And transition it to an ala carte system. Assuming ATV4 has a DVR function, use it as the cable box.
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Should Apple buy Time Warner?
- Thread starter brianlbaker
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No. Why would Apple want to be tied to a legacy technology like Cable television? What does Time Warner have that Apple would be interested in? Seems like they would be doing just the opposite of innovating if they bought a poorly managed, dying company, clinging to the "old days" of Cable. The only advantage might be to leverage their existing contracts to somehow get the AppleTV digital "network" off the ground.... Seems like a lot of wasted money and dead weight for that one advantage.
I was thinking along the lines of the leverage, and transitioning it to an Apple Digital "Network. The fact is, that many people love the legacy cable, and Apple could use the ATV branded DVR/Cablebox to leverage even more people to the brand. At the same time breaking the package stranglehold and distributing to cable cutting streamers, channels a la carte.
They get a profit making twofer, and the inside track to revolutionize cable.
Plus, they'd own the data pipeline to tens of millions of customers.
A La Carte has nothing to do with Pay TV providers. It's the content owners (studios/networks) that favor the current model.
But they do allow you to just purchase the content you want to see (except sports) open iTunes..... There you can pay for only what you want.
Cheers
But they do allow you to just purchase the content you want to see (except sports) open iTunes..... There you can pay for only what you want.
Cheers
I'm more interested in a la carte channels, that episodes. There are generally cheaper ways to get episodes, than iTunes (HULU, or Amazon Prime, or if I'm willing to wait, Netflix).
What is the appeal of a la carte channels? Channels are an archaic way to package many shows together, just like cable is an archaic way to package many channels together.
People complain about having to pay for channels they don't watch with cable packages. Well, the same logic applies to paying for shows you don't watch with a channel package. Why should I pay for Nathan For You, Carlos Inglesias, and Larry Wilmore when I only want to watch The Daily Show, Inside Amy Schumer, and Broad City? Why should I pay for Mad Men when I only want to watch The Walking Dead?
So you want a bundle of shows for one price. If so, then that is not a la carte. It is just a smaller bundle of content than is available from Pay TV currently.
If networks were going to sell their channels without bundling with cable, the price will be out of your reach. It would cost you more for 5 channels than you currently get for 100 with Pay TV providers.
The currently TV content structure is VERY lucrative and the only way you are going to change that is to prove they can make more with a new model.
Because channels pay for the making of the shows. Without channels, shows wouldn't be made. The funding stream would be too tenuous.
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And unbundling those channels and selling them directly, to millins more like me, will make the price more affordable than it is now. Scale increases, and price drops.
Actually that is incorrect. You see the reason Cable bundles is that many of the channels in the package you get are free or even paid to cable cos to offer the to you. So what cable does is package expensive packages (like ESPN that costs $15 per subscriber per month) with free or paid channels (think HSN) to give you packages that would actually cost you less than buying them a la carte.
Just getting ESPN package and the turner networks and Disney package would be more expensive than just a basic $40 cable package....
Edit: and this isn't even taking into consideration the additional costs to cable cos of tracking all of the individual channel requests (instead of say 5 packages they now have an infinite amount of packages to track) and the addition equipment needed to support this. Those costs would have to be passed on to the cable subscriber...
What do you mean by that? To me in this context, tenuous is the opposite of direct. If I pay for shows directly the process will be more democratic and the better shows would be made.
The same logic you use to say a la carte channels will be more affordable, I use to say will individual shows will be more affordable.
First off, I think you confuse democratic with mob rule.
That said, if you break shows out from channels, there is no funding stream for new shows. Current shows would battle for advertisers, or viewers, or whatever their funding stream consists of, and that is not necessarily a bad thing, but where would new shows get the funding? Cloud sourcing can only go so far for unproven shows, and do we want venture capitalists funding shows.
A lot of really bad shows are on the air because lots of people watch them, while well written and acted shows get cancelled. Mob Rule would be the death of quality entertainment.
Not that the Apple purchase would make sense but the power is in the fact they control the physical distribution of the internet to many homes. Thats the real power and why the government wouldn't let the Comcast merger happen since they would control a ridiculous amount of infrastructure in the US.
A lot of the bundles are done for subsidy reasons, as other posters have alluded to. On a given network, a popular show will drive ad revenue so that less popular shows can be shown. And within a given cable package, more popular channels subsidize less popular ones.
Also, because the networks also own studios, it creates another level of confusion. Ever notice that NBC Universal shows sometimes appear on ABC?
The existing TV model is becoming outdated. Why would Apple want to get any further into that than they have to?
Also, because the networks also own studios, it creates another level of confusion. Ever notice that NBC Universal shows sometimes appear on ABC?
