Judge Lets Broadcasters' Claims Against Dish Network Proceed in California

[TheForce]

And this is just a ridiculous defense in the current day. They can't call it "free" tv if they turn around and charge Dish and other service providers to re-transmit their shows. They are double-dipping and then have the gall to try and cry foul. That is just lunacy.

Try it your way and sabotage the revenue stream for Broadcast TV and see where that lands you? Fool!


Hey! I've been saying the 30 second spot is obsolete for 20 years but the industry refuses to embrace the many new ways we developed in the TV-Shopper show I co produced over 15 years running. We reduced the 30 second spot to that of the program genre only, one per break, integrated the spot with the show content, and sold ad revenue real estate area of the screen as a lower third running throughout the program. None of our methods could be deleted with AutoHop or 30 second skip. When TIVO first hit we created these methods and sold the ads based on this fact it was immune to the skip. But the "Free" TV broadcast model never embraced it because it was too radical a change. I feel if AutoHop wins the case and the TV Broadcasters see their revenue hit, then you will get these new forms of advertising that you will have no control over. Either that or the "Free" TV as you know it will be a thing of the past. History, like NTSC TV. Every channel, will have an access fee, every program will be like itunes and you will pay for each. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

My own worry is that this suit will bring 30 second skip into the limelight and ruin a good thing for us viewers. I know that viewer discretion to skip was found to be legal, legality is not the only way we can lose the war on viewer freedom. This may force the hand of the broadcaster to use other ways to force viewers to see ads if they wish to view the programming.

 

[TheForce]

just as long as the programmers are not also charging subscribers. TNT, USA, ESPN, FX (and anyone else who accepts ad dollars) should be 100% free of charge. Otherwise, charge your customers accordingly and knock off the endless hours of commercials and infomercials each day. Television stations should be required to declare whether they are Advertiser Sponsored, and provided free-of-charge to customers/MVPDs, or subscription-based in which they are free to charge fair market price for their commercial-free programming.

But this is not real world logic. Media has had its entire history of being paid for by multiple revenue streams. Name me anything in media that you see that has only one revenue stream. You may not be aware of all the revenue streams. Can you imagine what you'd pay for your newspaper if they did not sell advertising? CNN? HBO? Magazines?

I've been using the word "FREE" when describing "Free" TV in quotes because nothing is really free. "FREE" Tv is really paid for by a number of revenue streams, not just by one resource. It's a way of keeping the cost to a viewer down and spreading it out so your out of pocket is much lower per program.

 

[mckinney_man]

I get the tv industry point of view. I wouldn't mind if commercials were somehow integrated into programs. At least then it wouldn't be a waste of time. But they already do that with product placement.

This is just like many other things in the world. If they can't afford to produce programs then they become obsolete. You adapt or die. If you can't pay the salaries of the over-paid stars then maybe salaries get realistic and more in line with the rest of the world. Just like if people don't go see the latest crap Adam Sandler movie maybe a studio doesn't pick up his high price tag in the future. This is a way to voice our displeasure with the old ways of doing things.

 

[Mike_H]

My feel on commercials. I never really minded them when you had a few at the top of the hour, a few at the bottom of the hour, and maybe a couple at the 1/4 hours. It seemed about perfect in the streets of San Francisco time period. I personally blame the increase in commercials on the boom in big payments to sports organizations for the rights to rebroadcast their events. The networks paying those big dollars meant coming up with more cash, and to drive more cash they started pulling in more advertisers. Broadcasters got greedy and cable channels like HGTV or MTV inundate the consumer with commercials. They're inability to control themselves caused the market to create a new tool, a tool that they really don't like the idea of. If they simply would have been more reasonable in their quantity and quality of commercials, there would have never been a reason to invent the AutoHop.