Monopoly Anyone?
- Thread starter Rope
- Start date
In 5 years there won't be OTA TV Stations anymore. The FCC is already trying to figure out how to take back all of the broadcast spectrum for communications usage (like wireless data providers) without putting the TV stations out of business.
There will by Internet stations only. Some will be broadcast locally for your phones and tablets using 5G or 6G wireless. Others will come over the internet in your home. Most will be both. We will all have a unique identifier which will define what we get for free and what we have to pay for. At that point, there will be no "monopoly" for broadcast or TV options because every TV content provider will be available everywhere except where limited by geography using local logic on the internet. It is going to completely change the game for us.
There will by Internet stations only. Some will be broadcast locally for your phones and tablets using 5G or 6G wireless. Others will come over the internet in your home. Most will be both. We will all have a unique identifier which will define what we get for free and what we have to pay for. At that point, there will be no "monopoly" for broadcast or TV options because every TV content provider will be available everywhere except where limited by geography using local logic on the internet. It is going to completely change the game for us.
Link? Umm... Let me look, not sure how much has been printed, yet.
I am on the TIA CTO Council (we are meeting in a week in Dallas and the reclaiming of TV station spectrum is on the agenda). We also have two FCC board members attending our week long event and this is going to be one of the topics they will be discussing.
There is limited spectrum available to us for communications and the FCC governs who can use what. The FCC already reclaimed some spectrum when the TV stations turned off analog broadcasting. Some of that reclaimed spectrum was auctioned to wireless data providers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and so on. Most of the rest was used for military, spies, research, education, aviation, and emergency services. Some has yet to be released and there are debates and proposals about how best to use it to the betterment of society.
The long term plan is to eliminate all TV broadcasts (and eventually broadcast radio) and find some way to address local broadcasters' businesses by ensuring their audience does not shrink and all viewers/listeners can easily access the local content over the internet or LTE (or 5G) broadband wireless networks. This isn't a simple thing, but technology is making it easier and easier all the time. We already have a few large providers like Verizon experimenting with radio and TV over LTE as a proof of concept for moving "free" local entertainment onto their wireless networks. It is in the interest of the wireless broadband companies to invest in this transition because it will free up spectrum they can use to get more paid subscribers and offer more and better services to their existing subscribers.
So, in the future, your car stereo might not even have AM or FM tuners. Instead it might have a LTE broadcast radio receiver which knows how to find all the local channels (and for a fee get you access to every single local station in the country).
I am on the TIA CTO Council (we are meeting in a week in Dallas and the reclaiming of TV station spectrum is on the agenda). We also have two FCC board members attending our week long event and this is going to be one of the topics they will be discussing.
There is limited spectrum available to us for communications and the FCC governs who can use what. The FCC already reclaimed some spectrum when the TV stations turned off analog broadcasting. Some of that reclaimed spectrum was auctioned to wireless data providers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and so on. Most of the rest was used for military, spies, research, education, aviation, and emergency services. Some has yet to be released and there are debates and proposals about how best to use it to the betterment of society.
The long term plan is to eliminate all TV broadcasts (and eventually broadcast radio) and find some way to address local broadcasters' businesses by ensuring their audience does not shrink and all viewers/listeners can easily access the local content over the internet or LTE (or 5G) broadband wireless networks. This isn't a simple thing, but technology is making it easier and easier all the time. We already have a few large providers like Verizon experimenting with radio and TV over LTE as a proof of concept for moving "free" local entertainment onto their wireless networks. It is in the interest of the wireless broadband companies to invest in this transition because it will free up spectrum they can use to get more paid subscribers and offer more and better services to their existing subscribers.
So, in the future, your car stereo might not even have AM or FM tuners. Instead it might have a LTE broadcast radio receiver which knows how to find all the local channels (and for a fee get you access to every single local station in the country).
Here's a link to a blogger writing about the "Incentive Auctions" the FCC is planning for some unused TV spectrum. He writes from the point of view of the broadcasters who are fearful of this plan.
http://blog.thefutureoftv.org/tag/fcc/
http://blog.thefutureoftv.org/tag/fcc/
We have more choice today than ever before. There are thousands of hours of new, interesting, and free content shown each week we have access to which was never remotely considered 10 years ago.
I don't think we, as consumers, are suffering at all.
Hell, I pay 1/10th what I used to for my content ever since cutting my cable service, and I get 95% of what I used to want to watch plus I have access to tens of thousands of great movies and shows I didn't have access before. I love the future we live in.
