I wasn’t too concerned about missing the Opening Ceremonies from the Vancouver Winter Olympics, as I figured I could catch it online afterward. NBC was keen to showcase its cool new Silverlight plug-in by streaming a considerable amount of the Beijing games in 2008.
But when I tried to watch Part 1 of the Opening Ceremonies, up came this message, along with a sign-in screen:
“You have selected a premium video (e.g. live stream or full-event replay).”
So I played along, and selected my HOME provider as Comcast. Unfortunately, I had audaciously canceled my cable subscription a few months back, because (a) I wasn’t watching that much TV; (b) My $10 antenna was pulling basic network channels in pristine HD; (c) I could stream Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. to my PS3 via an inexpensive add-on called PlayOn.
I still pay $100 a month for internet and phone, but that wasn’t enough for Comcast, or NBC. “It appears you don’t have a Comcast Video Subscription” declared the passive-aggressive pop-up. Thanks to IP blocking, I wasn’t able to watch any of the Canadian broadcast coverage online from CTV. So I was relegated to the lame highlights reel. As one blogger commented: “Those whom don’t pay for cable — SOL.”
I’ve been saying this for months, but now it seems to be coming true: the powers-that-be do not want the web to disrupt the lucrative world of cable fees. Hulu is next: I predict you’re going to need a cable subscription to watch content on this still-free streaming video site. Advertising (“digital pennies”) isn’t enough to cover the costs of big-budget broadcast’s production and distribution (“analog dollars”). NBC owns half of Hulu, and Comcast will soon own NBC — do you see where this is going? And what does this mean for the future of free broadcast TV, which we’ve had since the 1940’s?
Obviously, we should acknowledge that these are for-profit companies that need to monetize their content. NBC has had a stranglehold on the Olympics for years, delaying coverage into prime time in order to maximize its massive payout to the International Olympic Committee (it’s said the network will lose $250 million on the Vancouver games). As I write this, we’re watching NBC (on TV) as it plays up the drama of Apolo Ohno’s race for the gold in 1500m speed skating (pre-recorded), while Ohno has already declared his feelings via Twitter about how things ended:
Wow…historical night for me…I have absolutely NO REGRETS…thank you all for supporting me…I’m on cloud 9…skated a brutal hard race!
The Internet is clearly harder to control, hence a recent, increasing propensity for platform “lock-up” (NBC.com’s use of Facebook Connect), and potentially the next chapter in the story of the web with the emergence of a new order in dominant players (what is Apple’s iPad but a really sophisticated, consumption-friendly content appliance?). The Wild West of the Internet is quickly becoming suburbanized.
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I’ve noticed that Hulu has stopped running free episodes of some shows (e.g. Nip/Tuck); it seems channels are trying to make some money by selling episodes on Amazon’s on-demand video for $2/each before they are released on DVD.
For shows on premium networks like HBO and Showtime that’s not even an option until the DVDs are released (at which point, you might as well get it through Netflix.) I’d happily pay $2/episode when Treme premieres or to watch the fourth season of Dexter now instead of in six months.
Still, I don’t know if this strategy of withholding content will bring anyone back to Cable TV subscription. Once you cancel, it’s hard to see the value in going back.
I am not surprised that NBC is trying to monetize broadcast content. What is interesting is why they waited so long? The Comcast-NBC merger was announced in early December 2009.
I wrote a blog post about the Comcast-NBC merger a few months ago. (My computer is my TV)
According to the article, “Three ways the Comcast-NBC merger could change television” by Mark Guarino, Comcast is looking for a new business model one that could gain access to computer screens.
I do have basic cable and I still don’t watch much broadcast television. Most of the media I consume is from my computer screen.
The cable industry knows that people are changing their media consumption/viewing habits. Now Comcast has created Silverlight, a new business model hoping to reach out to and perhaps control the mobile audience.
What remains to be seen is if it will be profitable. Will people pay for content they are use to getting for “free”?
I think we all got used to the fact that everything was “free” and for the taking online. Now, many feel it’s borderline evil that these companies are changing the game and trying to monetize their own content. But, realistically speaking, why is that such a shocker? We’ll still get what we want, it just won’t be as readily available. And, yes, we’ll have to pay for it. No more 100% off specials.
