[Steveknj]

Now for sports will teams try some antitrust cases to get?

Not be forced to sell there local team packaged with ESPN / others?

The right to sell there local feed to anyone anywhere? / The right for the one team out of market package to not need you to buy the local teams rsn feed?

Some kind of lower cost local team games only ESPN?

I would imagine any of these things are possible and doable. I don't think the leagues want it though. I think the leagues will push for a unified platform. Why? It's simple. Small market vs. Big Market. The NFL is a different animal, simply because all games are broadcast over the major networks or streaming platform. The other sports though, market matters a lot. Do the Royals want to be competing against the Yankees in places in their territory? Nope. The costs of managing your own infrastructure are huge and while the Yankees and Mets and Dodgers can afford it, can the Royals and Pirates and Rockies? So the leagues will want these resources pooled and then sold through something like MLB AB / Extra Innings or via ESPN or NBA League pass. This way costs are shared equally as are profits. A Yankees stream is worth far more than a Pirates one.

 

[wmb]

If you go strictly a la carte, a few things will happen:
1) You'll pay more per channel and get less content
2) You'll get less channels because the channel provider might decide that they don't have enough subs for a channel and just end it, and that channel might be one YOU watch. For example perhaps you watch Discover Channel and History Channel and Discovery Networks which own both, decides that not enough people are watching History so they disband it. Now you lose a channel you enjoyed. if they were bundled, you'd still get both.
3) You'll get much more consolidation of content, so not as many opportunities to watch a show because now 3 channels worth of content will be on only one channel.

I think you are missing the point. You are focused on the archaic concept of channels. There is no relationship between channels and content.

You can get all the History and Discovery content you want for less than $5 per month. Food Network and HGTV, too. Much less than the cost of your satellite package. Why would I care if the History Channel disbands? The content is always there waiting for me.

Consolidation of content is a good thing if you aren’t reliant on the concept of channels. You want content, you should be able to watch what you want when you want. Channels don’t allow that. You have to wait for the channel to show your content.

Even DVRs are at the mercy of channels. You can’t have the show until it’s been on a channel. That means you can’t watch what you want when you want.

My point was the cost of content and it’s delivery has traditionally been borne by others by their inserting ads into the content. Advertising pays 100% for the most expensive content out there, NFL broadcast package. That’s where the business is returning to.

What was your point? Content costs money and if you aren’t buying every channel, all of the content will go away. I doubt it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Steveknj]

I think you are missing the point. You are focused on the archaic concept of channels. There is no relationship between channels and content.

You can get all the History and Discovery content you want for less than $5 per month. Food Network and HGTV, too. Much less than the cost of your satellite package. Why would I care if the History Channel disbands? The content is always there waiting for me.

Consolidation of content is a good thing if you aren’t reliant on the concept of channels. You want content, you should be able to watch what you want when you want. Channels don’t allow that. You have to wait for the channel to show your content.

Even DVRs are at the mercy of channels. You can’t have the show until it’s been on a channel. That means you can’t watch what you want when you want.

My point was the cost of content and it’s delivery has traditionally been borne by others by their inserting ads into the content. Advertising pays 100% for the most expensive content out there, NFL broadcast package. That’s where the business is returning to.

What was your point? Content costs money and if you aren’t buying every channel, all of the content will go away. I doubt it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wait, are we talking about streaming or a la carte channels? They aren't the same thing. But even WITH that, you have things like the Disney Bundle where they are giving you the option to buy a bundle for less. They learned that concept from "Channels" ESPN+ is their Sports streamer, Disney is your Movie Content, and Hulu is a different set of content. And if suddenly Hulu content is no longer sellable, it either goes away or rolled into Disney, which may or may not happen (and either way, probably less content). With channels, what I said stands. If you have 5 channels that suddenly shrink to 3, you will based on the number of hours in a day, get less content. Bundling those channels give you the option to get more content and at a cheaper price. You will see that over time, the streamers are going to realize that a one stop shop for all their content is going to be much less profitable than breaking it up like Disney is doing. And that's what you'll get, and if you want sports and movies and documentaires, you'll have to pony up. But, wait, if you want them all, you can bundle them for cheaper. That's the whole point.

