AT&T disappointed with offers for struggling DirecTV
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Let's be real. The reason the Multi-channel third party providers are struggled is right in front of THEM within their reflection in the mirror. They simply can't understand it.
It's shear Greed. When Multichannel TV service became popular in the mid 70's, CableTV's price was reasonable and cable companies were printing money. So they Gobbled each other up using huge piles of debt to get bigger and bigger, this required higher, and higher fees, then the channel owners realized they wanted a bigger peace of the pie. So they buy up other channels to force block carriage of all their Networks, Cable Companies decide to do the same. Now we have almost totally Vertically Integrated Corporations that own the Studios, Broadcast channels, content, and its distribution so they can make money on all three and prices still go up all the while companies are making money on Making the content, broadcasting it (Advertising revenue), and on End user's delivery of it.
The endless game of requiring more and more and more for and from everybody in the industry has priced Cable/Multichannel service out of the budgets of many and turned off more. Now with a shrinking customer base quarter after quarter there doesn't seem to be an answer from them.
John
It's shear Greed. When Multichannel TV service became popular in the mid 70's, CableTV's price was reasonable and cable companies were printing money. So they Gobbled each other up using huge piles of debt to get bigger and bigger, this required higher, and higher fees, then the channel owners realized they wanted a bigger peace of the pie. So they buy up other channels to force block carriage of all their Networks, Cable Companies decide to do the same. Now we have almost totally Vertically Integrated Corporations that own the Studios, Broadcast channels, content, and its distribution so they can make money on all three and prices still go up all the while companies are making money on Making the content, broadcasting it (Advertising revenue), and on End user's delivery of it.
The endless game of requiring more and more and more for and from everybody in the industry has priced Cable/Multichannel service out of the budgets of many and turned off more. Now with a shrinking customer base quarter after quarter there doesn't seem to be an answer from them.
John
Well there is movement within the streaming products being offered. First up was CBS with their All Access product. A mix of originals, current CBS programming and some archival stuff. And from what I’ve been reading it is doing ok.
Of course there’s been Hulu’s next day current programming from ABC, NBC, Fox and FX which is yet another package available to compete with the live streaming services.
And now we have Peacock, AMC+, HBO Max and soon Discovery+ to entice us away from the live streamers and give us options to reduce the channel counts and the cost.
Notably missing in all this is sports and specials.
Of course there’s been Hulu’s next day current programming from ABC, NBC, Fox and FX which is yet another package available to compete with the live streaming services.
And now we have Peacock, AMC+, HBO Max and soon Discovery+ to entice us away from the live streamers and give us options to reduce the channel counts and the cost.
Notably missing in all this is sports and specials.
They only carried locals and a few distants in the 70s...and maybe hbo ( was on microwave)
Yes, I think competition is coming back and it's in the streaming markets. Doesn't change the fact that DTV could have competed for the rural or underserved, broadband-less TV customer. Now, Dish pretty much has a lock on that demo.
Yeah, neither sat service is really healthy these days and it doesn’t look good going forward. It would be interesting to know what % of Dish/Direct customers are unable to change services to something different.
That would be the money question. If of the 8 million or so subs dish has and say 6 of that only have a choice of dish or directv. That helps them both. If it is less then a million they are both f’ed
Limited reports from very early domestic beta users of the partial satellite constellation in August 2020 suggested users experienced download speeds from 11 Mbps to 60 Mbps, and upload speeds from 5 Mbps to 18 Mbps.[144] In October 2020, SpaceX launched a paid-for beta service in the U.S. called "Better Than Nothing Beta", charging US$499 for a user terminal, with an expected service of "50Mbps to 150Mbps and latency from 20 ms to 40 ms over the next several months".[145]
Number of customers that can be served in any area is limited. They have stated repeatedly it wasn’t for urban areas.
Ya fiber is the only way for the distant future. Same with hydrogen fuel cells.
Assuming hydrogen is made in an environmentally perfect way by elves paid a good wage with plenty of benefits.
I would agree that if Starlink and/or others (OneWeb is another - although they are far behind Starlink in terms of having a useful product) really take off and show they are sustainable - then satellite TV is probably dead - at least for residential users.
I would also agree that fiber is really the answer. But... when was the last time you saw a cable or telephone company running new lines (as in they don't provide service to that area, but now they are running new lines to that area so they can provide service)?
There are vast areas in my neck of the woods where Mediacom just flat out refuses to run cable. I'd really love to know what all of these cable and telecom companies did this past summer after school kids struggled with 2 months of school-from-home with no Internet or overloaded cellphone towers and hotspot Internet. This past summer should have been a kick in the ass to run service to areas that don't have service. Because you had to know that school-from-home was going to be a real possibility starting the 2020/2021 school year. I'm not talking about 2 houses in a 10 mile stretch of road. I'm talking 10 houses in a mile of road and they won't run service to those areas.
I would also agree that fiber is really the answer. But... when was the last time you saw a cable or telephone company running new lines (as in they don't provide service to that area, but now they are running new lines to that area so they can provide service)?
There are vast areas in my neck of the woods where Mediacom just flat out refuses to run cable. I'd really love to know what all of these cable and telecom companies did this past summer after school kids struggled with 2 months of school-from-home with no Internet or overloaded cellphone towers and hotspot Internet. This past summer should have been a kick in the ass to run service to areas that don't have service. Because you had to know that school-from-home was going to be a real possibility starting the 2020/2021 school year. I'm not talking about 2 houses in a 10 mile stretch of road. I'm talking 10 houses in a mile of road and they won't run service to those areas.
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Because they would rather wire where there are 30-50 houses in that mile, that is why high density areas have great Broadband, more houses, more money.
That said, in the subdivision I moved to a few months ago, every house here has about a acre of property, so low density, I was amazed that Charter offered their 1G broadband here.
But those areas already have broadband - they already have cable or fiber - and the telecom people just continue to pour money into those areas. Why? Are they that allergic to running new cable to areas it's never been run before?
Millimeter wavelengths in 5G won't work in rural areas. You have to have a direct line of sight and it's going to have to cover significant distances. But again, they like to focus on 5G, and cell tower upgrades in general, in places where cell coverage is always great. Not to mention the absurdly low monthly data allotments on cellular plans.
Sorry... I'm drifting this thread off topic. This is just a soapbox issue for me.
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