[kwlug-disc] OT: Broadcast TV in trouble?

[B.S.]

----- Original Message -----

> From: William Park <opengeometry at yahoo.ca>
> To: kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2015 12:58 PM
> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] OT: Broadcast TV in trouble?
> 
> Main problem with "Broadcast TV" is we have to adjust to their time
> table.  "Online" thing is a response to that, of course, with the help
> of enabling technologies and infrastructure.

Nah, issue existed long before online. It's why Beta, VHS, and PVRs became so pervasive.

Which has been the problem for advertisers - with appointment TV advertisers could match their target audience by the time in which they would be parked in front of the TV and the type of show they're watching. There's viable landing on the eyes of those they're looking to target, and 'clear' time frame cause / effect of expense to revenue.

Without such, advertisers aren't willing to pay as much as they were for those commercial slots, leaving the holders of those commercial slots to be filled with an unviable business model. Never mind the broadening of advertising mechanisms, leaving less $ for the fewer such mechanisms of the past.

> I really don't know why TV stations don't have online live feed or
> online reruns of what they broadcast.

Because they can't make money on it / put in advertisements advertisers are willing to pay for at the same amounts as comes in not online.

This is why news (and all media) staffing has universally decreased as it has - the revenue isn't coming in to keep staffing at past levels and at past salaries.

Paywalls have largely failed, yet only such over a sufficiently large population provides a sufficient revenue base. And given the necessary geographical range of such a population, local content falls by the wayside.

And why news content origination has shattered into many other organizations - and why so many such disappear for the business model not providing a living. e.g. Local independent contractors can't get enough to keep food in their mouths, with fewer and fewer local organizations willing to bid for their services. And if there aren't enough events around to cover at sufficiently high payment rates, the idea of starving artists seems to apply.


>  I mean, their revenue is ad.
> So, ad in the broadcast, ad in the online streaming, I don't have
> problem with it.  All their problems will be solved with that.

Not. Not enough people to matter will tolerate it. And not enough people will pay attention to that stream to fund the entire operation that way. Staff being too expensive.

Never mind, like hiking taxes on the rich, it's too easy / solutions are too pervasively attractive to nix such advertisements - further decreasing revenue realizations.

Has to do with price sensitivity, too. Cable bill is for cable services. TV content is 'free' paid for by advertisers. But how consumers really see it is $40 total - for the content. (Cable services being invisible / a wire they plug in, like electricity.) They balk at $40 for internet service then paying more on top of that for content.

And with content so expensive, CP (Canada Press) and AP will grow, while local content will diminish.

It is in essence a race to zero all around - until the new value / formula model that people are willing to subscribe at higher cost for, emerges from the ashes. The industry has been burning hotly for some time now ... until complete immolation, the current status quo will continue. == ongoing disruption and uncertainty for the foreseeable future. == until it's suddenly not.

Netflix / shomi is probably the future, with current and live content - but the revenue stream is so much smaller than the past, and Hollywood, like the record companies, is fighting tooth and nail to hold on to their extreme cost for diminishing value given margins. Just as the record companies tried, and failed.

Note that, despite Adele's nixing of streaming services in favour of the higher revenue mechanisms, very few are of stature to be able to execute such. And it remains to be seen how successful such proves out to be, and to what extent across the entire body of composers.

Broadcasters are middlemen, being squeezed out like the record companies. It becomes arguable that broadcasters are merely news content creators and presenters, and producers the same. You buy Survivor from the producer, not Global - Global gets taken out of the revenue stream, and Global ceases to exist in its current form, for lack of revenue.