Following The Distribution Leaders
The future of distribution is an ongoing – and endless – discussion these days. Every now and again, I run into something that strikes me as a key that should be followed by others.
The revelations of the last few days started with baseball. While exploring Sony’s PS3 Playstation Store, I saw a mention MLB.TV, the service of Major League Baseball that offers iPhone and iPad apps that allow play-by-play access to every baseball game, along with radio play-by-play from the station of choice between the two teams playing.
Last season, MLB’s portable offering evolved, from the animated play-by-play and radio to experimentation with TV signals to a full offering of TV access for an annual fee. Watching games on an iPhone was a need novelty, but not worth $100 or so per year for me… especially when I could get the radio for the price of the app.
Moreover, I was paying about $130 a year for the full range of MLB games on my TV via DirecTV. Unlike the NFL, DirecTV doesn’t have an exclusive on this programming. But ifyou root for a team that is not playing where you live, it’s a great chance to see most of their games. (If your team is in your market, every game is on cable/satellite or broadcast TV for free.)
But with the arrival of the iPad, watching a game on demand, rather than listening to the radio or watching balls and strikes, etc, come up on a nicely animated screen, became a much better value. So I paid for MLB.TV… even though it felt a bit financially indulgent to now be paying almost $250 a year to watch The Yankees 50 or 60 times when it wasn’t on network air.
Circling back to the Playstation 3… not only did my MLB.TV subscription work through my PS3 for no additional money… but my fear that the wi-fi connection wouldn’t be as good as the satellite connection watching live baseball… eliminated by a few hours watching baseball.
I called DirecTV immediately, to try to figure out whether I could get out of my baseball package commitment. I couldn’t.
But consider 2011.
My $100 paid directly to MLB.TV and a $15 app purchase gets me video and everything else on my iPhone, my iPad, my computer, and my big HDTV. I will have everything I want, delivered in every format I could ask for (and I believe there are apps for other kinds of phones), and I will pay less than I paid for satellite alone this year, much less the cost of cross-platform delivery AND the DirecTV buy.
How does this work for DirecTV? Good question. What happens when the next contract comes up? Good question.
But Major League Baseball gave me an option I wanted. I was willing to pay way too much to have it. So I am all but guaranteed to accept the access at a lower price.
Plus, it’s a win for Sony hardware, though you can also use Roku and Boxee, and presumably, any tool that sends video signal from your computer to the TV.
And MLB protects their broadcast deals by blacking out Saturday network telecast periods as well as keeping all of the post-season on TV alone.
Thing is… they had a lot of inventory that was not being fully utilized… out of market games. And now, they are another revenue producer.
In the case of the NFL, DirecTV does have an exclusive for the national rebroadcast of live out-of-market games. And they chard $100 or so more than MLB for a lot less content. Demand is high. DirecTV started offering, a couple of years ago, online access to those games. And last year, added an iPhone app. I expect an iPad app by September.
I’m sure that the NFL is looking at the MLB for a tipping point, where separating those rights makes financial sense.
The NBA is waaaaaay behind both. A lame app or two. In fact, MLB even offers a minor league video package now. Brilliant. Niche, but brilliant.
Network television is complicated, because of the affiliates, but where in heck is, for instance, the MTV app that offers streaming content from MTVs around the globe, MTV live from air, repeats of every show, and all kinds of other goodies, including exclusives? Free app or $5 app. $48 a year subscription for all-access viewing. And they can still run the freakin’ ads… and charge more for them over time.
And why isn’t Hulu on iPad by now?
Moving on to movies, I adore the Netflix app on the iPad, computer, and via my PS3 … but no one is making any real money on it.
If Disney is so keen on pushing the envelope, where is the app that streams Alice in Wonderland day-and-date with the DVD or 28 days later in the Redbox or iTunes window (if they have one) – and all of this year’s content – as part of a $150 a year subscription that also allows you access to the library of Disney live-action classics that have gone a little stale, like Bedknobs and Broomsticks?
No one is going to pay excessive dollars to get any one movie – well, with perhaps a few exceptions – across platforms. But by creating a new market for quality content that is not producing revenue, like out-of-market baseball broadcasts, using newer content as bait, the price resistance changes dramatically.
