Fox challenges cord-cutters by sticking TV shows behind paywall | Hacker News Reader

Fox challenges cord-cutters by sticking TV shows behind paywall

arstechnica.com

27 pointsjoelhaus19 comments

Well, back to The Pirate Bay. Seriously, what did they expect? If the pirates are providing a superior product (generally better encoding) and more convenience, then the pirates will win. Fox at least had something to offer when they let you stream the shows the day after. That at least improved the convenience part, because you don't have to wait for the download. But an 8-day wait is just throwing money away.

The 8-day wait is for free streaming options, so it's not throwing money away. If you subscribe to Hulu+ you can still get shows the next day.

The free streaming options still get some money from ads. TPB doesn't. (Another reason TPB's product is better.)

TPB most certainly does "get some money" from ads. The website is plastered with them.

It may not inject ads into the content like an online service like Hulu, but they're certainly making money from advertisers.

Haha, I keep forgetting that because of AdBlock. Sometimes I visit on a friend's computer and I'm like "whoops, forgot about the nude girls on that page, sorry!"

My experience is usually more along the lines of "Jesus christ, how can you stand so much blinky bullshit assaulting your eyes all the time?"

And really, with the advent of programs that automatically search for and download .torrent files, you can actually end up with basically your own auto-updating home theater system.

I configure something like TED (Television Episode Downloader) or similar to watch for shows that I like, have my torrent client download them, and have them copied to the fileserver all automagically and for less money, higher quality, and less bullshit (adverts) than cable, satellite, or hulu.

At first glance, this seems strange. Fox is a broadcast network (ad supported) that one doesn't need to subscribe to in order to receive.

However, broadcast channels do make money through re-transmission rights that they sell to cable and satellite carriers. It might seem silly that your cable company is paying Fox for programming you can already get over the air, but the cable company also knows that their service won't be as attractive to you if the don't also carry your local channels without the need for an antenna. By confirming that you subscribe to Comcast, DISH Network, or something else, they know that they're receiving more revenue than just ads from you - they're also getting the re-transmission fees from your paid service.

There can also be the perception that if you're paying for TV, you're likely to watch it sometimes even if you use the internet TV for some of your TV watching. I'm guessing Hulu isn't getting advertisers to shell out as much money as traditional TV is right now. So, if you subscribe to cable or satellite, they might not be making a lot on what you're watching on Hulu, but at least they know you're more likely to be watching programming that they do get better money off of.

I'm definitely not defending the move and I don't subscribe to pay-TV myself, but I can understand why they'd make the move. Subscribers to pay-TV bring them revenues directly through the re-transmission fees and indirectly through a greater likelihood of watching non-internet programming with more ad slots that pay higher. If "cutting the cord" becomes the norm, it could mean lower margins and greater competition in programming for Fox and others. That's good for consumers, but I can see why Fox would try to stop that.

<i>However, broadcast channels do make money through re-transmission rights that they sell to cable and satellite carriers.</i>

Hmm, but I think it's the local stations that make money on retransmission fees, not the networks. Though this is complicated by the fact that local stations are in some markets (though by no means all of them) owned by the networks.

>>Fox's president of affiliate sales Mike Hopkins told the Wall Street Journal. "If this works, you're going to see a lot more content online."

And if this doesn't work, you're going to see a lot more content online. These companies just don't get it. It has less to do with money, and more to do with ease of viewing. If I want to watch Family Guy or Glee the day after it airs, I will google "family guy episodes online free" and find plenty of free options. Or I will go to torrent sites. Fox just lost me as a customer. I gladly watch the shows legally on Hulu when that's the easiest way.

> Those who enjoy Fox shows such as Family Guy, Glee, or The Simpsons will soon have to wait an extra eight days if they want to watch new episodes online

Oh, no, not a whole eight days! I'll literally be a full week behind the latest pop culture phenomenae!

I think that you're possibly trivialising the effect of people's friends saying "Did you see the latest Family Guy last night" and them having to say "no, it's not going to be on Hulu until next week". The bar to acquiring it via thepiratebay.org is so low that I can imagine the eight-day wait being enough to send some people there instead.

It's slightly more than a week, which means that if you miss an episode, you can't use Hulu to catch up before the next episode airs. It removes an entire (potentially large) use-case.

This makes no sense. All of Fox's shows are available DRM-free over the air, broadcast directly into your skull via the power of radio. And, they're usually uploaded to The Usual File Sharing Places Whose Names I Will Not Mention within hours of being broadcast.

So once again, they are trying to push people to piracy so they can blame the dirty old pirates when nobody buys their shitty pay-extra-money-to-watch-ad-encumbered-shows-on-our-website service. Then there will be another round of laws mandating that we implant anti-priacy chips into all of our children to protect them from pedophiles. The G.O.D.I.S.G.R.E.A.T. Act they'll call it.

Every time I read an article about Big Content I fantasize about being killed by an errant meteor. Why can't I pay $1 to download a DRM-and-ad-free episode of The Simpsons?

As of right now I am not willing to pay the monthly fee to get cable and the like, since it airs at a certain time of day and I'd need to get a DVR to then grab all the shows and whatnot I'd want.

If I could pay a monthly fee of around $20 to get all of the TV Shows I want to watch at any point in time (not even perpetuity but that would be nice) I would subscribe. Hulu+ comes close, but still doesn't have a lot of the back catalog I am interested in, or is hog tied by the content producers and can't make certain content available until 30 days after it has aired on TV (USA's show Suits for example).

I'd love to watch Game of Thrones from HBO, but the only way I can get access to HBO's online site is to have a monthly subscription through my cable provider... that makes my choice simple, TPB or don't watch them at all... either way HBO loses money.

I don't understand why the content industry doesn't see that if they help Hulu+ succeed that they too can start seeing more of the money from that. Instead of screwing over the "cord-cutters" cut out the middle-man (the cable company) and let me subscribe directly for a low monthly price.

This doesn't change how I currently do things but the move disappoint me. I want to watch things when they air and conveniently. It is inconvenient to pay $50 a month for cable + $10 for an HD box + $10 to watch it when I want to. It is convenient to pay $4 a month for a Usenet account and DL the latest episode in under 5 minutes and either stream it to my TV or play it off a USB or even just on my laptop.

I use my parent's HBO Go subscription which lets me stream their entire catalogue including new releases after it airs. HBO gets $15 a month from my parents for their subscription and I would gladly pay $15 a month for HBO-only On-Demand streaming.

If other companies followed suit, I would subscribe. I will pay $5 a month to subscribe to a show or $10 a month to subscribe to a channel. Yes, it can add up to be the same price as cable, but at least it's convenient and at least I'll have a choice of content.

Am I alone here?

I find this strange in that if you have someone watching online you can make sure they watch the ads. Isn't that what they want?

Cable/satellite providers pay the networks for the right to carry their channels. They could find this revenue stream thinning out if the cable/satellite companies can prove that less people are watching via cable/satellite (and they probably can since, by and large, the cable companies also provide Internet service).

You are right though, instead of being worried about the old revenue streams, they should find a way to maximize their profit from cord cutters, and maybe this is what they came up with...

Challenge accepted.

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