Unless you are a follower of the technology websites and blogs, you may not know that the cable industry has come up with an idea to combat the practice that they call “cutting the cord.” This initiative, which is being pushed by Jeffrey Bewkes of Time Warner, is called “TV Everywhere.” In a nutshell, it allows all of us to access the very desirable content we haven’t been able to get for free online yet—HBO, Showtime, etc.—but only if we have a cable subscription, as in any cable subscription.
To accomplish this, Bewkes needs to get all the cable companies to work with their competitors, as in sharing customer data. While this isn’t going to be easy, it’s already raising a lot of red flags from people with concerns about privacy. And then of course, Bewkes has to get all the content providers to on board, although he himself brings Time Warner’s HBO, CNN, TNT, TBS, etc., to the table.
Comcast’s pared-down version of this concept substitutes “Comcast” for “Everywhere.” All you need is a Comcast subscription to get connected to the Premium video content from their Comcast or Fancast site. They have been testing it for a while and plan to roll it out sometime in December.
All of this is being presented as if Bewkes and Comcast are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, but it’s pretty obvious what this is about. Hulu-phobia. Netflix-phobia. Redbox-phobia. But most of all, Apple-phobia. You could just as easily sum it up as future-phobia.
Why do we enjoy free-with-ads sites like Hulu and Crackle? THEY HAVE FEWER ADS! And we can watch what we want whenever we want to.
What do we like about Netflix? For a fraction of the cost of cable, it gives you DVDs by mail plus the ability watch a lot of movies instantly, either on your computer or with their many compatible set-top boxes.
What do people like about Redbox. One buck! Pick it up and return it to the supermarket!
What do we like about cable?
Ummm, cable is a monopoly. You only get one store. You may only want a pair of socks and a shirt, but you are forced to buy a Yankee cap (even if you are a Mets or a Sox fan), cufflinks, perfume, towels, ladies underwear, two ties, a bedspread, low-slung hip-hop shorts, and a lamp. The kicker is that the price goes up all the time and the Calvin Klein shirt you actually came to buy costs extra. And of course LOTS AND LOTS OF ADS!
It’s not that we don’t like cable any more—we’ve always hated it! Cable is like the bully who beat you up in the hallway in high school. It’s college time now, baby!
But Comcast isn’t just experimenting with a flavor of “TV Everywhere.” They are also to merge their existing cable channels with NBC. They want to lock up all those amazing NBC Universal shows unless you subscribe.
There’s one tiny hitch though. Every single TV show and movie from NBC and Universal is available for free to anybody who has ten seconds to look for them. So what exactly is Comcast locking up? This isn’t 1995, you know. Either you just shrug your shoulders about file-sharing or you start offering some alternatives that have benefits that people are willing to pay for like Hulu, Netflix, Redbox, and iTunes. Or maybe you work a little and come up with something new? Bill Maher said recently that the Republicans looked into the future and saw… radio. These entertainment giants are looking into the future and they see… cable.
Also, as Martin Peers wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “There is little evidence that owning both content and distribution increases strategic value. Time Warner, in fact, only this year split its cable systems from its vast content operations.”
Wait a second! Mr. “TV Everywhere” Bewkes got rid of his cable system? I thought you sold stuff when you thought they’d be worth less in the future, not more.
Peers also pointed out that Comcast itself had prior history it might consider, including its “unsuccessful bid for Walt Disney in 2004 and the value-destroying $250 million investment in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 2005.”
This is the kind of Masters of the Universe mogul-think that gave us the Time Warner-AOL deal, Detroit and the SUV, and sub-prime loans.
There’s a lot of panic and desperation these days. Everyone says they don’t know how they are going to monetize this content when people are stealing it. Where’s it all going?
They know very well where it’s all going--they just don’t like it. It’s going to Hulu. To Netflix. To Redbox.
It’s going to Steve Jobs. Apple has lately been floating the idea of a $30 a month subscription plan to the networks. That sounds a lot like--
Run for your lives!
