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Am I misreading Mr. Lawler's statements, or is the pay-TV industry colluding to prevent HBO from selling to other markets? I feel like an antitrust investigatio
by lukeschlather 14y ago
Am I misreading Mr. Lawler's statements, or is the pay-TV industry colluding to prevent HBO from selling to other markets? I feel like an antitrust investigation is in order. (Overdue, in fact.)
- mikeryan 14y agoIt's not collusion. Its a carriage deal. HBO wants distribution on the cable operators lines. The Cable Operators want HBO. So they do a contract which precludes streaming via the internet. These contracts are standard across the industry and in fact standard across almost all industries with products and distribution (see liquor distributors). HBO is free to distribute via the internet if they so choose and the cable operators are free to stop distributing their content.
- gte910h 14y agoHowever, the cable operators are beneficiaries of monopolies, so there may be anti-trust issues at hand (using their monopoly to control distribution of the 3rd party service).