Posts Tagged ‘cable tv’

Give The People What They Want

Tuesday, September 17th, 2013

Interesting piece in The Drum on how Netflix does their research…

Vice president of content acquisition for Netflix, Kelly Merryman, revealed this week that the company she works for routinely use piracy sites to determine what television shows the company will buy. By gauging the popularity of shows on sites like The Pirate Bay, the company is able to determine which shows are really popular and help assist in making licensing decisions.

That’s brilliant. And it seems to be working well. The article goes on to cite “BitTorrent traffic in Canada dropped 50% after Netflix started there three years ago.” Their market skews younger, and they’re far more likely to be “cord-cutters” and view their favorite video entertainment online. Pay TV’s base is eroding and they know it.

Surely it won’t be long before pay TV services — cable, satellite and fiber — finally get smart by offering real à la carte service and dispense with the increasingly-annoying table d’hôte way of doing business. Their customers don’t want 15 shopping channels or 12 faith-based networks. They want CNN, The Weather Channel, ESPN and The Food Network — and maybe some locals. Offering packages of 200 channels for a fixed price is getting old.

Watch this video edit (4:55 RT) of actor Kevin Spacey speaking at the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival last month. He concludes content should be served/offered any way the customer wants it — movie theater, TV screen, iPad, streamed, iPhone et. al.

Here’s the full video (46:01 RT). Either one will lead you agree with his conclusion.

UPDATE: this report from Ian King of Bloomberg really gets into the details…

…a generation of technology-savvy, budget-conscious consumers who are taking advantage of the availability of high-speed Internet connections and the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, lower-cost TVs and other gadgets that make it easy to consume downloadable shows in a snap.

The shift in viewing habits is putting pressure on cable, satellite and phone companies by pinching subscriber numbers, which may have a knock-on effect on revenue growth. The impact on the $80 billion pay-TV industry is already being felt, with 2013 on pace to be the first year ever that total U.S. pay-TV subscriptions will decline, falling to 100.8 million from 100.9 million last year, according to researcher IHS.

And while 3.2 million new U.S. households were set up in the last three years, the paid-TV industry only added 250,000 subscriptions in that same period, according to market-researcher SNL Kagan.

Rain Fade Rights

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

As a satellite TV customer, there are times when the weather messes with your reception. The interference from rain/snow between you and the spacecraft with cause an outage and you can’t do anything about (rain fade or attenuation). I get that.

Now let me tell you why I’m pissed off.

I switched to Dish Network from cable in 2004 and we had some outages, but the storms had to be pretty big to knock out the signal (we were looking at 110°/119° West). Then I went back to cable so I could get MSG-HD. The Voom channels start going away to make room for a bunch of useless HD channels. Forget that — I went for the DirecTV bundle with Verizon DSL.

Big mistake. We had an outage every time it rained or snowed. I’d call DirecTV a half-dozen times to complain, hoping to get either a credit or a technician to come out an peak the antenna. No chance, valued customer. Either I sign up for a “maintenance” contract for $60 annually, or pay $50 for the tech to come out. Forget that.

Went back to Dish Network and I haven’t had a problem since (now looking at 61.5° West). Ever since I cancelled DirecTV, I’d had 3 or 4 “retention specialists” call and probably a half-dozen “come back” letters. Where were you during my moment-of-truth? Forget that, too.

Who cares about rain fade credits? Maybe trial attorneys should read up on it, in light of the current flooding around Old Man River. Prompted by the Alabama Attorney General’s office, cable and satellite TV providers are offering replacement equipment and suspending billing because of the flooding, caused by storms. The satcom statements, via WSFA-TV

DISH Network provided the following statement about its response: “Taking care of our customers who have been impacted by any disaster, including tornadoes, is our top priority. DISH Network has a disaster policy in place and works with affected customers on a case-by-case basis to determine the best solution. We normally provide several no-cost options for victims to suspend their satellite service, including a pause of service, with no equipment fees.”

Ellen Filipiak, Sr. Vice President for Customer Service at DIRECTV, stated, “We join all service providers in Alabama in a sincere expression of sympathy for the people of Alabama who lost loved ones and homes in the terrible storms that hit the state last month. We are working with both our customers and employees in Alabama to help them rebuild as well as reconnect their TV services.  And to ease the burden and worry for our customers who were affected by the disaster, we have suspended accounts for those who were without power, offered free service calls and have waived equipment replacement costs and all other fees. More broadly we are also providing support to all victims of the storm through the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity.”  Consumers may contact DirecTV by calling 1-800-531-5000.

Think about that. Will other storms that cause widespread outages in a particular area also become subject to crediting customers for service interruptions? Makes sense to me.