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Cutting the satellite/cable cord


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#21 You Play to Win the Game

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Posted 22 July 2015 - 05:25 PM

Yes... searching various syndication sources for a show or movie you are trying to watch has become a 1st world problem. Definitely very annoying.

#22 Mark Carver

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Posted 22 July 2015 - 07:10 PM

Can I Stream It? - http://www.canistream.it/


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#23 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 06 August 2015 - 01:14 AM

Hopefully a sign of things to come.

 

Media stocks hammered as cord cutting threat looms

 

Media company stocks have performed fantastically well this year, but now Wall Street is demanding a reality check.


There was an across the board sell-off on Wednesday. It was apparently triggered by new concerns and anxiety about cable cord-cutting.

 

********

 

"The rate of traditional Pay TV cord-cutting does indeed appear to be accelerating," the veteran industry analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson said Wednesday after reviewing second quarter data.



#24 The Epic

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Posted 14 August 2015 - 12:41 PM

Without reading this thread and clicking the links yet, all I need is:

 

Baseball

Football

College basketball

Monday Night RAW (Which you can get on youtube if you search hard enough. Still frustrating though.)

 

Literally everything else I can get from HBO, Hulu or Netflix.



#25 Matt_P

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Posted 14 August 2015 - 12:43 PM

Without reading this thread and clicking the links yet, all I need is:

 

Baseball

Football

College basketball

Monday Night RAW (Which you can get on youtube if you search hard enough. Still frustrating though.)

 

Literally everything else I can get from HBO, Hulu or Netflix.

 

That's why cable companies are paying RSNs the big bucks.



#26 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 15 August 2015 - 02:11 PM

Without reading this thread and clicking the links yet, all I need is:

 

Baseball

Football

College basketball

Monday Night RAW (Which you can get on youtube if you search hard enough. Still frustrating though.)

 

Literally everything else I can get from HBO, Hulu or Netflix.

 

Right now, being a sports fan is really the only reason to cling to the traditional pay-TV model. But even that is slowly changing. You can now get ESPN/ESPN2/TNT/TBS without a cable/satellite subscription for $20/month. If you are tech savvy and have the access to a server in the right location, you can get O's games in MD without MASN for the price of the MLBTV.com subscription through a VPN. If you aren't able to do that, there are services that will do the workaround for you for less than $10/month. If you connect to an overseas server, you can buy the streaming NFL package too (no need to subscribe to DirecTV), although if you're a Ravens fan living in MD you can probably get all their games with just an antenna.



#27 Mark Carver

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 10:24 AM

FINALLY!

 

Major League Baseball has long made it clear they want to end blackouts of baseball games through their At Bat service. Sadly their hands have been tied until they could get major networks like Fox to agree to contract changes.

The good news for cord cutters is that Sports Business Journal is reporting Fox has agreed to end the blackouts for next year’s MLB season. This was all recently hinted at by MLB in an interview but now sounds like it is pretty much a done deal.

 

- See more at: http://cordcuttersne...h.4aRsenO6.dpuf


John Keegan, a renowned British military historian, has called World War II the greatest single event in the history of mankind. - Tom Brokaw, NBC special correspondent and author of "The Greatest Generation"


#28 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 01:30 PM

So, it sounds like Comcast-owned RSNs may be the only holdout for local streaming games? According to the article, that's 6 teams. Will MLB roll out the service without them?



#29 Matt_P

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 02:06 PM

So, it sounds like Comcast-owned RSNs may be the only holdout for local streaming games? According to the article, that's 6 teams. Will MLB roll out the service without them?

 

No. Fox will roll out the service without them. After all, Fox is paying MLB money for this to happen.

 

But you'll need a cable subscription that includes the given RSN to access the games that would be blacked out. Fox didn't agree to this for free.

 

This doesn't end the blackouts. It just means you can access the games without a TV if you have cable.



#30 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 02:13 PM

No. Fox will roll out the service without them. After all, Fox is paying MLB money for this to happen.

 

But you'll need a cable subscription that includes the given RSN to access the games that would be blacked out. Fox didn't agree to this for free.