 

[harsh]

No it has 32.

Gunter's Space Page says it has 30. It appears I was using stale information. I understand that DIRECTV numbers them up to 32 but I'm not sure all of the Ku transponders can be used at once. Of course DIRECTV can't use more than 26 as DIRECTV 9S uses up the balance of their Ku license at 101W. This coddling of Ku-only receiver users runs a pretty good likelihood of being painful.

Yes T16 has no spotbeams, it needs none.

It doesn't need them because DIRECTV 9S is carrying that load. If 9S were to fail entirely, DIRECTV would lose the majority of their SD LIL channels. Moving what they could to DIRECTV 16 would only allow then to add back <10% of the lost channels.

 

[HofstraJet]

My biggest complaint about streaming is the frequent lack of ability to FF ads. Many streamers are doing this (most recently I noticed CNN and Nat Geo started). Granted I get them through my D* subscription, so I hope the situation is different if someone is paying directly for these a la carte.

Knowing how controlling the NFL is, I get the feeling that their streaming service won’t be as flexible as MLB’s, with starting a game from the top an hour in, watching condensed games, allowing replays, etc. They will probably stick with the current ST format of just broadcasting the games when they air and that’s it. Want anything more? Buy GamePass, if they decide to offer it in the US. Hope I’m wrong.

 

[primerisk]

Neither of those are the $100 in content for $50 claim that you made in your previous post.
And now you are doubling down by further inflating the cost of satellite. When you are ready to calm down and have a rational (less emotional) conversation we can get into the details.

Ok then, show us your $100 DTV bill. Don't have one of those, eh? That's because while the $100 DTV bill does exist (without all the year 1 discounts), you get nothing but a bunch of channels you don't want to watch, no DVR functionality, no HD, and only 1 receiver.

Here's my father in law's bill that is the basic equivalent of the Choice package today. No premiums. None. Zero. Nada.

Once you get past the 1st year discounts and are locked into your 24 months contract, DTV is outrageously expensive for what you get.

$171.11 for 160 channels on 1 TV. You want seem to want to go volume regardless of quality of content. Ok, I get nearly as many channels off of my HD antenna as DTV provides for $171.11 for exactly $0. I mean, why not, the volume is there and who cares if I only ever watch 5 or 6 of those channels? I could watch the tens of dozens for the full-service experience. At least I pay nothing for that privilege.

Ok, so you want the Ultimate package and have 3 TVs, welcome to a $250 bill that gets you all those channels you just have to have.

But sure, you want to cringe at 250 channels for $250, fine. 160 channels for $171.11 is right in front of you and still more than 3x my streaming bill.

Nice claim. Not 100% true, but nice claim. The claim only works if one limits "anything you want" to whatever is available via streaming AND limit "anything you want" to less than a full subscription. One can narrowly define a few content channels and scream from the mountaintops that streaming is cheaper within that narrow definition.

Well geez James, if you want to completely ignore the $50 in services I layed out in very fine detail, well so be it, but I provided you the exact $50 service package a la carte. Outside of NST that soon you will NOT be able to get on DTV, what can't you get via streaming? Name it. I'm sure there is something you can scrape up. Go ahead, I'll wait. There's a hitch though, there is a lot more you can't access without streaming. NO service provides 100% of everything no matter what you pay. Again, it is about what you watch, not about what you don't watch.

Amazon, Netfilx, and Hulu have 100s of shows that are only available via their service and only available by streaming. Even the DTV exclusive content doesn't stay exclusive. I'm a King fan and wanted to watch Mr. Mercedes. Welp, I watched it for free on Peacock. Name a single Amazon, Netflix, or Hulu original that has shown up on DTV service.

