Scott's View and YOURS on the MLB Deal

[jpn]

What if Dish pays the $100,000,000, gives MLB Extra Innings to ALL it's subs and raises prices $1 per month.

Yea, I know the baseball haters and indifferent would complain about the $1, but it would be a good way to burn DirecTV.

Don't know if it would burn anyone, but it would probably be a great business move. At that price you're likely to get a few thousand new subs in almost every market just on the basis that the games are available whether they're watched or not.

An unexpected jump in subs would put a few points on the stock price....

 

[NightRyder]

MLB's greed should be paid by those that want EI, not one cent should be born by anyone else, if the deal can't be structured in that manner then it shouldn't happen. Dish survived quite well before they had EI and they will continue to do so without it, anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.

NightRyder

 

[jpn]

They are already doing that in some places. Most cable systems in my area grab our CBS SD signal off a digital subchannel and then send it out on their systems. Analog of course.

And today that is done to support legacy tv's used by folks who don't want the STB. Once the "digital transition" happens, cable will no longer be required to support those sets; they can require everybody to have a digital STB. It's a better economic model to push pure digital and recover all that analog bandwidth for other additional programming, voip phone service, etc.

 

[ScoBuck]

Well Concidering D* pays $700 mil a year for NFLST I would say by your numbers D* is losing about $200 mil a year on NFLST

Well - no not exactly. I used the regular sub price to get my number. Many more had SF also, and commercial establisments pay more also. I also added that the NFL package gets them subs who they collect from EVERY month. They also get ad space on the channels, so they get revenue there also. Who knows what the actual revenues are?

 

[IcEWoLF]

To Scott's thread

Well if DTV is paying that much money to get MLB exclusive package...im sure MLB is not one of the top sports in the US anyways..lets say at least 40% of the subscribers are not willing to pay the increase what will happen to DTV? go bankrupt and call it a day? This are just my thoughts..but i want to see if you can give me answer to that, others are welcome to answer this important question.

 

[Jim5506]

They are already doing that in some places. Most cable systems in my area grab our CBS SD signal off a digital subchannel and then send it out on their systems. Analog of course.

But by 2009 most cable systems will probably have shut down the analog tier anyway, it's the only way they'll get anough bandwidth to add more HD channels to compete.

It will be VERY expensive for cable systms to convert totally to digital. Most will just capture the ATSC signal and pump it into their NTSC pipe. The signal they receive via satellite is digital and they output it NTSC. There is NO proscription that cable go digital. They will do digital to help bandwidth, but that's all.

 

[jpn]

It will be VERY expensive for cable systms to convert totally to digital. Most will just capture the ATSC signal and pump it into their NTSC pipe. The signal they receive via satellite is digital and they output it NTSC. There is NO proscription that cable go digital. They will do digital to help bandwidth, but that's all.

I don't think I said they were obligated. I said it doesn't make sense for them not to go digital. Are you saying that the digital-tier channels are currently NTSC over the wire (into the home)?

Since they aren't required to push ATSC over the wire, then why can't they require a digital STB for all subs, and push all digital into those STB's? That recovers their bandwidth AND makes puts all channels on the digital tier. Subs pay rent on the STB's, and cable can use the recovered bandwidth to generate new revenue.

 

[jpn]

Well Concidering D* pays $700 mil a year for NFLST I would say by your numbers D* is losing about $200 mil a year on NFLST

No. Not $700M/year. $700M for all seven years; that's $100M/year.

In contrast, XM paid $650M for eleven years of audio-only.

 

[NightRyder]

No. Not $700M/year. $700M for all seven years; that's $100M/year.

In contrast, XM paid $650M for eleven years of audio-only.

XM made some poor financial decisions, part of the reason they lost $732 million last year.

NightRyder

 

[pdxsam]

Since they aren't required to push ATSC over the wire, then why can't they require a digital STB for all subs, and push all digital into those STB's? That recovers their bandwidth AND makes puts all channels on the digital tier. Subs pay rent on the STB's, and cable can use the recovered bandwidth to generate new revenue.

I believe the only requirement for most cable companies is to maintain a "lifeline" level of service in analog. That usually comprises a lineup of all the local stations plus some local access channels. There's nothing that says they can't require an STB or cable card for lifeline and above. I think they don't do that so they don't piss off the "extended basic" people who don't want an STB.

As people purchase new televisions that will start to be more of a moot point. Most new televisions have cablecard slots. The cable companies would be wise to push the cablecard issue for those people who don't want a STB seen.

 

[jpn]

I believe the only requirement for most cable companies is to maintain a "lifeline" level of service in analog. That usually comprises a lineup of all the local stations plus some local access channels. There's nothing that says they can't require an STB or cable card for lifeline and above. I think they don't do that so they don't piss off the "extended basic" people who don't want an STB.

