MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Friday, May 25th, 2012 - 4 Comments »
Be Sociable, Share!

Give It A Name: Media Shakeout Sidebar – DirecTV

One media company that has exploited customer inertia in the past is DirecTV, which has mastered the art of adding $5 here and $3 there to pad the monthly satellite bill. But their #1 product differentiator, an exclusive on NFL Sunday Ticket, allowing only them to sell already licensed and produced NFL games outside of individual markets from the two major NFL networks, has had some consumer-friendly shaking up in the last few months. They priced the Sunday package at an all-time high of $300 last season with an additional $50 for the ability to stream the games to your mobile devices. So for a 17-week NFL season – and remember, evening, Saturday, and playoff games are nationally televised and not included, and pre-season isn’t offered – that was $17.65 a week for the cheapest package.

Many, like myself, are satisfied with what is offered on local television, though I want to have access to all the games that “my” team plays. So what if they play on national television? What if I miss a week at home? What about their bye week? In my personal case, I ended watching about 9 of my team’s 16 games via Sunday Ticket last year. So for me, it was more like $33 a game. And then you start asking yourself, “I am watching a game that is televised for free in other markets. I am watching all those commercials. And the cost of going to a bar or restaurant with Sunday Ticket to watch the few games I watch at home now is probably, for the first time, cheaper than staying at home.

For me, this was the tipping point. I felt like the price was too high. I felt resentment that I was being asked to pay more to stream to my iPad (especially in light of a full season of MLB.TV costing just over $100, streaming to my TV and all devices.) And I waited to see if the price was being hiked up again.

A few months ago, I looked it up and DirecTV was offering the same $300 deal, but this year, with the streaming included.

And then, a few weeks ago, I saw my first add for a $200 Sunday Ticket package. I figured it might just be for newcomers (like DirecTV giving away NFL Sunday Ticket for free to new subscribers last year). But no, it’s for everyone. $200 is the base… a big reduction and much easier to rationalize. 12 bucks a week. Even if I only see 10 games on it, it’s $20 a game, which I would certainly do as a PPV just to watch my team play. And if you want the streaming and, cleverly, the Red Zone channel, it’s $100 more.

The scaling just got interesting.

The people who watch Red Zone obsessively and who probably stream the most are the people betting and the people playing “rotisseries.” They are invested on a higher level than the average fan. And so the privileges come with a price. And that makes sense. Meanwhile, DirecTV is making the NFL an even more attractive piece of bait, whether versus cable companies or Dish TV or even potential cord cutters. $8.50 a month off the household entertainment budget may not seem like a lot to some people, but it’s enough to add HBO or get Netflix or just to save.

Be Sociable, Share!

4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Give It A Name: Media Shakeout Sidebar – DirecTV”

  1. Jason B. says:
    May 25, 2012 at 9:34 am

    One idea I always thought would be huge for the consumer would be to combine the sports into 1 package. I wont pay for just the MLB ticket or NFL package (or both) as I do not care about all other teams. And it seems like a lot to buy a whole package just for 1 team. But I would pay for 1 package for say all of the Chicago teams. Or if you could mix and match: 49ers, Bulls, Astros, Kings. I am surprised no one has tried. Perhaps it is too complex with the rights and content and how the profits would be divided (I imagine the others would have trouble with the NFL as they are the 900 lb elephant).

    I wouldn’t pay $500 or something ridiclous, but $200 say for all non-nationally televised games would be nice deal.

  2. BoulderKid says:
    May 25, 2012 at 10:15 am

    I’ve thought of that too Jason. There are a lot of consumers without a lot of discretionary income; wayward college students, travel and shipping industry workers, etc.; who would seemingly pay $100-$200 a year to watch all of their hometown teams but would never pay the $500 plus it would take to get the NBA, NHL, MLB, and NFL packages.

  3. JS Partisan says:
    May 25, 2012 at 10:43 am

    David, RedZone makes the NFL Sunday Ticket absolutely pointless. It’s not about playing Fantasy as much as it’s the best way to watch Football. Scott Hanson is the best play-by-play and color analyst the NFL has, and he makes watching every Touchdown from every game, a joy to watch each and every week. Why anyone, would pay 200 dollars for the outdated Sunday Ticket in a world where Red Zone exist and it’s a better way to watch the NFL, is still rather perplexing.

  4. ManWithNoName says:
    May 25, 2012 at 3:55 pm

    JS, some people actually care about those plays outside the Red Zone.

The Hot Blog

Comments Most Recent Archives

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon