4 ms·

The Full-On Assault On Cable Is Underway

24 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

jsz0 16y ago
Cable & telcos video providers have a big time weapon in the form of transfer caps. I suspect anyone who chooses to use IP video exclusively will be paying significantly more for broadband over the next few years. The cable/telcos will calculate how much revenue they're losing on video subscribers and overlay that data on top of their transfer caps to break even. The upside is it will probably still end up saving people money. Even if broadband prices increase 20-30% being able to buy only the content you want to watch will be a savings. It might also encourage more responsible TV watching. Who's going to leave the TV on for 12-16 hour stretches if the meter is running the whole time? That could be a very positive change for society.
- lsc 16y ago
  >Cable & telcos video providers have a big time weapon in the form of transfer caps. And the people will scream bloody murder... in the computer infrastructure industry, you raise your prices by not lowering them quite as quickly as you could. raising prices? your customers will mutiny. I know I would. This expectation that computers, bandwidth, etc... will get cheaper and cheaper over time is strongly ingrained into the minds of consumers. push them back, and they will scream but loud. Isn't this the root of this whole net-neutrality thing? we are afraid that telcos will raise prices (by raise prices, I mean either raise prices, or provide degraded service at current prices) so we want the government to come in and regulate that sort of thing? I mean, regardless of what you think of net neutrality laws, you have to agree that it's a sign that consumers get /very angry/ if you even suggest that bandwidth prices might go up.
DotSauce 16y ago
Can't wait for cable to be dead and gone. 5-8 minute advertising blocks drive me bonkers. I have pretty much stopped watching. Google TV looks amazing - http://newteevee.com/2010/08/20/an-in-depth-look-at-the-google-tv-interface/ http://newteevee.com/2010/08/20/an-in-depth-look-at-the-goog... I think this will be a great leap forward for crowdsourced news, home-brewed entertainment and video blogging.
- trafficlight 16y ago
  I loath TV ads as well. I've had cable for the last few years with a DVR. For the longest time, fast forwarding through ads was really nice. Then, a few months ago, I picked up a Bluray player with Netflix streaming built-in. Netflix streaming is just awesome. No ads to worry about, no fast forwarding, I just watch my tv episode and I'm done. Eventually, I started to get pissed off at the mere thought of fast forwarding through commercials on the DVR. I just cancelled my cable last week because I hadn't actually turned in on in over a month.
- jsz0 16y ago
  I really dread the prospect of annoying low quality ads in the form of lower thirds or pop-up video style overlays that these platforms will enable. If the ads were relevant to my interests I might be more tolerant but I have one AdMob based app that constantly displays a horrible ad for what appears to be a welfare scam targeted at black women. I have no clue why they'd be serving me this ad. I can't even imagine how horrible it would be as a video ad with public access quality production and jacked up audio volume levels blaring at me unexpectedly. I hope Google ups their quality control and sets some sane limits or we might end up with something even worse than current TV advertising.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  Agreed and since cable was supposed to be ad free (that is why you paid for it right?) that is super annoying. I hope one day we can kill cable so that each show will be forced to compete on its own merit, without ads, and not just be at the mercy of some agency that misunderstand the value of its viewers (Star Trek TOS) or executives at fox that don't understand their own audience (see Firefly and another ton of scify show that have all been canceled in their first season). Heres is to the death of cable middle men.
skybrian 16y ago
Does it bother anyone else that this story is illustrated with pictures from a movie about the invasion of Normandy? What were they thinking?
- novum 16y ago
  It's TechCrunch. Lower your expectations.
- defen 16y ago
  I thought it was in exceedingly poor taste and was going to make the same comment.
samratjp 16y ago
It's a pretty accurate picture, TCrunch, but there's also the problem of Live TV - that's where Hulu could already join forces with the likes of Justin.tv and really goes out on a full scale war. But then again, big media is gonna be a tough sell on it and yay another format and DRM war. There is definitely a new AD model at work - there will probably be location based ADs for all we know. I mean, you still watch TV in your living room only?
pontifier 16y ago
The more the others entrench themselves, the more foolish they will look when I crush them with MY media distribution system.
nanairo 16y ago
Not to be rude but it seems a bad article, with little content, less argument, and awful framing. First of all... the "siege" has already started, but it has not been very successful so far. You need content first (which many cable providers have special access to given their parent company often owns a lot of it). But also a good interface. And most of all it has to be TOTALLY bug free. A crash or a "format unknown" error may have been accepted on a computer, but people won't accept it on their TV. When you watch TV you want it to be problem free: it's your time to relax! Second, cable companies are also ISP. Hence companies such as Google or Netflix will still need to be nice to them or risk getting bad service. And if they make some kind of agreement then for the cable is not different than it is today: the cable is the medium to send the data, you are just adding an additional layer. Third: what would stop a cable company from "cutting the middle man" and simply producing the same service on their own? You know, like they did with TiVo. That's especially true given that their parent company are also the content provider: instead of Google buying content from Disney and then selling it to ABC, ABC may just get it from its own parent company (Disney) directly! Forth: Google, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix and Amazon have NOT teamed up. They are all win that war, but they are far from allies. Which means the cable companies can play divide and conquer. Fifth: the cable companies are not exactly small. Those 5 may be tech giants, but these are media giants. If it comes down to a fight for the cheapest service, I am sure cable companies can spare a few pennies and lower their fat profits. And that's without even mentioning the poor framing, using war metaphors and the D-day. Oh, and "it will be many years before everyone’s addiction to cable gives way to something else. But it will." is not a prediction! We can all play that game: - "it will be many years before everyone's addiction to oil gives way to something else. But it will." - "it will be many years before we can live in another planet. But we will." - "it will be many years before tech pundits will gain quality, but they will". No, wait... maybe I went too far there. ;)
spinchange 16y ago
I would like to see the same outcome as the author of this post, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. The television content business (cable TV networks) and the television distribution business (cable system operators) have a very mutually benefical relationship with regard to bundled services. It's like the crux of the whole model. Steve Burke (COO of Comcast) was refreshingly plain spoken about this at AllThingsD back in June. Google & Apple will have to end-run the service providers TV offerings using the web (probably delivered on the same pipe) to compete.

24 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

jsz0 16y ago

Cable & telcos video providers have a big time weapon in the form of transfer caps. I suspect anyone who chooses to use IP video exclusively will be paying significantly more for broadband over the next few years. The cable/telcos will calculate how much revenue they're losing on video subscribers and overlay that data on top of their transfer caps to break even. The upside is it will probably still end up saving people money. Even if broadband prices increase 20-30% being able to buy only the content you want to watch will be a savings. It might also encourage more responsible TV watching. Who's going to leave the TV on for 12-16 hour stretches if the meter is running the whole time? That could be a very positive change for society.

lsc 16y ago
>Cable & telcos video providers have a big time weapon in the form of transfer caps. And the people will scream bloody murder... in the computer infrastructure industry, you raise your prices by not lowering them quite as quickly as you could. raising prices? your customers will mutiny. I know I would. This expectation that computers, bandwidth, etc... will get cheaper and cheaper over time is strongly ingrained into the minds of consumers. push them back, and they will scream but loud. Isn't this the root of this whole net-neutrality thing? we are afraid that telcos will raise prices (by raise prices, I mean either raise prices, or provide degraded service at current prices) so we want the government to come in and regulate that sort of thing? I mean, regardless of what you think of net neutrality laws, you have to agree that it's a sign that consumers get /very angry/ if you even suggest that bandwidth prices might go up.

DotSauce 16y ago

Can't wait for cable to be dead and gone. 5-8 minute advertising blocks drive me bonkers. I have pretty much stopped watching. Google TV looks amazing - http://newteevee.com/2010/08/20/an-in-depth-look-at-the-google-tv-interface/ http://newteevee.com/2010/08/20/an-in-depth-look-at-the-goog... I think this will be a great leap forward for crowdsourced news, home-brewed entertainment and video blogging.

trafficlight 16y ago
I loath TV ads as well. I've had cable for the last few years with a DVR. For the longest time, fast forwarding through ads was really nice. Then, a few months ago, I picked up a Bluray player with Netflix streaming built-in. Netflix streaming is just awesome. No ads to worry about, no fast forwarding, I just watch my tv episode and I'm done. Eventually, I started to get pissed off at the mere thought of fast forwarding through commercials on the DVR. I just cancelled my cable last week because I hadn't actually turned in on in over a month.
jsz0 16y ago
I really dread the prospect of annoying low quality ads in the form of lower thirds or pop-up video style overlays that these platforms will enable. If the ads were relevant to my interests I might be more tolerant but I have one AdMob based app that constantly displays a horrible ad for what appears to be a welfare scam targeted at black women. I have no clue why they'd be serving me this ad. I can't even imagine how horrible it would be as a video ad with public access quality production and jacked up audio volume levels blaring at me unexpectedly. I hope Google ups their quality control and sets some sane limits or we might end up with something even worse than current TV advertising.
tomjen3 16y ago
Agreed and since cable was supposed to be ad free (that is why you paid for it right?) that is super annoying. I hope one day we can kill cable so that each show will be forced to compete on its own merit, without ads, and not just be at the mercy of some agency that misunderstand the value of its viewers (Star Trek TOS) or executives at fox that don't understand their own audience (see Firefly and another ton of scify show that have all been canceled in their first season). Heres is to the death of cable middle men.

skybrian 16y ago

Does it bother anyone else that this story is illustrated with pictures from a movie about the invasion of Normandy? What were they thinking?

novum 16y ago
It's TechCrunch. Lower your expectations.
defen 16y ago
I thought it was in exceedingly poor taste and was going to make the same comment.

samratjp 16y ago

It's a pretty accurate picture, TCrunch, but there's also the problem of Live TV - that's where Hulu could already join forces with the likes of Justin.tv and really goes out on a full scale war. But then again, big media is gonna be a tough sell on it and yay another format and DRM war. There is definitely a new AD model at work - there will probably be location based ADs for all we know. I mean, you still watch TV in your living room only?

pontifier 16y ago

The more the others entrench themselves, the more foolish they will look when I crush them with MY media distribution system.

nanairo 16y ago

Not to be rude but it seems a bad article, with little content, less argument, and awful framing. First of all... the "siege" has already started, but it has not been very successful so far. You need content first (which many cable providers have special access to given their parent company often owns a lot of it). But also a good interface. And most of all it has to be TOTALLY bug free. A crash or a "format unknown" error may have been accepted on a computer, but people won't accept it on their TV. When you watch TV you want it to be problem free: it's your time to relax! Second, cable companies are also ISP. Hence companies such as Google or Netflix will still need to be nice to them or risk getting bad service. And if they make some kind of agreement then for the cable is not different than it is today: the cable is the medium to send the data, you are just adding an additional layer. Third: what would stop a cable company from "cutting the middle man" and simply producing the same service on their own? You know, like they did with TiVo. That's especially true given that their parent company are also the content provider: instead of Google buying content from Disney and then selling it to ABC, ABC may just get it from its own parent company (Disney) directly! Forth: Google, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix and Amazon have NOT teamed up. They are all win that war, but they are far from allies. Which means the cable companies can play divide and conquer. Fifth: the cable companies are not exactly small. Those 5 may be tech giants, but these are media giants. If it comes down to a fight for the cheapest service, I am sure cable companies can spare a few pennies and lower their fat profits. And that's without even mentioning the poor framing, using war metaphors and the D-day. Oh, and "it will be many years before everyone’s addiction to cable gives way to something else. But it will." is not a prediction! We can all play that game: - "it will be many years before everyone's addiction to oil gives way to something else. But it will." - "it will be many years before we can live in another planet. But we will." - "it will be many years before tech pundits will gain quality, but they will". No, wait... maybe I went too far there. ;)

spinchange 16y ago

I would like to see the same outcome as the author of this post, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. The television content business (cable TV networks) and the television distribution business (cable system operators) have a very mutually benefical relationship with regard to bundled services. It's like the crux of the whole model. Steve Burke (COO of Comcast) was refreshingly plain spoken about this at AllThingsD back in June. Google & Apple will have to end-run the service providers TV offerings using the web (probably delivered on the same pipe) to compete.