Global mode over ? Lets see.....

Forums › Online streaming services › Global mode over ? Lets see.....

1 | ... | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | ... | 54

2798 posts

Uber Geek

#1277919 6-Apr-2015 17:38

Another interesting question is that if global mode is considered acceptable, bearing in mind it is circumventing legal contracts for distribution in New Zealand, is whether the current broadcasting model would then be sustainable if we are source more content, even stuff carried on the domestic networks, overseas... Is this likely to push our broadcasters out of business? Will this raise content prices significantly? Who knows, but I am concerned that it would lead to significantly increased prices across many content types, especially those not carried by Netflix or others... Bearing in mind the BBC doesn't actually like people overseas accessing their content as there not paying any form of license fee to watch it.

richms

28168 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1277920 6-Apr-2015 17:40

I really couldn't care if broadcasters go broke. Relic of the old way of doing things.

Richard rich.ms

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1277933 6-Apr-2015 18:28

mdf:
freitasm: I think the best summary of this outrageous move is by Jonathan Mosen (a.k.a. jmosen on Geekzone) on his blog:

"New Zealand's lack of accessibility a good reason to beat geo-blocking"

While looking at this from the accessibility side, the piece also gives good insight into the behind-the-scenes interests.

Great commentary.

Is the answer to completely get rid of geo-blocking though? In some cases, it works to our advantage. For example, Premier League Pass provides access to the EPL in New Zealand much cheaper than is available in overseas jurisdictions (e.g. the UK). Looking at it one way, you could say the the UK providers of EPL (BT Sport and Sky) are gouging UK customers, but the flipside you could say that NZ customers are getting it cheap. The price the market will bear is much higher in the UK than NZ. This is probably mostly due to demand (the UK audience more fervently supports football than NZ and is willing to pay more) but is also at least in part (I suspect) due to the higher average income in the UK.

Suppose the EPL decided that it would sell broadcasting rights directly worldwide with no geographic restrictions or middlemen (not even Netflix). You just signed up for an account direct where ever you are. I can almost guarantee that the pricing would be much more than we pay now. The pricing would likely be determined largely by what the UK market will bear, rather than the worldwide market. Without getting into the maths, there will likely be more money for the EPL in charging a higher rate to fewer customers, than a lower rate to more customers.

Not trying to be a devil's advocate or be a geoblocking advocate. Genuine questions.

There is another risk too, that not only might costs rise, but content might become totally unavailable.

Imagine Bt or Sky in the uk decided they didn't like the idea of little upstarts in NZ buying EPl rights and showing the games to uk fans who bought PlP, so they decide to 'tack on' the NZ rights when they next buy the uk rights. Uk rights are about 8bn NZD so adding in NZ rights which cost only 3m is pocket change. Then they decide to just hold those rights and do nothing with them.
The service in the uk requires a uk broadband or satellite subscription, so no go subscribing to that for kiwis, regardless of how well you spoof a DNS.
Suddenly not only can nzers no longer watch premier league anywhere at all, since plp no longer exists, and the only legal option requires a uk broadband subscription.

Regional restrictions can sometimes suck, but they can also sometimes work in our favour. Remains to be seen whether the balance is good or not.

Then there is another part. The NZRFU survive and get money by selling exclusive rights to the rugby to many different countries, NZ, Australia, uk, South Africa etc etc. if suddenly they could not sell exclusive rights, because sky etc will not pay a premium because people can just stream from another country, where the rights are cheaper, their revenue is going to plummet. (Or they will have to refuse to sell to the other countries) Which will impact the game at all levels.

In other words, it's not jus the broadcasters, but also the content creators too. Being unable to price discriminate globally puts their revenue in jeapordy. HBO spends millions creating game of thrones because it can sell exclusive regional rights in different regions. If those revenue sources dry up, then HBO can't make game of thrones anymore, or at least not to the same budget.

richms

28168 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1277948 6-Apr-2015 19:21

Or they can realize that the idea of exlusive rights is absurd and stop selling them.

Any other business it would be called anticompeditive to buy something with the express purpose of preventing your competition from doing so. But its tollerated in TV and sports broadcast? Seems insane.

If they just paid for the rights based on their customer base and then worked on providing good service then the customer would win. As it is, sky can provide crap because there is noone else to buy it from easily. If you could get your rubgy from them, or neon, or netflix, or quickflix then they would have to compete on quality, not just by being the only place that sells it. That would be fantastic.

Richard rich.ms

mdf

3512 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1277949 6-Apr-2015 19:24

I suspect, though I don't know, that there would be a difference between the content creator selling directly to the ultimate end consumer and the content creator selling to other media companies who in turn sell it to consumers.

So for example, HBO could sell directly to everyone who wanted to watch game of thrones for $X, which means the product costs break even at Y number of consumers and anything beyond that is profit. HBO is then taking on the downside risk of producing garbage that no-one wants to (pay to) watch, but the upside risk of a mega hit producing windfall profits.

