off the money, weed out the crap.
There is no reason for this not to happen other than the bloody cable companies.
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I amended your statement to be a more apples to apples comparison. It isn't just the price that is the problem, it is the price and getting a bunch of crap you don't want.
The rest of the industry will be watching intently. If consumers respond and revenue goes up, they will follow. If we do not, they will not. And part of that is if current subscribers change to the new model to save money, total revenue could actually go down.
Thoughts on the buffet analogy:
If brussel sprouts are offered and you don't take some, it didn't cost the restaurant anything more to offer them while you were there. If enough customers eat enough to make the one option worth making, it costs you nothing extra not to eat it (no waste). Cause the other diners would be eating more of what you enjoy were BS not available.
Individual channels don't cost the same to produce. A channel as rich as hbo can cost 10000% more to make available than a local access feed you block on day one. And once Comcast has the HW in place for 299 channels, adding #300 costs them basically nothing. Just one extra virtual wire in a large panel.
Take three guys, each paying 90/mo for 9 channels. Now suppose each of them only enjoy the 3 channels that the other two guys don't (so 3/3/3). There's an assumption that each could pay only 30/mo by turning off the other 6 channels. But they are already not watching those 6 and those 6 other channels would still need to be produced for the other two. Each person would have to pay more for the 3 they are now getting because while guy one is not helping to pay for guy two and three, guy two and three are also not helping to pay for guy one.
Prepare for the first a la carte wakeup call. As others have predicted, this will probably fall somewhere between $15 and $30/month. My guess is $19.99, possibly with a lower tier for the older lineup they have on Amazon Prime.
The truth is, most of the channels we want would be expensive in a non-bundled model because they are subsidized by smaller channels - many of which pay the cable companies to carry (e.g. home shopping).
I just don't see them making less per subscriber by slashing the price, while also risking the loss of the free marketing. I'm sure HBO doesn't want all those cable ads with Game of Thrones shown on the TV to switch to Homeland.
The truth is, most of the channels we want would be expensive in a non-bundled model because they are subsidized by smaller channels - many of which pay the cable companies to carry (e.g. home shopping).
I just don't see them making less per subscriber by slashing the price, while also risking the loss of the free marketing. I'm sure HBO doesn't want all those cable ads with Game of Thrones shown on the TV to switch to Homeland.
We don't know how many viewers pay for cable or satellite now mainly to get HBO, but from the wording of the announcement, I take it that HBO's "current partners" will be protected from any potential losses. Two other, very important unknowns remain. The first is whether HBO will include all of their programming in the standalone streaming package, and the other is the price. I wouldn't be surprised if the programming amounts to "HBO lite" or the cost is significantly more than what cable subscribers pay for full HBO programming today.
The providers are far too important to HBO for them to get way up their noses. My suspicion is the excitment we are hearing about how this is the start of an important shift, is probably premature.
Seems to be working for me. I stopped paying for "cable" 3 years ago. And now HBO is ready to offer me ala carte.
Also....hyperbole doesn't work on everyone, you know.