 

This doesn't end the blackouts. It just means you can access the games without a TV if you have cable.

 

That's what I figured, for some reason the article didn't read that way to me. I know FOX is one of the holdouts when it comes to resisting stand-alone OTT broadcasts for customers who want to ditch the traditional pay-TV model.



#31 Matt_P

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 02:52 PM

That's what I figured, for some reason the article didn't read that way to me. I know FOX is one of the holdouts when it comes to resisting stand-alone OTT broadcasts for customers who want to ditch the traditional pay-TV model.

 

The article was a bad one.

 

Fox is actually one of the most receptive to having stand-alone OTT broadcasts.

 

Think about it. Baseball RSNs fall into four groups.

 

#1) Those owned by Fox

#2) Those owned by Comcast

#3) Those owned by DirecTV

#4) Team owned RSNs

 

If Comcast or Direct TV serve their product online without requiring a cable subscription then that means their customers have an incentive to cut the cord and cancel their cable subscriptions. And since Comcast owns its networks where it has a large market share, then that means ITS customers would cancel their subscriptions. Same idea is true for DirecTV. That means that they need these networks to ensure that customers don't cut the cord.

 

Fox only provides content and doesn't directly have subscribers. As long as their networks are able to net the same amount of review via a stand-alone station or via cable then they're fine either way. That logic holds true for team owned RSNs also. But team owned RSNs are more likely to get screwed by baseball than Fox. What happens to their equity if baseball decides they want to broadcast games?

 

Of course, the problem that all the providers have is that they're irrelevant if baseball games are shown only via the internet. The only reason why they have value is because they have power over the cable market. If games are served only online, then Bam Tech can run that. Fox would simply become unnecessary unless they can force millions of people to pay for baseball games that wouldn't pay ordinarily.

 

If we were at that point, BAM Tech would have made a play for the Cardinals and negotiated directly with providers to serve the channel non-exclusively via cable.



#32 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 03:21 PM

Fox is actually one of the most receptive to having stand-alone OTT broadcasts.

 

While you are correct that FOX is in a better position as a non-distributor than Comcast/DirecTV/Time Warner Cable to offer stand-alone OTT content, they aren't really doing that....yet. I read an interview somewhere recently (sorry, forgot where so I don't have a link) with an exec at Fox Sports. To paraphrase, he stated that they don't see great concern in the recent decline in traditional pay-TV subscribers, and they have no intention of offering any of their online content (FOX Sports Go, BTN2Go, and now baseball on its RSNs) without a cable/satellite subscription. The one exception being PlayStation Vue....but when you look at the bundle of channels and monthly cost for that (not to mention hardware cost and very limited availability so far), it really doesn't look much more appealing than a cable subscription.

 

That stands in contrast to ESPN, who have their content on SlingTV....still not the a la carte type of service many people desire, but definitely a much more stripped-down, and cheaper, offering of core channels. And with Disney putting ESPN and other content out there for SlingTV, there isn't much reason for them to not offer it for other start-up OTT services, and someday probably offering it on their own (like HBO Now).



#33 Matt_P

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 03:39 PM

I said most receptive. That doesn't mean that they'll do it tomorrow because they'd lose hundreds of millions by doing so. But they wouldn't lose the billions that Comcast or DirecTV would.

 

ESPN is the go-to spot for sports commentary. Going a la carte may not be bad for them if it knocks off the competition. But ESPN may not be with Sling for much longer.



#34 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 03:49 PM

I said most receptive. That doesn't mean that they'll do it tomorrow because they'd lose hundreds of millions by doing so. But they wouldn't lose the billions that Comcast or DirecTV would.

 

ESPN is the go-to spot for sports commentary. Going a la carte may not be bad for them if it knocks off the competition. But ESPN may not be with Sling for much longer.

