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Fox: Save Good Stuff for Paying Customers

F

FredLeonard

Guest
Fox says affiliates are on board with this. Fox TV stations, under this plan, will send "premium programs" to cable and satellite head ends. Programs of "lesser quality" would be fed to the transmitters for non-paying customers. Fox says it has to protect its revenue stream from services Aereo, which feeds station programming over the Internet without paying.

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-04-09-Fox%20Broadcast%20Threat-Aereo/id-13f727ca95ae4ce4b4de7408de4c1dab

Fox doesn't say whether "premium programs" includes sports or exactly what it would include. This sounds much like what happened to Superstations under syn-fyn when different content was fed to broadcast transmitters and cable systems via satellite.
 
Morgan Wick said:
We're already talking about this on another thread.
Click to expand...

A thread about another topic obscuring a significant news story.
 
nomadcowatbk said:
Would their NFL deal allow them to put games on pay TV only?
Click to expand...

Not without the NFL's OK. They own their content and are the one sport pretty much hellbent on keeping an OTA presence, at least in their teams' home markets.
 
The most interesting thing I learned from that link is that Haim Saban is charge of Univision.
 
There are only 5 Neilsen markets (out of more than 200) in the country where OTA households are above 20% of the available audience. And two of those are within a fraction of a percent of 20%.

In 124 markets, OTA viewing is less than 10% and drops as low as 2.7%.

Factor out non-English speakers and viewers outside the money demos and FOX and the NFL have very little to lose if they were to make the move.
 
Morgan Wick said:
Unless, of course, those numbers were to start climbing.
Click to expand...

They've declined precipitously in the 5 years since I saw them last.

Looks like a lot of OTA households ran up the white flag when the switch from analog to digital occurred.

You may see people drop cable and/or satellite for Netflix and other online platforms, but a significant rush back to OTA doesn't seem likely.
 
KeithE4 said:
nomadcowatbk said:
Would their NFL deal allow them to put games on pay TV only?
Click to expand...

Not without the NFL's OK. They own their content and are the one sport pretty much hellbent on keeping an OTA presence, at least in their teams' home markets.
Click to expand...

What about the playoffs and the Super Bowl?
 
FYI:

The trends for nationwide OTA households:

In 1999, 22% of US households were OTA. That was the peak year for cable penetration and it has fallen every year since. But so has OTA viewing, as both cable and OTA households switched to other alternative delivery systems (including satellite).

In 2007, before the analog/digital switch, 10.7% of American households were OTA.

In 2012, 8.5% of American households were OTA.

In those last five years, cable penetration declined 0.9% but alternative delivery system penetration increased 3.1%.

There's not much of a "there" there when it comes to OTA. Factor out the people who don't watch your network and the people who are outside the sales demo (a significant percentage of people who refuse to pay for TV are elderly...as in 80 and up), and any network or professional sports league contemplating leaving OTA is really only risking the wrath of 3 or 4 percent of their audience, tops.
 
michael hagerty said:
FYI:

The trends for nationwide OTA households:

In 1999, 22% of US households were OTA. That was the peak year for cable penetration and it has fallen every year since. But so has OTA viewing, as both cable and OTA households switched to other alternative delivery systems (including satellite).

In 2007, before the analog/digital switch, 10.7% of American households were OTA.

In 2012, 8.5% of American households were OTA.

In those last five years, cable penetration declined 0.9% but alternative delivery system penetration increased 3.1%.

There's not much of a "there" there when it comes to OTA. Factor out the people who don't watch your network and the people who are outside the sales demo (a significant percentage of people who refuse to pay for TV are elderly...as in 80 and up), and any network or professional sports league contemplating leaving OTA is really only risking the wrath of 3 or 4 percent of their audience, tops.
Click to expand...

the elderly are more likely to have cable since they're less tech savy than young cord cutters or youngs cord-nevers
 
nomadcowatbk said:
michael hagerty said:
FYI:

The trends for nationwide OTA households:

In 1999, 22% of US households were OTA. That was the peak year for cable penetration and it has fallen every year since. But so has OTA viewing, as both cable and OTA households switched to other alternative delivery systems (including satellite).

In 2007, before the analog/digital switch, 10.7% of American households were OTA.

In 2012, 8.5% of American households were OTA.

In those last five years, cable penetration declined 0.9% but alternative delivery system penetration increased 3.1%.

There's not much of a "there" there when it comes to OTA. Factor out the people who don't watch your network and the people who are outside the sales demo (a significant percentage of people who refuse to pay for TV are elderly...as in 80 and up), and any network or professional sports league contemplating leaving OTA is really only risking the wrath of 3 or 4 percent of their audience, tops.
Click to expand...

the elderly are more likely to have cable since they're less tech savy than young cord cutters or youngs cord-nevers
Click to expand...

You would think that would be the case. And up to about 70 or so, there's some truth to it (less because they're not tech-savvy and more because they became cable or satellite customers in their 40s, 50s and 60s).

But people 80 and above are, as a group, very resistant to the idea of paying for TV, especially if they never have before.
 
Couldn't they simply keep the over the air affiliates but scramble the signals? Thus if you had cable you'd get free Fox programs, but the OTA viewers would receive scrambled signals, unless they pay for it.

I believe the FCC says as long as one of the channels is free to air, the rest can be scrambled.
 
Mark said:
Couldn't they simply keep the over the air affiliates but scramble the signals? Thus if you had cable you'd get free Fox programs, but the OTA viewers would receive scrambled signals, unless they pay for it.

I believe the FCC says as long as one of the channels is free to air, the rest can be scrambled.
Click to expand...

haven't they tried that before?
 
I'd like to see public TV try scrambling: Pledge Free TV. Also free of the self-help and nostalgia drek public TV resorts to during begathons.

People do OTA because they are too cheap to get cable or satellite. If OTA is scrambled, why do we need OTA at all? Take all the bandwidth and put it to better use. More mobile capacity. Maybe even more FM capacity.
 
michael hagerty said:
You would think that would be the case. And up to about 70 or so, there's some truth to it (less because they're not tech-savvy and more because they became cable or satellite customers in their 40s, 50s and 60s).

But people 80 and above are, as a group, very resistant to the idea of paying for TV, especially if they never have before.
Click to expand...
Yes, but since NFL advertisers don't care about people 80 and older, would the NFl care if the 80+ can't see their games? Would fox care if they loss the 80+ demo?

I think CBS is the only network that has any programing that has advertising for older Americans. That being the price is right.
 
FredLeonard said:
I'd like to see public TV try scrambling: Pledge Free TV. Also free of the self-help and nostalgia drek public TV resorts to during begathons.
People do OTA because they are too cheap to get cable or satellite. If OTA is scrambled, why do we need OTA at all? Take all the bandwidth and put it to better use. More mobile capacity. Maybe even more FM capacity.
Click to expand...

The same people who don't watch OTA TV, don't listen to radio either.
Do we really need 8 channels of K-LOVE in every market? ;)
 
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