On the other hand, HBO may sell to one or more media companies. While there may be some sort of profit sharing agreement, by and large it is the media companies the take the risk/reap the profits of popularity and therefore the subscriber base. HBO's interest is therefore in maximising the up front fee it gets from those media companies. Media companies are willing to pay more if they get exclusive rights so can charge what they want to consumers. Chop up the world into regions and repeat for each region.

Taken to the extreme, this can even happen within a jurisdiction - demonstrated by the EPL situation in the UK. Sky can't get exclusive rights to all the games as that would be "anti-competitive". So there are two companies (Sky and BT, previously Sky and Setanta), but they each have exclusive rights to some of the games. So consumers "have a choice" if they don't care which game they want to watch. But, realistically, fans support a particular team want to watch that team's games. And if you want to see all of them, you actually need to subscribe to both channels.

In some ways, the (pre-Premier League Pass and its ilk) NZ situation was preferable. One monopoly might hoover up everything, but if you were a subscriber to said monopoly you could at least guarantee it would have the things you wanted to watch on it.

I'm not sure where that leads me to in my views. Maybe hoping for the bypass of the media resellers, and content creators selling directly to consumers. I'd probably even be okay if content creators implemented some form of geographic pocket pricing (e.g. NZRU charged more for NZ rugby to NZ subscribers but less to overseas), though implementing that without some form of geoblocking would be problematic. Maybe additional due diligence on customers rather than some bogus address and a credit card, though that has its own problems.

Kind of a jumble of points there.

mdf

3512 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1277950 6-Apr-2015 19:25

As an addenda, I for one would be more than happy to pay the BBC money (even the amount of the licence fee) to access BBC content. But I am a Guardian reading pinko liberal.

StarBlazer

961 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1277986 6-Apr-2015 21:59

mdf: Taken to the extreme, this can even happen within a jurisdiction - demonstrated by the EPL situation in the UK. Sky can't get exclusive rights to all the games as that would be "anti-competitive". So there are two companies (Sky and BT, previously Sky and Setanta), but they each have exclusive rights to some of the games. So consumers "have a choice" if they don't care which game they want to watch. But, realistically, fans support a particular team want to watch that team's games. And if you want to see all of them, you actually need to subscribe to both channels.

The point is that if they removed exclusive rights, then both BT and Sky could buy the rights to all of the matches and then people could vote which service to choose based on the quality of the service they provided, not just for EPL, but whatever else they provided. If service A didn't support your device or implemented streaming poorly, then you could go to service B or even service C.

I've also said before that content makers could sell their content in tiers based on how soon the "broadcasters" want to show it. To me, netflix is a lower level tier,for most things, Sky potentially, a level 1. What needs to stop is the bidding wars in which vast sums of money in each country go to the national sport, leaving little money to be spent on either creating or buying other content. Let Sky become the home of sport. Instead of having to pay for all the sport channels, let consumers pick which sports they want to watch, if there are not enough subscribers for a sport to be broadcast, stream it.

I wonder how many TV shows are currently being held by the NZ broadcasters which they have no intention of showing, or have pulled them from the air early because of low numbers? I've seen threads where the DVD cannot go on sale in NZ because a broadcaster has the rights for broadcast first. Don't know if it's true of not, but based on the comments in the last few days it sounds plausible.

Procrastination eventually pays off.

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1277988 6-Apr-2015 22:05

StarBlazer:
mdf: Taken to the extreme, this can even happen within a jurisdiction - demonstrated by the EPL situation in the UK. Sky can't get exclusive rights to all the games as that would be "anti-competitive". So there are two companies (Sky and BT, previously Sky and Setanta), but they each have exclusive rights to some of the games. So consumers "have a choice" if they don't care which game they want to watch. But, realistically, fans support a particular team want to watch that team's games. And if you want to see all of them, you actually need to subscribe to both channels.

The point is that if they removed exclusive rights, then both BT and Sky could buy the rights to all of the matches and then people could vote which service to choose based on the quality of the service they provided, not just for EPL, but whatever else they provided. If service A didn't support your device or implemented streaming poorly, then you could go to service B or even service C.

I've also said before that content makers could sell their content in tiers based on how soon the "broadcasters" want to show it. To me, netflix is a lower level tier,for most things, Sky potentially, a level 1. What needs to stop is the bidding wars in which vast sums of money in each country go to the national sport, leaving little money to be spent on either creating or buying other content. Let Sky become the home of sport. Instead of having to pay for all the sport channels, let consumers pick which sports they want to watch, if there are not enough subscribers for a sport to be broadcast, stream it.

I wonder how many TV shows are currently being held by the NZ broadcasters which they have no intention of showing, or have pulled them from the air early because of low numbers? I've seen threads where the DVD cannot go on sale in NZ because a broadcaster has the rights for broadcast first. Don't know if it's true of not, but based on the comments in the last few days it sounds plausible.

what do you actually mean by 'removed exclusive rights'?

do you mean the government (the UK government?) would somehow require the EPL (or whoever owns content) to sell to anybody who wants to buy rights to content? How should they set the price? What if somebody wants to sell rights to only one party?