A la carte will be the death of low priced TV. Right now content providers are surviving on their "deliver our channels to 80 million MVPD subscribers every month whether they watch or not" marketing plan. When people decide that they don't want to pay $10 per RSN or $20 for the ESPN channels and their MVPD lets them opt out the customers who want that content will be paying more. $20 for an a la carte RSN? $30 for the ESPN channels. It will only be cheaper if one chooses not to subscribe.

A la carte is the renaissance for TV. No longer do you need Nielsen ratings to try to figure out what shows bring in the viewers and which ones don't. The customer streams it or they don't. You know EXACTLY who watched it, when they watched it, and if they watched it again. You know what that means? Ad revenue and LOTS of it that can be targeted to the exact viewers they want to have it. Providers aren't suffering, they're getting record profits by not sharing with the carrier. Any provider that has a ****e lineup will start dropping subscribers like flies trapped in your Oldsmobile during August. This has and will drive providers to seek out and deliver quality content or go out of business.

A la carte will allow people to choose to not subscribe.

Now you're beginning to get it!

Hopefully the content channel can survive on less subscribers paying more than the current "everyone pays a share" plan. And hopefully none of the content channels that die are ones that you or I want to watch.

The channel mind-set. Pheww. Who cares about channels? Channels are a 1920s concept, it's all about content in the 2020s. I don't stream channels, I stream CONTENT! I have no idea what channel something is on, nor do I care. There are no channels unless I'm watching OTA live and I never do that. I DVR it and again just watch the content. I just say the words for my content and it starts playing.

Content doesn't go away when a channel dies, it is sold to another content provider and continues on if it is content worth watching.

Streaming is the largest growing segment while Satellite and Cable continue to lose subscribers. The MAJORITY of people in the US subscribe to a streaming service now.

Cable, Satellite Providers Lost 4.7M Subscribers in 2021

27 Curious Cable TV Subscribers Statistics to Know in 2022

You don't think the content providers moving to provide streaming services are making money? They sure are. When I pay $15/month for HBOMax, HBO gets it all and doesn't have to share with a carrier. Same with every other direct service subscription.

AT&T, who owns HBO, is cannibalizing it's own DTV division's profits by introducing the direct streaming service. Why? Because they're making boatloads of money doing it.

https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/hbo-max-drives-154-revenue-spike-warnermedia-q4

13.1 Million net additional subscribers year over year! At an average revenue of of $11.15 per new subscriber, that's an extra $1.75 Billion in extra revenue per year. Why would content providers ever think of walking away from additional revenue streams like that?

They won't.

In fact, the next time DTV decides to get into a pissing match with their content provider over the carrier contract and pulls their "channel" of off the service, the content provider may just say. "Cool man, you do you, we won't allow you to put our content back ever." Then what will you do to watch your Designing Women reruns? Well, you'll just have to stream them on Hulu.

And, oh my gosh, what if it is NFL Sunday Ticket that will no longer be on DTV and you have to stream it instead? That could never happen, right?

 

[bjlc]

Places in the midwest claim STL, both Chicago teams, the Brewers, The Twins and KC.

do you get to watch all these teams without buying extra innings.. because i am 135 miles from Minneapolis and CANNOT GET BOTH.. i get the brewers but not the twins..

 

[B. Shoe]

In fact, the next time DTV decides to get into a pissing match with their content provider over the carrier contract and pulls their "channel" of off the service, the content provider may just say. "Cool man, you do you, we won't allow you to put our content back ever." Then what will you do to watch your Designing Women reruns? Well, you'll just have to stream them on Hulu.

I just wanted to give a thumbs up for being able to slyly toss in a Designing Women reference in your reply. Well done. Well done, indeed.

 

[b4pjoe]

do you get to watch all these teams without buying extra innings.. because i am 135 miles from Minneapolis and CANNOT GET BOTH.. i get the brewers but not the twins..

I am not in that area. The only team in my area is STL so I can get every team on MLB-TV except the Cardinals and whatever team they are playing.