Are you saying today, or after the OTA transition to digital? I don't understand why cable doesn't fight the lifeline requirement, if it really exists. I question it because there are plenty of folks (inner city, fixed-income, etc) who don't get cable and rely on OTA. They don't get a lifeline stipulation. So why should cable be forced to carry any analog at all? Government stupidity at its extreme.

 

[pdxsam]

To the best of my knowledge.. lifeline has no time stamp on it. It's not tied to the OTA transition.

 

[jpn]

To the best of my knowledge.. lifeline has no time stamp on it. It's not tied to the OTA transition.

I've just spent an hour-plus searching fcc.gov and dtv.gov looking for applicable info. It looks like the question is not answered in any straightforward way.

However, there are many places where it's stated that consumers may need to buy/rent a digital STB from their cable company (and to contact their cable provider for details). There are statements that broadcasters cannot require cable providers to retransmit in analog format. There are even statements that consumers who don't want a STB may purchase digital TV's containing CableCARD technology (although it may not support interactive features or VOD service).

There is no mention that any cable service will be required to provide analog signals of any kind. Without a clear mandate, I can't see why a cable company would choose to put any analog on their wire. Bandwidth is precious and it's the key to all new features/functions/revenue.

 

[pdxsam]

Most lifeline agreements are made by the local cable commissions. The ones who award franchises. They're not mandated by the FCC. It's an agreement between the cable co. and the local municipalities. Similar to what Verizon has to do when they go into a new market.

 

[Bob Haller]

MLB REALLY needs a competitor! smaller market areas, with small salaries, cheap seats, basically back to the roots of what baseball WAS

perhaps its still the minors....

greed will kill them. its no longer a sport its a exhibition of what WAS a sport

 

[jpn]

Most lifeline agreements are made by the local cable commissions. The ones who award franchises. They're not mandated by the FCC. It's an agreement between the cable co. and the local municipalities. Similar to what Verizon has to do when they go into a new market.

I wasn't aware of that, thanks. That's even better for the cable providers, they have more room to negotiate with the local commissions. Given the positions of both the FCC and Congress on this, any cable company could argue that providing lifeline analog service is unnecessarily burdensome and they'd probably win. The concession would be to negotiate low rental on STB's with an entry-level "digital lifeline" offering. They could probably convince their local commissions that "digital lifeline" could be a sub-basic serive carrying just the local affiliates, local public-access channels, and maybe weather/emergency alert channels for minimal cost; if you're really on lifeline service, you don't need RSN's, Lifetime, TBS or shopping channels. With the coupon program for OTA tuners, I'd think this would be a very reasonable and generous approach by the cable companies.

 

[bonscott87]

What I was kinda getting at is that most cable companies are working on doing 2 things to be able to compete in terms of bandwidth:

1) Turning off the analog tier. They've been working on this for some time. Once a cable company turns off analog and goes totally digital (everyone needs a box) then they gain a lot of bandwidth.

2) Switched Video. Time Warner has already announed they are moving to Switched Video as quickly as they can to compete with the coming DirecTV HD bandwidth. Other companies are looking at this as well. (bye bye cable cards)

My statement that by 2009 most cable companies would be looking at shutting down their analog tier really had nothing to do with the OTA digital transition other then answering the question of taking a digital OTA signal and converting to a analog signal on the analog tier. And with cable more and more turning off the analog tier they wouldn't need to worry about that.

 

[jpn]

What I was kinda getting at is that most cable companies are working on doing 2 things to be able to compete in terms of bandwidth:

1) Turning off the analog tier. They've been working on this for some time. Once a cable company turns off analog and goes totally digital (everyone needs a box) then they gain a lot of bandwidth.

2) Switched Video. Time Warner has already announed they are moving to Switched Video as quickly as they can to compete with the coming DirecTV HD bandwidth. Other companies are looking at this as well. (bye bye cable cards)

My statement that by 2009 most cable companies would be looking at shutting down their analog tier really had nothing to do with the OTA digital transition other then answering the question of taking a digital OTA signal and converting to a analog signal on the analog tier. And with cable more and more turning off the analog tier they wouldn't need to worry about that.

Understood. Re: analog tier, there are still some FCC-regulated must-carry requirements forcing cable to provide analog signal availability until 2009. But once OTA goes all-digital those mandates are lifted and cable is free to implement your (1) and (2).

Coming full-circle, there is no point in cable arguing that MLBTV belongs on a "digital tier" (as opposed to analog-basic) because most cable companies will want to recover the analog bandwidth ASAP (by going all-digital).