Stop Working on Those Cable TV Revenue Models

[RegisteredUconn]

The paradigm shift is heading our way. My guess is that content will be delivered via some form of cellular phone technology. Content bundlers, who've had a very profitable run signing up captive audiences, will soon see their customer bases shattered. Competition in the content delivery market will be the new norm. Bundling will be opened up. Significantly greater flexibility in "packages" will emerge. You buy what you want rather than 100s channels that hold little interest for you.

Which conference wants UConn when it doesn't sell its product through Cox, Time-Warner, etc. Conferences that are making moves for the new model now will be the early winners. How does that affect our stay in AAC purgatory?

http://homes.yahoo.com/news/get-ready-for--over-the-top--tv-222529518.html

 

[SubbaBub]

Coming to your device soon: the UConn Athletics podcast network.

 

[pj]

The main effect will be to substantially decrease TV revenue to conferences, at which point university administrators will regret these sprawling conferences with lost local rivalries and high travel costs.

The good news is that it could help outsiders like UConn monetize their properties more competitively, as disintermediation will reduce the value of an affiliation with large entities like conferences and cable networks.

The big change will be when you can have an effectively infinite number of TV channels, just like the Internet has infinite web sites. Then a TV channel becomes like a blog, publishing periodically, and people go to it and see a menu of what's available. At this point there is no reason not to have a UConn channel, with all UConn content, instead of selling content through the conference and networks. You'll see the top schools in their conferences peel off their rights and sell it independently; they generate most value so why let the conference average it down? Every top school will try to be like Notre Dame or Texas. Then as they peel off, the next in line will benefit by peeling off. Conferences would cease to be the media rights sellers, schools would.

Once that happened, then schools start to have reasons to schedule local rivals who draw more interest. Instead of BC and Syracuse trying to keep UConn out of the ACC so that they can more easily skim off revenue generated by Florida State, Clemson, UNC, and Duke, you'd see them seeking UConn as a rival to generate regional interest.

Overall it will be very good for college sports. Just not for athletic department budgets at the P5.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

No more Huskies, we'll be the UConn Disintermediators. Rolls right off the tongue.

 

[billybud]

Anything after 2027 is mighty far away far someone my age....and ESPN has locked up a lot of content for the next 13 years.

 

[WestCoastHusky]

Anything after 2027 is mighty far away far someone my age....and ESPN has locked up a lot of content for the next 13 years.

This might be true for all the ACC teams, but UCONN's content rights aren't locked up that long. Hopefully, that's exactly what UCONN will do on its own vs. get packaged with rest of the AAC teams. When the AAC deal is up for renewal, UCONN should definitely look into this alternative.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

Anything after 2027 is mighty far away far someone my age....and ESPN has locked up a lot of content for the next 13 years.

Exactly what I'd be worried about if I were you.

 

[Fishy]

Here's the thing.

People keep talking about 'cord cutting' which means they're going to strike a blow against the cable companies by canceling their tv service and start watching internet television that is delivered....by the very same company.

Newsflash - the peeps that control the pipes will always have their hand between your wallet and their content.

And perhaps the only thing that offers a sliver of hope for us is that someone somewhere might need entry into our area to shake a few bucks loose from carriers.

 

[pj]

Here's the thing.

People keep talking about 'cord cutting' which means they're going to strike a blow against the cable companies by canceling their tv service and start watching internet television that is delivered....by the very same company.

Newsflash - the peeps that control the pipes will always have their hand between your wallet and their content.

And perhaps the only thing that offers a sliver of hope for us is that someone somewhere might need entry into our area to shake a few bucks loose from carriers.

The companies will survive but they'll be competing as a utility provider of bandwidth/connectivity, not as a content provider. It is a big change to the competitive landscape. ESPN and cable TV make a lot of money being the exclusive providers of desirable content. Whereas in the new order, the content producer will sell through all channels.

 

[billybud]

Here's the thing.

People keep talking about 'cord cutting' which means they're going to strike a blow against the cable companies by canceling their tv service and start watching internet television that is delivered....by the very same company.

Newsflash - the peeps that control the pipes will always have their hand between your wallet and their content.

And perhaps the only thing that offers a sliver of hope for us is that someone somewhere might need entry into our area to shake a few bucks loose from carriers.

I stream a lot of sports....but the content owner (ESPN3) is the cable giant. The same cable giant that has SEC rights...

The "how" of delivery does not automatically change the cost of purchasing the right to transmit.

 

[billybud]

I see conferences still banding together to submit media content deals....not many programs can go it alone like Notre Dame has with NBC.

And the bowls will continue having the high bidder having media rights.

Splitting the mechanism of game transmission from the ownership of transmission rights may have some effect (although I am betting not in my lifetime).

ESPN already has the lead on web broadcasting....you can watch on any device (phone, tablet, etc) as long as your provider has ESPN. I just log in with my Comcast account and watch when away from a TV>

 

[billybud]

As I type this, I am about to stream the FSU@Clemson baseball game tonight....right to the 60" HD.

 

[pj]

Billybud, the difference is that once Internet-based TV consumption is the norm, it becomes easy to find things regardless of channel. Look at the difference in ratings between Big East basketball on Fox Sports 1 and AAC basketball on ESPN - lots of people have a habit of tuning into ESPN for sports and no habit of going to FS1. But when things are on the Internet, people navigate differently, they use search and compile bookmarks/personal libraries of content they like.