 

[slice1900]

Gunter's Space Page says it has 30. It appears I was using stale information. I understand that DIRECTV numbers them up to 32 but I'm not sure all of the Ku transponders can be used at once. Of course DIRECTV can't use more than 26 as DIRECTV 9S uses up the balance of their Ku license at 101W. This coddling of Ku-only receiver users runs a pretty good likelihood of being painful.

It doesn't need them because DIRECTV 9S is carrying that load. If 9S were to fail entirely, DIRECTV would lose the majority of their SD LIL channels. Moving what they could to DIRECTV 16 would only allow then to add back <10% of the lost channels.

Of course it can use all 32 at once. It can use many more that, just not from 101 since they don't use its Ka or reverse band payloads at that location. Its twin T15 is broadcasting 24 Ka hi and 18 reverse band, nearly twice the bandwidth of the Ku band.

 

[schmave1]

do you get to watch all these teams without buying extra innings.. because i am 135 miles from Minneapolis and CANNOT GET BOTH.. i get the brewers but not the twins..

That's only Iowa where all six are "local" per MLB. Guessing you are somewhere in Wisconsin?

 

[James Long]

TL : DR

When you are ready to calm down and have a rational (less emotional) conversation we can get into the details. This isn't a longest post contest.

And, oh my gosh, what if it is NFL Sunday Ticket that will no longer be on DTV and you have to stream it instead? That could never happen, right?

Sure it can happen - and will happen. We have been discussing it for at least a year. Annoying if one never streams any content and needs to add or configure equipment or if one has poor Internet and annoying if one has been receiving free NFL ST for so long they forgot how much it costs. Many people will pay DIRECTV $300 this year (plus their regular subscription fee) then pay Apple $300 next year (which may include the regular fee). They don't have to lose DIRECTV to watch Sunday Ticket via streaming.

Are you expecting Apple to give away Sunday Ticket for free with a $60 per year Apple TV+ subscription? The move to streaming pretty much ends "free NFL Sunday Ticket".

 

[slice1900]

Are you expecting Apple to give away Sunday Ticket for free with a $60 per year Apple TV+ subscription? The move to streaming pretty much ends "free NFL Sunday Ticket".

Reportedly the new contract will make charging a price similar to the current $300 a requirement for the new rights holder. Requested by the networks when they signed their huge new contracts, to reduce the number of people who want out of market games instead of the in market games they (and therefore their affiliates) are spending so much money for.

Even if Directv had been willing to keep it they would have been required to drop the freebies after this season.

 

[dtv757]

I would guess they could still off set the price by credits. $xx off for 12 months

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[James Long]

I would guess they could still off set the price by credits. $xx off for 12 months

If the rule applied DIRECTV could discount their own service, just not the NFL ST package. So yes, DIRECTV could give a $300/year or $25/month discount to people who paid for NFL ST. There are plenty of reports of DIRECTV giving out $55-$60/month discounts not connected to NFL ST.

If the rule applied we probably would see the end of "free NFL ST for new customers" unless the NFL allowed DIRECTV to continue the new customer offer and have a disclaimer ("free NFL is in the form of bill credits").

What won't happen is Apple giving people a $300/year discount on their $60/year ($5/month) Apple TV+ service. If they do, sign me up! I'll take a $240 paycheck to have NFL ST in my home. If only to collect the $240.

DIRECTV's current new customer offer includes the options of $780/year for Entertainment and $840 for Choice ($180 off per year). Second year $900 or $960 plus annual price increase, less any new discounts offered. The $840/year for Choice includes $400 NFL Sunday Ticket Max ... effectively $1240 in content for $840. Not something we will see from any carrier in 2023.

 

[primerisk]

When you are ready to calm down and have a rational (less emotional) conversation we can get into the details.

Yes, yes James. Anyone who you can't engage logically needs to "calm down" and be "less emotional". I am not excited nor emotional, however I find this a heck of a lot of fun.

This isn't a longest post contest.

Can't keep up?