The existing TV model is becoming outdated. Why would Apple want to get any further into that than they have to?
I don't think there is a difference.
The same places shows creators go to now before the show is picked up by a channel. There are investors who invest in the show to hopefully make a profit later. They're not always VCs, as you said, but sometimes. Many shows are written, and sometimes even a pilot episode is shot, before that show is picked up by a channel and the channel begins to fund it. Investors will that gap, and they will continue to do so. You seem to imply that VCs are bad, but do you want the channel acting as a VC? How is that better?
No, a lot of really bad shows are on the air because advertisers are willing to pay a premium for targeting the viewers. It's not always about quantity or viewers. For example, very few people watch Golf but it's one of the most expensive things to advertise during. Why? Not because it's popular, but because it's the only way to capture that demographic of users all in one place.
Not many people watch those car shows on SpikeTV either - but where else would car parts suppliers go to in order to find the "guys that modify their cars" demographic?
Mob rule, as you put it, would actually allow more unique and low-audience shows to flourish. First, there would be no artificial limit on how many shows can be shown at the same time - more space is available. Second, the overhead of the channel is removed, meaning the line from investment to profit is direct, making it easier to figure out what shows to invest in.
I sincerely hope you are correct. My gut tells me channels are required, but it is occasionally wrong.
A lot of stuff I like to eat from the grocery store are removed for food that I can think is crap. It's called life. What one person thinks is great they rest may not.
To your original idea, and I have said this over and over, al la carte will cost as much if not more than what you pay for satellite/cable. They have deals to bring stations to you cheaper. Most of the channels you don't watch, you are paying pennies a month for. TW cable has contracts in place with each channel and even if Apple were to take them over, those contracts would still have to be honored. ESPN gets roughly $6/month from satellite or cable companies.
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You are partially correct. Ratings are still the driving force behind which TV show stays and which gets canceled. But yes, some advertisers will stick with shows in the hopes they catch on.
You are wrong about Golf. Golf is fairly popular and even more so when Tiger has chance to win. Golf gets around 3 million viewers (higher for major tournaments) on Sunday afternoons. Golf is in the neighborhood as NASCAR (4-5 million) and the NBA (Sunday afternoon games) as far as viewers.
To me, the ultimate goal of a la carte shows, or any other zany idea, isn't to save money. I think most intelligent people realize that it won't save them money. For me, the goal is to be in control of what media comes into my house and to democratize the selection by voting with my wallet. For example, I don't want a single penny I earn, or a single second of my attention, to be paid for Fox News. Even if it costs me more in the longrun, I'd rather pay for the shows I want, when I want them, and no more.
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Fair enough. My info about Golf was from about a decade ago in a Marketing class while I briefly thought about minoring in business... that idea didn't last.
I do still think there is money in niche shows though. Just because something isn't watched by millions of people doesn't mean it's doomed to fail to will be unprofitable.
To me, I'd rather just block the channel and pay less per month than cherry pick which channels I see. Sometimes I stumble on shows from channels I never thought I'd watch. Bottom line is,I just don't see it happening in the short term What might work for you is canceling satellite or cable sub, get netflix, hulu and amazon prime. Then purchase through iTunes any shows not covered by the others.
As long as there are advertisers willing to say "damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead." Good shows need to money to produce. Someone has to pay for for these shows. Either advertisers on commercial television or go to HBO and Showtime where it is subscription based. Netflix also fits that model.
The opposite, most think they will save by not paying for channels they don't want to see.
That's exactly what I do, minus hulu. At the price Hulu charges, it should be ad-free. OTA + Netflix + Amazon Price + mlb.tv. That covers about 80% of what we watch. The rest can be purchased elsewhere.
My beef that the old cable companies and channels are currently being sticks in the mud about making more content available as I described above. There are still some things you cannot get this way. Fortunately, piracy covers those bases
I agree. Not all shows have to be big budget dramas like Mad Men or Breaking Bad. Some niche shows, which can cost less to make, can still get people to pay for watching them or can attract niche advertisers. Thus, a show watched by only a few thousand viewers can still be profitable.
Those people aren't very intelligent then
The only way to save money is to just rid of cable entirely and not replace it with anything else. It's important to remember that cable TV is a frivolous luxury.
Apple has turned into a 10,000 lb gorilla and now you want them to have more power? No way. They destroyed the music industry. The movie industry saw that and told apple to take a hike when apple approached them to do the same thing to movies as it did to music. If anything, its time to bust up apple before its to late!
Problem with MLB.TV or NHL Game center is no local teams are shown. Even if your out of market for your favorite team, you will always face a time when blacked out by the local team of your area.
Yea, that's what a smartDNS is for. I don't put up with those shenanigans either.