Internet radio services, like I Heart Radio and TuneIn Radio give me access to broadcast stations all over the world, including every station in my area - I no longer need a FM or AM tuner if I want to hear the radio. This is an amazing time.
So, the snarky anti-corporate sniping isn't reflective of the amazing future coming at us every day.
Imagine if the wireless providers could offer 10x the performance and 100x the allocated usage for the same money! It is already happening. For what I paid for 6GB of data with AT&T a year ago I can now get 10GB of data and have enough left over for their new "NEXT" plan where I can upgrade my phone every 18 months. All of the carriers are offering more for less every day.
We are very lucky at these times, and while there will always be examples of where the change is bad for some people, that isn't new for anything we've gone through in our lives. Not everything works for everyone. We cannot focus on just the negative experiences when the positive ones are so amazing.
I don't think we, as consumers, are suffering at all.
Hell, I pay 1/10th what I used to for my content ever since cutting my cable service, and I get 95% of what I used to want to watch plus I have access to tens of thousands of great movies and shows I didn't have access before. I love the future we live in.
Internet radio services, like I Heart Radio and TuneIn Radio give me access to broadcast stations all over the world, including every station in my area - I no longer need a FM or AM tuner if I want to hear the radio. This is an amazing time.
So, the snarky anti-corporate sniping isn't reflective of the amazing future coming at us every day.
Imagine if the wireless providers could offer 10x the performance and 100x the allocated usage for the same money! It is already happening. For what I paid for 6GB of data with AT&T a year ago I can now get 10GB of data and have enough left over for their new "NEXT" plan where I can upgrade my phone every 18 months. All of the carriers are offering more for less every day.
We are very lucky at these times, and while there will always be examples of where the change is bad for some people, that isn't new for anything we've gone through in our lives. Not everything works for everyone. We cannot focus on just the negative experiences when the positive ones are so amazing.
It could be, but if you want essentially "free" content, you have to "pay" by watching advertisements. Up until the DVR that was the way it worked and the world still watched the free content. If you want ad free content, you need to pay for the content with money.
Nothing is truly free.
Nothing is truly free.
Flint said:
I would happily pay extra to avoid spending 30% of my time watching ads if the option were available. I don't mind advertising, but I think it the proportion of advertising to programming has gotten abusive. If we are talking about the amount of advertising on Hulu, I could live with it, but I would honestly rather pay $12 instead of $8 and not get ads at all.
Every time this debate comes up I wonder how much people would pay for a la carte channels, especially the the less popular channels. It simply couldn't be as simple as dividing your current bill by the number of channels to determine what each channel is worth.
Something like 80% of what people watch is on a dozen channels or so. The only business model that would work would require those less popular channels to charge more per subscriber, which lessens their appeal even more, which means nobody would buy them, which means were ultimately left with JUST those 10 channels.
Something like 80% of what people watch is on a dozen channels or so. The only business model that would work would require those less popular channels to charge more per subscriber, which lessens their appeal even more, which means nobody would buy them, which means were ultimately left with JUST those 10 channels.
Haywood said:
What's more, they usually find a way to not only stick the consumer with fees but also include ads because it's more profitable to do so. Used to be $8 would get you into a movie and you'd see previews and then the flick. Now it's $12 and climbing and you get commercials. Even the pay TV channels hit you with ads.
Everywhere you look they're cramming advertising, always with the "but it would cost MORE without it" reasoning. Never once explaining how much more... I guarantee you they aren't being paid any meaningful amount to hit me with a given commercial. Certainly less than a few bucks a month. But we're only very rarely given the option of doing without.
Flint said:
That is not cost effective for content I don't want to own. I'm also not buying any content from Amazon until they support UltraViolet.
The problem with TV right now is that content providers are insanely greedy. They charge exorbitant fees to the cable companies to carry the channels and then expect us to spend 30% of our time watching advertisements. Screw any business model that wants to charge me $100+ per month for the privilege of watching 20 minutes of ads every hour.
With the regulatory barriers to entry now reduced, cable systems experienced huge growth from the late 1970s through the early 1980s: The 3,506 systems serving nearly 10 million subscribers in 1975 leaped to 6,600 systems serving nearly 40 million subscribers just ten years later. Programming services likewise emerged.
:text-link:
How many digital cable providers can you choose from today?
Rope
:text-link:
How many digital cable providers can you choose from today?
Rope