Sure it can happen - and will happen. We have been discussing it for at least a year. Annoying if one never streams any content and needs to add or configure equipment or if one has poor Internet and annoying if one has been receiving free NFL ST for so long they forgot how much it costs. Many people will pay DIRECTV $300 this year (plus their regular subscription fee) then pay Apple $300 next year (which may include the regular fee). They don't have to lose DIRECTV to watch Sunday Ticket via streaming.

Yup, but no more annoying than it is to those that live in multi-unit properties where they have never had the chance to get DTV or the people that simply find DTVs fees too high. Now that the majority of people in the US subscribe to at least one streaming service, thus have a streaming device and internet, this point seems to be moot. Plus, it's not like you have to fork over $1000+ for a DTV MPEG-2 HD TiVo DVR that never supported over 12 channels and was only supported for 18 months. Rokus start at $19.99.

Are you expecting Apple to give away Sunday Ticket for free with a $60 per year Apple TV+ subscription? The move to streaming pretty much ends "free NFL Sunday Ticket".

Nope, never expected anything for free, especially from Apple. They're just as greedy as DTV in their business practices. There has never been a "free" NST, they just baked into the rest of your contract. That's why DTV forces a 24 month contract and the 1st year teaser rates and discounts do not ride over into your 2nd year. It's like the people that think they are getting a free phone if they sign a 24 month contract their cell carrier. Is seems that these very same people have sudden amnesia when they get their free phone and their bill suddenly goes up $30/month.

What I very much dislike is DTV's monopolistic behavior and I'm not disappointed to see their empire disintegrate. DTV perfected the tiers of service so you'd always be wanting something and enticed (or forced) to purchase up. I am very happy that people living in remote areas that have had no choice but DTV or Dish, like my FIL, for decades are now getting new options and the ability to pick their services a la carte.

Now that DTV's monopoly on NST has been broken, it is my prediction that NST will be available to many more, subscribers will rise sharply, and the price will go down. Yes, I said the monopoly was broken, because it was. If DTV was going to make money on it, they'd still be bidding on it and most likely to win it, but with dwindling subscriber numbers and no way to prop them up, they can't afford to compete against leading streaming businesses and even if they did win the contract, they would either have to increase the price further to make a profit or risk winning the bid being nothing but a loss.

It's all natural selection here. DTV didn't adapt to the wants and needs of its customers rapidly enough and they are now being selected out of the gene pool.

 

[GStill]

Ok then, show us your $100 DTV bill. Don't have one of those, eh? That's because while the $100 DTV bill does exist (without all the year 1 discounts), you get nothing but a bunch of channels you don't want to watch, no DVR functionality, no HD, and only 1 receiver.

Here's my father in law's bill that is the basic equivalent of the Choice package today. No premiums. None. Zero. Nada.

Once you get past the 1st year discounts and are locked into your 24 months contract, DTV is outrageously expensive for what you get.

View attachment 32283

$171.11 for 160 channels on 1 TV. You want seem to want to go volume regardless of quality of content. Ok, I get nearly as many channels off of my HD antenna as DTV provides for $171.11 for exactly $0. I mean, why not, the volume is there and who cares if I only ever watch 5 or 6 of those channels? I could watch the tens of dozens for the full-service experience. At least I pay nothing for that privilege.

Ok, so you want the Ultimate package and have 3 TVs, welcome to a $250 bill that gets you all those channels you just have to have.

But sure, you want to cringe at 250 channels for $250, fine. 160 channels for $171.11 is right in front of you and still more than 3x my streaming bill.



Well geez James, if you want to completely ignore the $50 in services I layed out in very fine detail, well so be it, but I provided you the exact $50 service package a la carte. Outside of NST that soon you will NOT be able to get on DTV, what can't you get via streaming? Name it. I'm sure there is something you can scrape up. Go ahead, I'll wait. There's a hitch though, there is a lot more you can't access without streaming. NO service provides 100% of everything no matter what you pay. Again, it is about what you watch, not about what you don't watch.