BabyFirstTV is pushing their new channel as a premium on DirecTV. It launched at $10 month… is now down to $5 million… and will probably start selling quite well at $3 a month or as part of a different, small premium package. It’s a niche market, but one that is keenly interested. How many parents of kids 2 – 14 would resist buying seemingly endless Disney access for $15 month?
Anyway…
My trip to DirecTV about the MLB package got me stumbling into their website and a new “play any show in any room of your home” program that I have not heard about before. Great!
$100 for the equipment and $50 for installation, but when it’s done, all of our TVs will be connected to the internet, each DVR will feed the other, making our taping space 4x as big without attaching other hard drives, no need to tape the same show on more than one DVR anymore, etc.
Being wired makes DirecTV’s VOD system work for us. But more importantly, it opens other doors as well.
How can Fox make it easier and more profitable to them for me to see earlier seasons of 24, for instance? I can stream them on Netflix, virtually for free. But how is this great for FOX? And how much would I pay to have access to, say, 20 years of The Simpsons, on my TV, my iPad, my iPhone, my computer, or anywhere else we can think of it being?
Yes, the issue of DVD sale cannibalization is there. But you can feel the movement to multi-platform happening under our feet. First in gets the biggest rewards… no?
more later…
From what I understand the play-by-play feed to MLB.tv is from the home team. This means if you’re seeing a game from Yankee Stadium you will have to put up with The Voice of the Yankees (R), John Sterling — far and away the most unprofessional broadcaster on any platform.
Those Saturday blackouts are a pain in the ass. Fox will televise four games this Saturday, among them Yankees-Mets and Red Sox-Phillies. Are you a Red Sox fan in Connecticut? Are you a Phillies fan in northeastern Pennsylvania? You’ll be s#!t out of luck — the Fox stations in those areas will carry the Yankees game and you won’t be allowed to see your favorite team.
At least NFL Sunday Ticket gets its right. The online version is AFAIK available in Manhattan only.
I don’t have cable or satellite, and I’m 2400 miles from my favorite teams. MLB.tv is a perfect solution for me, and I can’t wait for other leagues to follow suit. Sports-wise, I think colleges are a huge untapped market- Implementation can’t be too expensive, and many smaller schools already run subscription, web-only radio and/or video live broadcasts (it’s the larger conferences who have the more binding and restrictive TV contracts). There’s no reason why they couldn’t release streaming apps for PS3, Roku, iPhone, iPad, etc.
I will gladly pay around $100 yearly for access to nearly all MLB games, and I would pay $100 more for access to Pac-10 football and basketball. If the studios could come up with a reasonably comprehensive subscription library, I’d probably pay $100+ yearly for that, too- consider that I’m paying $12 a month for Netflix now.
Nope, Chucky- w/ MLB Premium you can choose either the home or away broadcast. It’s great.
That ball is high…that ball is far…that ball is gone…see ya!!!
Baltimore Orioles still worst team in baseball at 13-27 (.325 baseball)…priceless
Dave, Directv, along with Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications has a minority ownership in the MLB cable channel. So I suspect that they get some money from MLB.TV. So at least some of the money they lose from people that do like you do and use MLB.TV instead of the MLB:EI package, they get some of the money back.
I just have MLB Audio right now, but I might go for this MLB.TV on my PS3 during a half-season deal or something if the Marlins are still performing reasonably well. I’m an insane multi-tasker, and streaming radio is so much easier to move around, pause, or turn off on my computer than streaming video. However, if I can stream from my PS3 to my TV, that opens up a few things, not to mention gives me the ability to sit back on my couch and watch. And I’m one of the two Marlins fans in the state of Nebraska, so no blackout worries here.
I can answer the MTV question:
music clearances.
more specifically international versions of domestic shows are often different with different music cues than shows shown domestically. Untangling the legal web of music clearances for just current shows would be a nightmare.
WB archives is streaming most of the archive, as well as allowing the burn on demand program. but their streaming prices are way too high and the catalog is not yet deep enough for a subscription service for me to bite. there’s too much to watch on TCM anyway.
