
Fox challenges cord-cutters by sticking TV shows behind paywall - joelhaus
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2011/07/fox-challenges-cord-cutters-by-sticking-online-shows-behind-paywall.ars
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sp332
Well, back to The Pirate Bay. Seriously, what did they expect? If the pirates
are providing a superior product (generally better encoding) _and_ more
convenience, then the pirates will win. Fox at least had something to offer
when they let you stream the shows the day after. That at least improved the
convenience part, because you don't have to wait for the download. But an
8-day wait is just throwing money away.

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cruise02
The 8-day wait is for free streaming options, so it's not throwing money away.
If you subscribe to Hulu+ you can still get shows the next day.

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sp332
The free streaming options still get some money from ads. TPB doesn't.
(Another reason TPB's product is better.)

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jordan0day
TPB most certainly does "get some money" from ads. The website is plastered
with them.

It may not inject ads into the content like an online service like Hulu, but
they're certainly making money from advertisers.

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sp332
Haha, I keep forgetting that because of AdBlock. Sometimes I visit on a
friend's computer and I'm like "whoops, forgot about the nude girls on that
page, sorry!"

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pavel_lishin
My experience is usually more along the lines of "Jesus christ, how can you
stand so much blinky bullshit assaulting your eyes all the time?"

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mdasen
At first glance, this seems strange. Fox is a broadcast network (ad supported)
that one doesn't need to subscribe to in order to receive.

However, broadcast channels do make money through re-transmission rights that
they sell to cable and satellite carriers. It might seem silly that your cable
company is paying Fox for programming you can already get over the air, but
the cable company also knows that their service won't be as attractive to you
if the don't also carry your local channels without the need for an antenna.
By confirming that you subscribe to Comcast, DISH Network, or something else,
they know that they're receiving more revenue than just ads from you - they're
also getting the re-transmission fees from your paid service.

There can also be the perception that if you're paying for TV, you're likely
to watch it sometimes even if you use the internet TV for some of your TV
watching. I'm guessing Hulu isn't getting advertisers to shell out as much
money as traditional TV is right now. So, if you subscribe to cable or
satellite, they might not be making a lot on what you're watching on Hulu, but
at least they know you're more likely to be watching programming that they do
get better money off of.

I'm definitely not defending the move and I don't subscribe to pay-TV myself,
but I can understand why they'd make the move. Subscribers to pay-TV bring
them revenues directly through the re-transmission fees and indirectly through
a greater likelihood of watching non-internet programming with more ad slots
that pay higher. If "cutting the cord" becomes the norm, it could mean lower
margins and greater competition in programming for Fox and others. That's good
for consumers, but I can see why Fox would try to stop that.

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jfruh
<i>However, broadcast channels do make money through re-transmission rights
that they sell to cable and satellite carriers.</i>

Hmm, but I think it's the local stations that make money on retransmission
fees, not the networks. Though this is complicated by the fact that local
stations are in some markets (though by no means all of them) owned by the
networks.

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joejohnson
>>Fox's president of affiliate sales Mike Hopkins told the Wall Street
Journal. "If this works, you're going to see a lot more content online."

And if this doesn't work, you're going to see a lot more content online. These
companies just don't get it. It has less to do with money, and more to do with
ease of viewing. If I want to watch Family Guy or Glee the day after it airs,
I will google "family guy episodes online free" and find plenty of free
options. Or I will go to torrent sites. Fox just lost me as a customer. I
gladly watch the shows legally on Hulu when that's the easiest way.

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pavel_lishin
> Those who enjoy Fox shows such as Family Guy, Glee, or The Simpsons will
> soon have to wait an extra eight days if they want to watch new episodes
> online

Oh, no, not a whole eight days! I'll literally be a full week behind the
latest pop culture phenomenae!

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archangel_one
I think that you're possibly trivialising the effect of people's friends
saying "Did you see the latest Family Guy last night" and them having to say
"no, it's not going to be on Hulu until next week". The bar to acquiring it
via thepiratebay.org is so low that I can imagine the eight-day wait being
enough to send some people there instead.

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jrockway
This makes no sense. All of Fox's shows are available DRM-free over the air,
broadcast directly into your skull via the power of radio. And, they're
usually uploaded to The Usual File Sharing Places Whose Names I Will Not
Mention within hours of being broadcast.

So once again, they are trying to push people to piracy so they can blame the
dirty old pirates when nobody buys their shitty pay-extra-money-to-watch-ad-
encumbered-shows-on-our-website service. Then there will be another round of
laws mandating that we implant anti-priacy chips into all of our children to
protect them from pedophiles. The G.O.D.I.S.G.R.E.A.T. Act they'll call it.

Every time I read an article about Big Content I fantasize about being killed
by an errant meteor. Why can't I pay $1 to download a DRM-and-ad-free episode
of The Simpsons?

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X-Istence
As of right now I am not willing to pay the monthly fee to get cable and the
like, since it airs at a certain time of day and I'd need to get a DVR to then
grab all the shows and whatnot I'd want.

If I could pay a monthly fee of around $20 to get all of the TV Shows I want
to watch at any point in time (not even perpetuity but that would be nice) I
would subscribe. Hulu+ comes close, but still doesn't have a lot of the back
catalog I am interested in, or is hog tied by the content producers and can't
make certain content available until 30 days after it has aired on TV (USA's
show Suits for example).

I'd love to watch Game of Thrones from HBO, but the only way I can get access
to HBO's online site is to have a monthly subscription through my cable
provider... that makes my choice simple, TPB or don't watch them at all...
either way HBO loses money.

I don't understand why the content industry doesn't see that if they help
Hulu+ succeed that they too can start seeing more of the money from that.
Instead of screwing over the "cord-cutters" cut out the middle-man (the cable
company) and let me subscribe directly for a low monthly price.

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kin
This doesn't change how I currently do things but the move disappoint me. I
want to watch things when they air and conveniently. It is inconvenient to pay
$50 a month for cable + $10 for an HD box + $10 to watch it when I want to. It
is convenient to pay $4 a month for a Usenet account and DL the latest episode
in under 5 minutes and either stream it to my TV or play it off a USB or even
just on my laptop.

I use my parent's HBO Go subscription which lets me stream their entire
catalogue including new releases after it airs. HBO gets $15 a month from my
parents for their subscription and I would gladly pay $15 a month for HBO-only
On-Demand streaming.

If other companies followed suit, I would subscribe. I will pay $5 a month to
subscribe to a show or $10 a month to subscribe to a channel. Yes, it can add
up to be the same price as cable, but at least it's convenient and at least
I'll have a choice of content.

Am I alone here?

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toddh
I find this strange in that if you have someone watching online you can make
sure they watch the ads. Isn't that what they want?

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dfxm12
Cable/satellite providers pay the networks for the right to carry their
channels. They could find this revenue stream thinning out if the
cable/satellite companies can prove that less people are watching via
cable/satellite (and they probably can since, by and large, the cable
companies also provide Internet service).

You are right though, instead of being worried about the old revenue streams,
they should find a way to maximize their profit from cord cutters, and maybe
this is what they came up with...

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neuroelectronic
Challenge accepted.

