TruTV is trash 24/7.
A lot of your statements have been false/wrong.
Affiliate deals are negotiated for 3-5 year terms with annual contracted escalators pacing inflation. They are not negotiated multiple times a year. Ergen had already agreed to new agreements with other networks on similar terms that TWX is asking for.
In my view, he's just being a dick right now and will cough up the 10% increase in affiliate fees for TWX networks.
TV production costs are not going down. Original programming is still very very expensive. On average probably $2mm per episode for original scripted shows. Unless you are Scripps and Discovery and Viacom with the shitty programming.
Sports rights have also gone up significantly. NBA rights to the 2024/2025 season basically doubled in price for year 1 of the deal and then would have annual escalators (3-5% is my guess)
What I said is that, unlike 20 years ago, scripted programming is only a tiny fraction of total programming. It has been largely displaced by reality television with dramatically lower production costs. Meanwhile, per-subscriber retransmission fees have steadily increased. This scenario is completely different from television during the heyday of Seinfeld and dozens of great shows that were almost entirely ad-supported. Now, the national affiliate networks claim it's impossible to keep producing content without the revenue from retransmission consent. They've made this claim to government regulators when arguing in favor of continuing RTC policies.
RTC is ass-backward. Broadcast networks are charging TV service providers, but TV providers help them distribute their signal to reach more people (the same signal they're already transmitting for free over-the-air). More viewers are reached, so ratings increase and ads produce greater revenue. Who should be paying who?
Also, the raising rates of retransmission consent have far out-paced inflation. I believe I read somewhere that it has out-paced inflation by as much as 20x in some cases.
Separate from the network-affiliate local broadcast stations and retransmission consent fees, back to the topic of cable network media conglomerates...
I don't watch any sports and would be just fine without ESPN and other sports networks. Guess what? Disney owns ESPN / ABC and a whole bunch of other networks that they use as part of their price extortion. A carrier doesn't want to put ESPN on their Expanded Basic tier, so Disney flips out and raises the rates on their other networks or refuses to allow them to carry certain networks at all. That's exactly the kind of thing that happens with these conglomerates. It's standard procedure.
Terms on negotiated agreements vary. I don't know how you can generalize like that.
I mean retrans is growing quickly because it started at a low base. Right now at best it's 1.25-1.35 per sub per month. It's just the environment. Consumers want those channels, you as a distributor either go dark and suffer the wrath or pay up on the retrans. Also on retrans, local broadcasters have to pay reverse comp to the big 4 networks because let's face it, local content isn't that good. Content is king here and content isn't cheap. I would argue that for certain sports rights, again referencing recent NBA deal, that programming cost growth out paces affiliates fee growth.
I think you are confused about what affiliate fees are vs retrans.
Affiliates fee are paid by MVPD to cable networks
MVPD: Comcast, DISH, DTV, Time Warner cable
Networks: Disney, Fox, NBC Universal, Discovery, Scripps etc
Retransmission: kind of like affiliates fees, but paid by MVPDs to local broadcasters
Local broadcasters: Gray, Sinclair, Gannett, Meredith, Nexstar, and big 4 owned and operated stations
Reverse comp: what local broadcasters pay to big 4 broadcast networks (ABC NBC FOX CBS)
terms vary but they are never negotiated multiple times a year, unless you are talking about something like what CBS did with NFL, in which case that would be once a year
for those who have dish network:
it's your own dumbass fault for going with dish network in the first place.
Wow... I can't imagine getting a TV package without CNN. They're still my "go to" network when something serious is going down.... mostly because I know that Fox News and MSNBC will bring in annoying talking head analysts to give the coverage a liberal or conservative spin.
Damn man, I miss him from dirty jobs and yes I can call it a man crush for him. :biggrin:
Can live without CNN. But losing Cartoon Network?
Shit just got serious.
If it's serious, why not just watch NBC, CBS, or ABC? They'll be covering it too.
Dish Network rocks. The Hopper is the best TV system available today, and they have great customer service. I've been with them for 8 years and can't recommend them enough....in MOST situations.
As with any satellite provider, you NEED line of sight to the SW horizon. If you have a lot of trees, buildings, mountains, etc the service may not be so good.
Dish Network rocks. The Hopper is the best TV system available today, and they have great customer service. I've been with them for 8 years and can't recommend them enough....in MOST situations.
As with any satellite provider, you NEED line of sight to the SW horizon. If you have a lot of trees, buildings, mountains, etc the service may not be so good.
CBS and ABC have 24/7 news channels?
the fees though, are fucking outrageous.
Really? I have all the channels and a receiver on 4 TV's. The Hopper allows me to automatically record every Primetime show automatically, plus record two other shows at the same time, and I can watch those recordings on anything- TV, my PC, my tablet, my phone...from any location with an Internet connection. It also has apps built in for things like Pandora in every room, bluetooth pairing so you can use your phone as a remote, and a ton of other cool stuff I haven't even started to play with yet.
All of this costs $112/month (no HBO or Showtime though).
Really? I have all the channels and a receiver on 4 TV's. The Hopper allows me to automatically record every Primetime show automatically, plus record two other shows at the same time, and I can watch those recordings on anything- TV, my PC, my tablet, my phone...from any location with an Internet connection. It also has apps built in for things like Pandora in every room, bluetooth pairing so you can use your phone as a remote, and a ton of other cool stuff I haven't even started to play with yet.
All of this costs $112/month (no HBO or Showtime though).