If it’s good, why shouldn’t I pay for it? Good food isn’t free, so why should my favorite television shows be? I’m willing to pay for great content so long as it’s reasonably priced. I agree that it’s absurd to pay $100 a month for cable packages, but that’s a choice. If we don’t want the premium channels, we don’t have to pay for them. I also think it’s absurd to pay $3 a gallon for gasoline, but that’s what it costs. If I want to drive my car, I have to pay for gas.
Five or ten years ago, much of this “free” content wasn’t free in the slightest. Then, all of a sudden, things changed and we got used to it. In a way, it’s like people feel entitled to it… that it’s been this way all along. Well, not exactly. We’ve always had to pay for things. This is no different. Once the cable giants figure out what they want to do, we’ll have to adjust and, believe me, everything will be fine. The world won’t end. Our pocketbooks won’t go belly up. We’ll adapt because that’s what we do.
It’s not a slap in the face. Look at it this way – we’ve been enjoying the “free” model on a stellar 30-day trial. But our time is up. Did we like what we saw? If so, it’s time to pay up.
Derek, I only half agree with your argument.
Yes, we should not expect everything to be free. We’ve gotten used to companies “experimenting” with the internet, trying to use the old advertising model to attract eyeballs to free content. But the equation never held up because there’s just so many more places to go on the Web.
What concerns me — and should concern anyone — is #1 we may be losing our “public spaces.” Read the MSNBC link in my post (“future of free broadcast TV”) — some network execs would like to be done with broadcast over the airwaves for good. They recognize that they can make more money on the cable model (fees for content) than on the broadcast model (advertising pays for the content).
So let’s just say broadcast TV goes away for good, and all visual content ends up either on cable TV (paid), or online (paid via iTunes, Comcast cable agreement, etc). Again, nothing wrong with that, as you say, we should pay for quality. And it costs to create and distribute that content.
But then we see large companies begin to “lock up” how we can access some of this important media. NBC says, oh, we own the Olympics, you can’t have access to any of those images until we’ve gotten our money’s worth, and actually, we’d rather you not talk about it either because you’re going to rob our audience of the “drama.” Maybe the IOC will ban athletes like Apollo Ohno from commenting on the results until after the media companies have had a chance to show the taped delayed competition. You already have to go through Facebook Connect (hence you need a Facebook account on a privacy-challenged private entity’s server) to comment on NBC.com’s Olympics coverage.
There’s just an overall constricting of content and platforms in a desire to manage how we gain access to content, and even talk about it. This is not through some massive conspiracy. It’s just how large companies behave: control the flow, monetize.
And that presents problem #2: concentration. This is exactly what happened in the late 80’s when newspapers and networks began to fall into the hands of a small number of highly capitalized companies. This concentration of power in journalism just happened to coincide with the public’s drop in trust for journalists.
For the last 15 years, we imagined that the Web would be something other than the highly controlled media landscape of the 20th century — with lower barriers to entry, and a more diverse set of players. But our inability to cope with the online cacophony, combined with an economic crisis that demands a better ROI from private entities, seem to have precipitated the same co-opting of the Web that we saw with our public airwaves a few decades ago. And I find that worrisome. It’s hard for me not to equate Iran’s decision to ban Gmail and set up its own national e-mail platform with what’s happening here in the private sector. It’s all about who controls what.
Anita: quick correction. Comcast did not develop Silverlight. It’s an interactive streaming technology that Microsoft created as an alternative to Flash.
Let me chime in here with Hanson.
Broadcast television IS free — it runs across the public airwaves. Cable was originally designed for people who could not receive good TV signals through the air; turning it into way for additional “networks” to exist came later. CNN wasn’t launched until 1980.
IMO, we have to figure out how to keep news content – if nothing else – freely accessible to everyone.