 

The comments I read from the FOX exec did not sound at all receptive. In a position to be receptive, I would agree with. I think there is definitely some momentum behind cord-cutting right now, and as my post above indicates Wall Street is taking notice, which means the content owners and distributors shouldn't be far behind in responding. With the amount of content they own, it would be nice to see FOX be one of the leaders in offering stand-alone alternatives, but it looks as though they have no plan for that now. But if the trend continues, they'll likely end up there one way or another at some point, whether it's on their own or via another service.

 

Haven't heard anything about ESPN leaving SlingTV, but it would not surprise me if they did so once the contract is up. And if they do, SlingTV as we currently know it is probably dead.



#35 McNulty

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Posted 19 August 2015 - 05:05 PM

So if I pay for Masn, I can watch the Os online now in market? If so, starting when?

@fuzydunlop


#36 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 20 August 2015 - 01:42 AM

Here's the article I was referring to regarding FOX offering streaming content.

 

Cord Cutters News: Fox Networks say “NO” to Sling TV and to free online sports streaming



#37 Matt_P

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Posted 20 August 2015 - 07:32 AM

So if I pay for Masn, I can watch the Os online now in market? If so, starting when?

 

No.

 

If you lived in an area that has an RSN run by Fox and you paid for a cable subscription then you could watch your team via internet screening.



#38 Matt_P

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Posted 20 August 2015 - 07:44 AM

The comments I read from the FOX exec did not sound at all receptive. In a position to be receptive, I would agree with. I think there is definitely some momentum behind cord-cutting right now, and as my post above indicates Wall Street is taking notice, which means the content owners and distributors shouldn't be far behind in responding. With the amount of content they own, it would be nice to see FOX be one of the leaders in offering stand-alone alternatives, but it looks as though they have no plan for that now. But if the trend continues, they'll likely end up there one way or another at some point, whether it's on their own or via another service.

 

Haven't heard anything about ESPN leaving SlingTV, but it would not surprise me if they did so once the contract is up. And if they do, SlingTV as we currently know it is probably dead.

 

That article didn't seem very receptive. I'm not familiar with that publication although I see they also published the train wreck above. They still did come to some sort of a deal with MLB though unlike pretty much anyone else. FOX Sports may not do so well in an a la carte world (although they'd survive) but Fox News would do great. Fox would probably bundle those two stations (and others) and make a killing.

 

DISH has discussed the idea of cutting sports out of their cable packages altogether because it's so expensive. The idea being that they would be cheaper than the competition and would appeal to non-sports fans. Seeing what happens without ESPN could give them a chance to test what would happen if they cut out sports.

 

http://www.fiercecab...g-tv/2015-07-10


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#39 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 20 August 2015 - 11:57 AM

That article didn't seem very receptive. I'm not familiar with that publication although I see they also published the train wreck above. They still did come to some sort of a deal with MLB though unlike pretty much anyone else. FOX Sports may not do so well in an a la carte world (although they'd survive) but Fox News would do great. Fox would probably bundle those two stations (and others) and make a killing.

 

DISH has discussed the idea of cutting sports out of their cable packages altogether because it's so expensive. The idea being that they would be cheaper than the competition and would appeal to non-sports fans. Seeing what happens without ESPN could give them a chance to test what would happen if they cut out sports.

 

http://www.fiercecab...g-tv/2015-07-10

 

Yeah, FOX would probably take the same approach with FOX News that Disney does with ESPN....even in a scaled-down subscription model they would leverage their anchor channel to make sure other less popular ones are included.

 

DISH might be on to something with being a one-stop location for all non-sports programming....I think people would prefer that over signing up for several different services, and having to keep track of different bills. Problem I see is that a lot of the programming they'd want to offer is for channels owned by companies that have made huge investments in sports (Disney, FOX, Time Warner, Comcast). They may not want to offer any of their channels....especially Comcast who is also a distributor, and I would think they'd offer their own OTT service before licensing them to DISH under those circumstances. I do think DISH has something up their sleeve though (besides just SlingTV). With all the wireless spectrum they own, they have lots of possibilities and make an attractive partner for someone already in that business.



#40 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 20 August 2015 - 02:55 PM

LA Times: Disney and Time Warner shares slide on TV business concerns






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