I think cable is going to die, there’s been a channel bubble building for at least the last five years, and its going to pop sometime in the next five as the internet gets faster and consumers get savvier about using their computers networked with TVs as Dave explained above.
M.locke, I would agree with you about the cable bubble, if it were not for the fact that the internet is cable. All the net is at the moment are clips from cable shows. Cable has to keep on going because there’s no really money on the net and it also has to keep providing a lot of content for the net. What would people do without their streaming? What would they do?
Cable and it’s future aside, you might want to try Att Uverse one day David because it’s doing what you stated Directv is charging you an extra 150 bucks for, and it’s a better service. It really is. Nevertheless, Directv has the NFL season ticket. It will be alright.
by cable I meant subscription TV services encompassing cable satellite, uverse, fios etc.
the whole industry of having 750 content channels is going to implode.
and it’s going to implode because of online content delivery and subscriptions. People will be able to subscribe to broadcast channels, they might choose access to ESPN online which streams everything in HD over the internet, they’d also subscribe to the cartoon network bundle for the kids, Comedy Central for the teens, and Food Network for Mom. Add in the free broadcast channels, and its a sea change in the way people watch TV. Most people never watch more than about 10 channels, and if they get what they’ve wanted for the last thirty years of pay TV–and they’ve wanted the ability to choose and purchase only the channels they want–at a price less than the 50-60/month direct TV charges for the low tier of channels+HD then the whole payTV format is going to start to hemorrhage subscribers like the music industry hemorrhaged CD buyers. At probably the same pace. It won’t be an overnight change, but they will go through a slow process of death over the next ten years as the internet takes over and people become savvy about their tv, computer, and internet all working together. because there is the technological hurdle, this will not be a fast process, but it will happen.
I sure hope so. The whole “if you want this one channel, you have to buy these 500 channels of junk” model is one of the most obnoxious things ever. I don’t understand why business model ever worked.
I think the move by the cable providers will be to allow people who subscribe to their service to be able access channels via other delivery method but still included in their subscription costs. Hypothetically, I pay my $100/month for TW Cable, I would be able to log into a website via my laptop and watch Comedy Central, TNT & ESPN. There seems like there’d have to be some conclusion going on but according to some stuff Rupert’s been talking up, the companies are going to band together and not provide free content. At least, make people pay for the stuff they’re already paying for in their cable bundles.
I currently spend too much on cable. There’s a lot of crap I don’t watch. There are also tons of channels that look like they have some interesting shows on from time to time but my package doesn’t allow me access. It seems kinda ridiculous considering how much I’m already spending. Not even the movie channels, which I think my next move would be NetFlix so I can’t see myself subscribing to any of those any time soon.
I’ve ordered MLB and NHL packages before in the past. Yahoo will play a few hockey games that I’ll watch but really, I’d much rather stretch out on the sofa and watch a game. My chair is comfortable for typing and getting work done and casually surfing the web. It’s not ideal for watching a movie or even hr long tv shows or games. Usually I’ll keep a window open and flip back to it from time to time. I’d just as soon have my old Sony Trinitron on in my bedroom and look over my shoulder from time to time. When I have time to devote my full attention to viewing a game, I don’t want it to be on a computer screen.
I’m not at all connected when I’m outta pocket. No iPhone, no iPad. For the most part, I wouldn’t really have time to use them. When I’m out and about w/time to kill, I’ll look for a bar or something to watch part of a game. In those cases, just chilling in my car w/an iPad would suffice, sure, but those times aren’t frequent enough to warrent the cost. Plus, if I’m lucky enough to find a bar, there’s generally more than one game one that I can kinda catch at the same time. But again there’s a comfort factor. I’m not going to mistake a barstool for a Lay-z-boy, but I’d prefer the vibe of a decent sports bar or food joint w/game on. Maybe the MLB online subscription via iPad would pay for itself each month w/the amount I spend one time on beer and some nachos but my guess is I’d see more games w/the iPad than I otherwise would, I wouldn’t eliminate my trips to the bars.