State of the (Media) Industry: What's Hot or Not — and Will TV Ever Be Free Again?

ATampampT is dealing with issues such as throttling retrans fights and Elliot Capital DirecTV is painfully learning to understand some of the legacies of media vis a vis communications as businesses And as for WarnerMedia Ads on HBO Well it was a thoughtOn the upside ATampampT does understand the media side of the business better than Verizon which seems to completely misunderstand digital media so has made a lot of shall we say interesting purchasesOn to broadcasting quotBquot Remember TV and radio those free overtheair media companies that are not so free today The latest iterations of TV depend way too much on what is oddly called retransmission consent A number of workarounds have been attempted amp8212 and squashed The latest is Locast which had the odd idea of retransmitting for free After all if the signal is out there why not Good idea so far I39m all for itBroadcasters are fighting the idea I39ve got my fingers crossed for Locast and frankly I39d suggest all packagers of video services should partner with them No matter the distribution technique used amp8212 cable satellite telco wireless amp8212 let39s build a consortium that makes free overtheair free againquotCquot is of course Comcast It39s sort of the uberanswer to FAANG Byron Allen is trying to interest Congress in breaking up the likes of Facebook and Google because they won39t cut a deal with him for all his channels Good luck with thatquotDquot is for data and quotFquot is for FAANG Watch out for Missouri Senator Josh Hawley he might just accomplish hogtying FAANG39s data machinations I39d suggest that any data provider be required to pay me for my data Perhaps that might happen if and when realitybased government reemergesSkipping all the way to quotNquot let39s talk about quotnetworksquot of all kinds Some are doing better than fine even as change happens every few minutes classic linear new streaming rampant SVOD and all the spawn of Netflix The linear folks will be around for a while and I39m certain all the overthetop streamers will make the same mistake that linear bundles made always raising rates without significant additions But for a change we might want to do as Charlie Ergen cofounder and chairman of Dish Networks suggests Don39t crowd the bundlequotPquot is for quotpasswordsquot amp8212 or rather the deduplication of usage That39s the next exclusion war and it reminds me of traps on cable drops you39ll succeed but only at the margin More folks think about ways to cheat than ways to stop those who are cheatingquotRquot is for quotretailquot which is something a little different than quotWquot for quotwholesalequot As networks move more and more from a linear wholesale model to an everyone subscribes retail one I39m surprised a universal billing service hasn39t debuted Or has it Did I miss itWhen it comes to quotSquot you stream I stream we all scream for streaming We don39t have room to list all the streamers nor do we have a definitive guide yet But Disney ESPN HBO Max Hulu Discovery39s planned stream launching in 2020 in the US Peacock Philo Pluto and more will succeedNetflix set the bar while cable networks began to erode as cordcutting accelerated Classic cable is declining faster than anticipated But I39ll bet it levels off at about 55 percent of its high amp8212 still a good businessEven so in a recent interview with The New York Times Michael Nathanson a founding partner of Moffett Nathanson referred to the cablesatellite industry as quotfreaking uglyquot adding quotIt39s worse than freaking uglyquotThe result of all this media industry upheaval will be an initial cry of quotDeath to the bundlequot Followed not long afterward with quotMeet the new bundlesquot It39s the same unsolved problemThe messy coexistence will be fun hahStay tunedClick the social buttons to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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State of the (Media) Industry: What's Hot or Not — and Will TV Ever Be Free Again?

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Paul S. Maxwell

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State of the (Media) Industry: What's Hot or Not — and Will TV Ever Be Free Again?

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