At that point ESPN no longer offers any value to the content owners, and they might as well distribute their content directly to their consumers.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

Here's the thing.

People keep talking about 'cord cutting' which means they're going to strike a blow against the cable companies by canceling their tv service and start watching internet television that is delivered....by the very same company.

Newsflash - the peeps that control the pipes will always have their hand between your wallet and their content.

And perhaps the only thing that offers a sliver of hope for us is that someone somewhere might need entry into our area to shake a few bucks loose from carriers.

If it works that way to begin, it will only work that way until the lawsuits accusing bundlers like Comcast et. al., and networks like ESPN of monopolistic practices begin to hit the courts. Can you say Carterphone?

 

[Davidm]

The companies will survive but they'll be competing as a utility provider of bandwidth/connectivity, not as a content provider. It is a big change to the competitive landscape. ESPN and cable TV make a lot of money being the exclusive providers of desirable content. Whereas in the new order, the content producer will sell through all channels.

IF this happens down the road I can see companies such as comcast throwing data limits I.E. 1gb per month on internet to increase fee's on the internet to offset the loss of cable money.

Not to mention package deals

"Buy the sports package to stream College Basketball to your phone, computer, and Ipad without being added towards your data caps!"

I can see it now.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

Anything after 2027 is mighty far away far someone my age....and ESPN has locked up a lot of content for the next 13 years.

Heck
I don't buy green bananas.

 

[upstater]

Here's the thing.

People keep talking about 'cord cutting' which means they're going to strike a blow against the cable companies by canceling their tv service and start watching internet television that is delivered....by the very same company.

Newsflash - the peeps that control the pipes will always have their hand between your wallet and their content.

And perhaps the only thing that offers a sliver of hope for us is that someone somewhere might need entry into our area to shake a few bucks loose from carriers.

Yep. Even Netflix is now coming out strong FOR so-called Net Neutrality (paging Mr. Orwell!), and all because they are paying the CableCo's to give them extra bandwidth.

Netflix is on the inside now.

 

[billybud]

Netflix controls content...and they charge you for it.

As long as conferences sell their content in a cooperative venture...you'll have an ESPN or a Fox bidding for it.

A very few Notre Dame type programs with a national audience might market their content as an individual organization.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

Netflix controls content...and they charge you for it.

As long as conferences sell their content in a cooperative venture...you'll have an ESPN or a Fox bidding for it.

A very few Notre Dame type programs with a national audience might market their content as an individual organization.

How does Netflix control content? Isn't what they do analogous to a retailer? Doesn't the ACC, as a supplier of content, have ultimate control? As the delivery model, ESPN through Comcast (or whatever), changes and more opportunities open up, won't the current delivery method be devalued pushing some of that value transference back to the supplier? I don't need ESPN all that much. A couple of guys setting up a camera, tapping into a stats feed with a voice synthesizer might be preferable to a couple of talking heads offering a whole lot of fluff with a modicum of action description. Maybe the dog (the game) can get back to wagging the tail (the preening idiot with the microphone).

 

[billybud]

Netflix has to own the right to sell you downloads of movies...they pay for that media right.

Whoever owns the media rights for certain football games will control their viewing (and be remunerated for transmission). And I believe that conferences will still sell rights as a cooperative...without that, only the biggest of the big boys will have outright national distribution.

 

[pj]

The surcharge cable companies are putting on Netflix just indicates the high growth rate of TV-over-the-Internet. Netflix is now up to 32% of peak period bandwidth and Youtube 17%. Well over half of broadband usage is now due to TV watching. http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/netflix-puts-even-more-strain-on-the-internet-1200480561/

These cable company surcharges matter, but they are a temporary stopgap. As content providers proliferate -- just imagine every NCAA school offering its own channel direct to consumer -- then cable companies have no basis for inflicting a surcharge on each provider. If content providers refuse to pay a surcharge, then cable companies' only recourse is to block access. And they will get consumer resistance if they start losing content.

So instead, they'll just charge consumers extra if they exceed bandwidth limits. And that will cause consumers to switch from cable (coaxial delivery) to fiber optic delivery (eg FIOS) that is much higher in bandwidth. Cable companies would be killing themselves.

 

[billybud]

I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[billybud]

This guy says that cable unbundling would hurt the Big Ten's BGN model...

"Problems for the Big Ten, however, lurk just around the corner; if cable unbundling happens, either due to legislation or market pressures, and BTN is sold a la carte, they lose the vast majority of the premium sports subscribers in markets outside the 8 Big Ten states, and in the newly expanded markets like DC and New York, they only have access to subscribers who are huge Marlyand or Rutgers fans - a tiny fraction of the number of basic cable subscribers.

It’s unclear whether the BTN would even be profitable under an a la carte system, let alone the cash cow it’s proven to be so far."

 

[billybud]

A thorough review of basketball viewership this season game by game (on pages 2 & 3)....

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/201...numbers-for-every-game-of-the-2013-14-season/

 

[Sportsman5]

The new system of streaming content and cafeteria style plans won't necessarily save the consumer a ton of money if they want a lot of channels, but it will change the way a university brings value to a conference. This is HUGE for UConn.