Monday, November 28, 2016

Next Up...DirectTV NOW!

Why do I need my traditional cable service anymore if DirecTV Now gives me what I want (with the exception of CBS) with no cable box?  AT&T says it is going after 20M non-Pay TV households (the cord-nevers), but won’t this appeal to Pay TV households (like me) who may finally consider cutting the cord?  The Verge


The problem is that a part of me (a large part of me) feels like this is a bait-and-switch.  I can feel like I’m getting the same or more of what I want for less, but the day will come when I will be back to where I am now…paying a lot of money for too many programming options.  So, I do nothing (for now).  Exactly what AT&T wants me to do! 

Friday, November 11, 2016

What do we know or suspect a Trump presidency will mean for broadband?

Net Neutrality, solidified by the 2015 classification of wireline and mobile ISPs as utilities, will certainly be weakened, if not overturned.

Money is going to infrastructure and so we can assume (maybe) that some of that will go to broadband infrastructure to ensure (at some point) that 100% of the US population will have high speed broadband access (wireline or mobile).  The urban/rural divide is huge and Trump has to reward those rural voters who supported him in 2016.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Back together again?

According to news reports over the past few days, CBS is considering re-merging with Viacom after an eleven-year split.  Why?  In a media landscape that is increasingly becoming (or possibly becoming) more concentrated in both programming and distribution, this is a “have-to” move for the firms.  


In negotiating carriage agreements with distributors, a combined CBS/Viacom will have greater heft in those negotiations with its portfolio of television and film assets.  Will it be enough or is this phase one in an ultimately plan to do what Comcast did and AT&T is trying to do --- be a “player” in both content and distribution.  Time will tell!

Saturday, November 5, 2016

A Prisoner's Dilemma in PayTV

Last week, the DOJ announced that it filed a lawsuit against DirecTV for orchestrating and agreement among its MVPD competitors to not carry the Los Angeles Dodger’s channel distributed exclusively by Time Warner Cable (TWC).  In this one-period, simultaneous move game where each competitor (DirecTV, AT&T, Cox, and Charter) was “separately” negotiating a carriage agreement with TWC, the dominant strategy was to pay the high price (estimated at $4.90/month).  It was in their collective interest (“optimal”), however, to negotiate a lower price for the channel or to not carry the channel at all.


In a game of uncertainty, each firm would play its dominant strategy.  To get to the optimal outcome, information on what competitors were up to and assurance to “stick with the plan” was needed.  Allegedly, DirecTV filled that void.