Hanson – correction on my Facebook Connect post. I was so dumbfounded about needing to use FBC to “like” a post that I forgot to confirm that it was required to comment. It’s not. So not only are they clueless about community, they seem to have inept IT people (they are allowing /anonymous/ comments but require FBC to ‘vote’). [About incompetence, see Ken’s #fail post – he can’t even get the login screen: http://twitpic.com/13bryx%5D
Oh, you know I’m going to chime in…
Hey MSOs and Uncle Sam, try this:
1. Net neutrality – Let’s get this in writing finally.
2. Regulate subscriber fees – No more $5 ESPN, you Robber-Barons!
3. Completely merge Internet and cable service – It’s all IPTV now, so stop treating us like morons, will ya?*
4. A la carte channel pricing. For the love of all that is holy I don’t need the Style Network or HGTV!!
5. Common carrier – open that last mile and give us some choice.
6. Say ‘yes’ to vertical integration – Why stop at NBC Uni? Heck, Comcast, go clean out Viacom while you’re at it. We’re almost there anyways.
You see, I’m ok with 4 or 5 Big Brothers, as long as they need each other to survive and I can have what I want when I want it – format shifted, place shifted, and time shifted. Content can’t be King when service is the court jester. Srsly. Service is where the money is. Ones and zeroes are free after the fact. You got hosed, Hanson. Find yourself a torrent and tell Comcast to… uh… well… just use your imagination.
*Yeah, DirecTV is huge now, but they’re already rearranging the deck chairs for the coming iceberg**.
**See 3. above – that’s the only thing stopping Comcast, Time Warner, COX, etc, from destroying Sat TV for good.
From reading your post, it seems like that even if I was able to login to Time Warner Cable from their oh so wonderful iframeviewer.html page, I would not be able to watch it.
I don’t pay for Cable TV either, I just pay for Cable Internet.
They suck. And by They I mean NBC and Time Warner Cable.
I see that Kathy posted this earlier, but here is the road block I ran into: http://twitpic.com/13bryx.
It is a shame. In 2008 NBC did not have this crap restrictions. Hell, in 2008 Olympics NBC did not even have region/IP lock out.
I wish CTV was available world-wide. As I hear from my Canadian friends, their online live and VOD is absolutely wonderful.
I had just found out that the Curling matches were going on and went to the NBC Olympic site to see if there was live video since NBC wasn’t airing the matches. I got the same “It appears you don’t have a Comcast Video Subscription” message. I’ve had Comcast cable for years and am still a subscriber, although I only have the Basic (non-digital) package. I guess they don’t get enough money out of me to provide me with good service (even though I purchase their extremely over-priced internet service). Either put the content on the web for free or air it on the TV. Why should we only be able to watch the Olympic events that NBC and Comcast think are important?
I HAVE a cable subscription (the cheapest kind) from comcast, and I still got this message. to hell with NBC and comcast!
I have both Comcast HD cable and broadband internet, and am still advised that I don’t have “a Comcast Video Subscription” when attempting to stream live Olympic events.
WTH is “Comcast Video Subscription”?
The lockdown really drives me crazy when it applies to the Olympics, which is meant to be a global celebration. I subscribe to the “wrong” cable provider here in Jakarta, so I have no legal options for watching at all; the web streams in other countries are geographically locked. Indonesians have zero interest in the Winter Games and it’s going to stay that way forever if nobody here gets any exposure to them. There should at least be a YouTube channel with highlight clips of stuff that has already aired. With all these highly exclusive cable contracts, the Olympic Committee is shooting itself in the foot by a) failing to take advantage of the audience-building potential of viral media and b) coming across as money-grubbing and indifferent to the spirit of the Games.
Looks like the US Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, agrees that paying cable prices for online access is unfairly restrictive and sent a letter to NBC chief Jeff Zucker:
“I fear that that this practice of locking up certain content only for pay-TV subscribers may be a preview of what is to come with respect to TV programming shown on the Internet, particularly in the context of the proposed Comcast/NBC Universal merger,” said Kohl. In his letter, Kohl also asked if, after the merger is completed, viewers will be required to have a pay TV subscription to view NBC Internet content, a question to which NBC did not respond.
(Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100227/ap_on_sp_ot/us_kohl_olympics)
Is it only a matter of time before online news companies will stop providing their content for “free”? One question I have is whether there will be any so-called “public access” channels online and what they will look like – personal blogs under the umbrella of a news corporation?