Amazon, Netfilx, and Hulu have 100s of shows that are only available via their service and only available by streaming. Even the DTV exclusive content doesn't stay exclusive. I'm a King fan and wanted to watch Mr. Mercedes. Welp, I watched it for free on Peacock. Name a single Amazon, Netflix, or Hulu original that has shown up on DTV service.



A la carte is the renaissance for TV. No longer do you need Nielsen ratings to try to figure out what shows bring in the viewers and which ones don't. The customer streams it or they don't. You know EXACTLY who watched it, when they watched it, and if they watched it again. You know what that means? Ad revenue and LOTS of it that can be targeted to the exact viewers they want to have it. Providers aren't suffering, they're getting record profits by not sharing with the carrier. Any provider that has a ****e lineup will start dropping subscribers like flies trapped in your Oldsmobile during August. This has and will drive providers to seek out and deliver quality content or go out of business.



Now you're beginning to get it!



The channel mind-set. Pheww. Who cares about channels? Channels are a 1920s concept, it's all about content in the 2020s. I don't stream channels, I stream CONTENT! I have no idea what channel something is on, nor do I care. There are no channels unless I'm watching OTA live and I never do that. I DVR it and again just watch the content. I just say the words for my content and it starts playing.

Content doesn't go away when a channel dies, it is sold to another content provider and continues on if it is content worth watching.

Streaming is the largest growing segment while Satellite and Cable continue to lose subscribers. The MAJORITY of people in the US subscribe to a streaming service now.

Cable, Satellite Providers Lost 4.7M Subscribers in 2021

27 Curious Cable TV Subscribers Statistics to Know in 2022

You don't think the content providers moving to provide streaming services are making money? They sure are. When I pay $15/month for HBOMax, HBO gets it all and doesn't have to share with a carrier. Same with every other direct service subscription.

AT&T, who owns HBO, is cannibalizing it's own DTV division's profits by introducing the direct streaming service. Why? Because they're making boatloads of money doing it.

https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/hbo-max-drives-154-revenue-spike-warnermedia-q4

13.1 Million net additional subscribers year over year! At an average revenue of of $11.15 per new subscriber, that's an extra $1.75 Billion in extra revenue per year. Why would content providers ever think of walking away from additional revenue streams like that?

They won't.

In fact, the next time DTV decides to get into a pissing match with their content provider over the carrier contract and pulls their "channel" of off the service, the content provider may just say. "Cool man, you do you, we won't allow you to put our content back ever." Then what will you do to watch your Designing Women reruns? Well, you'll just have to stream them on Hulu.

And, oh my gosh, what if it is NFL Sunday Ticket that will no longer be on DTV and you have to stream it instead? That could never happen, right?

 

[GStill]

Wow - $171.11 for DTV I thought My dish network bill of $103.89 was high - I have 2 TVs, a hopper 3 with 16 tuners, 2 TB of internal storage, 1 TB of external storage with the ability to record my over the air channel by having an antenna connected to the hopper and a 4K Joey with their 200 channel package. Been with them 16 years. I do go back under contract with them when my 2 year contract expires. I could cancel my locals and just get them over the air thur the antenna connected to the hopper and knock 10 more dollars off of my bill. I do not have the protection plan and my taxes much lower. And because of my age I get one free movie rental per month.

 

[harsh]

Of course it can use all 32 at once. It can use many more that, just not from 101 since they don't use its Ka or reverse band payloads at that location. Its twin T15 is broadcasting 24 Ka hi and 18 reverse band, nearly twice the bandwidth of the Ku band.

T15 is broadcasting only 11 Ka Hi CONUS and one Ka Lo CONUS. One has to wonder if they're fully powering the RB payload since it isn't being used.

Of course this is off topic for this thread but I thought I should present the latest TP map data since it differs from yours.

 

[harsh]

Wow - $171.11 for DTV I thought My dish network bill of $103.89 was high

For those who have subscribed to (or have been gifted) NFL Season Ticket, it doesn't matter how DISH pricing compares if you don't have the NFLST option.

That will change in the 2023-4 season.