(11-14-2015 08:37 AM)Topkat Wrote: (11-13-2015 04:47 PM)MplsBison Wrote: (11-13-2015 03:13 PM)Topkat Wrote: (11-13-2015 02:38 PM)MplsBison Wrote: (11-13-2015 01:50 PM)Topkat Wrote: 1) I said they owned the ota affiliates in the largest US cities. Not Minn/St Paul.
2) We shall see. I don't see where anything you are saying will happen.
The Big 4 are already raking in the big subscriber fees.
The subscriber fees the Big 4 owned ota affiliates get is the same as non-owned ota affiliates. They broadcast the same shows prime time. Local news would outdraw a national broadcast of any show in the news hour time frame (that would be local programming early am as people get ready for work, 6pm and 11pm).
I believe the Big 4 already take around 50% of the subsciber fees that non-owned ota affiliates get. The problem becomes margin when you have to develop infrastructure if the Big 4 take over all the ota broadcasting.
Take 50% from the non-owned ota affiliates for shows you already put out... or try and get the other 50% and have to build out your infrastructure.
1) Irrelevant. The point has been verified, the national brands do own some of the stations around the country.
My counter-point still stands: it wouldn't be hard for those stations to be sold or, at least, spun off.
2) There's no reason to think a national brand owned station gets any different of a carriage fee than an affiliated station. What we don't know is: i) how station carriage fees compare to carriage fees for national cable channels (my guess is smaller, perhaps much smaller) and ii) how much of the fee that affiliated stations get must be then kicked up to the national company (it might be none ... the station might just pay a monthly fee for the national content).
3) In reading your last sentences, you clearly missed the point. Not only that, you went entirely in the other direction.
National brands don't need to build any infrastructure. They don't need to buy more stations.
All they have to do is deal directly with companies like Comcast, DirecTV, etc. Those companies will do all the distributing for them.
If anything, national companies will sell the stations they do own.
1. The business model is already in place. You are talking about losing the local connection to the community altogether. imo, Not gonna happen.
2. It's not hard to Google articles. Subscription fees are in-line, except for comparison to ESPN. The non-owned ota stations kick up on average just under 50% of their subscription fees.
3. Refer to 1.
Your argument is akin to your other statement that advertisers wouldn't buy time on tv for people who use rabbit ears to bring in odd channels, because they were low income... yet the same companies run the same ads (probably at a cheaper rate).
Business models change all the time. ESPN, HGTV, Comedy Central, etc. all do just fine without a "local connection to the community". National content doesn't need that.
And the stations wouldn't be going away. So communities wouldn't be losing their local newscasts, etc.
Link please for 50%.
Well, I think you would have to define "doing fine". Besides espn, those other two don't come close to making what the Big 4 make in monthly subscriber fees. I saw a 2012 article where SNL Kagan estimated Comedy Central earns 16 cents per sub/month.
No doubt that price has gone up since then, but relative to what the Big 4 pull in...
I'm not sure why you keep bringing up the "won't lose their local newscast" scenario. The issue is more (all) about the the built-in audience it gives the Big 4 for their prime-time shows.
This article is over a year old, but goes more in-depth:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cbs-pla...-224851614
The point, which is correct, is that national content does not need and I would argue does not have a "local connection to the community".
You keep trying to argue that local news as a lead in boosts ratings.
But ratings don't matter. That's the entire point. They only matter for advertising content. Not for carriage fees.
You can argue that the national content is getting 50% of the carriage fees that stations get (and again, we don't know the comparison of what those fees are relative to fees of other major, national cable channels), fine. By the way, thanks for the link. I appreciate that.
But my point still stands: why not just deal directly with those cable/sat/etc systems and get 100% of the fee?
It depends entirely if they make more money from a 50% carriage fee plus advertising from the larger ratings of OTA broadcasts, versus the money they'd make with 100% carriage fees plus advertising from the smaller ratings of only cable/sat/etc.
I claim: the carriage fees are much more lucrative than the advertising. I also claim that shows getting the huge OTA ratings now would still get similarly large ratings being only distributed over cable/sat/etc.
I think the national brands know this, too.
All you have to do is look at the Apple TV line up. (this is where I got the idea in the first place) You have "channels" (apps) for HBO, Showtime, ESPN, HGTV, etc. ... and now you have them for FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS. And on those "channels" you'll find just the national content.
So there's no reason it couldn't work the same for cable/sat/etc. packages.