How would you stop, say, HBO, (based in America) from selling Game of Thrones to Sky on an exclusive basis? Better yet, how would you stop some other American studio from selling exclusive rights to Netflix (an Amsterdam based company - for tax reasons)?
Netflix love exclusive rights a hell of a lot

quote from Netflix annual report:

http://ir.netflix.com/faq.cfm

"

Why are you moving towards more exclusive content arrangements which must cost more?

We want to offer a differentiated service.

We are focused on becoming an expert programmer that provides a high-quality, curated offering and therefore have increasingly licensed content on an exclusive basis."

mdf

3512 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1277993 6-Apr-2015 22:17

StarBlazer:
The point is that if they removed exclusive rights, then both BT and Sky could buy the rights to all of the matches and then people could vote which service to choose based on the quality of the service they provided, not just for EPL, but whatever else they provided. If service A didn't support your device or implemented streaming poorly, then you could go to service B or even service C.

I agree, that would be real competition (from the consumer's perspective - as opposed to competition from EPL's perspective, which just encourages bidding wars). The problem would be that it would require some kind of government regulation/regulatory action to make it happen. EPL is always going to make more money from (multiple) exclusives than from competition.

It might be different if EPL sold direct to the public though.

StarBlazer

961 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1278002 6-Apr-2015 22:25

I was responding to MDF about the concern that it could fragment a sport like in the UK. If the EPL were to "offer" all of the matches to whoever wanted them for a suitable fee then there would not be any "exclusive" broadcast rights. I don't belive for a second that a foreign government or entity could or should influence that outcome. If 5 companies around the world offered the EPL and I was allowed to access any and all of them without geoblocking then I would subscribe and pay the one that fit my needs best, which may or may not be a domestic NZ based company.

If Sky and PLP both wanted to broadcast the matches, then there should be nothing contractually from stopping them.

Procrastination eventually pays off.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1278036 6-Apr-2015 22:44

StarBlazer: I was responding to MDF about the concern that it could fragment a sport like in the UK. If the EPL were to "offer" all of the matches to whoever wanted them for a suitable fee then there would not be any "exclusive" broadcast rights. I don't belive for a second that a foreign government or entity could or should influence that outcome. If 5 companies around the world offered the EPL and I was allowed to access any and all of them without geoblocking then I would subscribe and pay the one that fit my needs best, which may or may not be a domestic NZ based company.

If Sky and PLP both wanted to broadcast the matches, then there should be nothing contractually from stopping them.

But the point is that the epl *prefer* to sell stuff exclusively by region. They get more money that way. (If they didn't, then they wouldn't)

So how would you stop them selling exclusively to, say, Sky? And when plp comes calling they tell them to get lost.

Going back to other content, netflix has said two things
1) it wants to licence a lot more content on an exclusive basis
2) it wants to licence a lot more content on a global basis

So, assuming it does both of those then there is going to be a lot of content which will only be available on Netflix anywhere around the world. Removing geoblocking for 'competition' won't make a blind but of difference if the only provider globally who will have the content is netflix

And yes, Netflix is awesome at the moment, with 4k, a great ui etc, but if we can pause our circle jerk over netflix for a short moment and consider if it actually becomes a true global monopoly as it wants then it will start behaving just like every other monopoly (i.e. Greedy, increase prices etc) and you won't be able to use global mode to get other content because nobody else in the whole world will have it. And you also won't be able to introduce any special anti-competitive laws to stop them, because they don't even have an office in nz so are totally out of nz jurisdiction.

StarBlazer

961 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1278051 6-Apr-2015 22:58

I'm not saying *I* could, I'm saying that if content providers and broadcasters actually wanted to reduce piracy or geo-avoidance by offering a true global mode, that they could. The cynic in me suggests that they are happy with gouging the public and that nothing will change. Change always has to come from inside for it to be real and beneficial.

Procrastination eventually pays off.

ubergeeknz

3344 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Vocus

#1278136 7-Apr-2015 08:35

NonprayingMantis: And yes, Netflix is awesome at the moment, with 4k, a great ui etc, but if we can pause our circle jerk over netflix for a short moment and consider if it actually becomes a true global monopoly as it wants then it will start behaving just like every other monopoly (i.e. Greedy, increase prices etc) and you won't be able to use global mode to get other content because nobody else in the whole world will have it. And you also won't be able to introduce any special anti-competitive laws to stop them, because they don't even have an office in nz so are totally out of nz jurisdiction.

This is an extremely valid point. The problem is not "Sky" but "a Monopoly exists" - Monopolies (and even duopolies) are always, and without exception, abused to the detriment of the consumer.

Very hard to prevent this unless governments start regulating the industry (rather than the other way around)

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1278152 7-Apr-2015 09:01

ubergeeknz:
NonprayingMantis: And yes, Netflix is awesome at the moment, with 4k, a great ui etc, but if we can pause our circle jerk over netflix for a short moment and consider if it actually becomes a true global monopoly as it wants then it will start behaving just like every other monopoly (i.e. Greedy, increase prices etc) and you won't be able to use global mode to get other content because nobody else in the whole world will have it. And you also won't be able to introduce any special anti-competitive laws to stop them, because they don't even have an office in nz so are totally out of nz jurisdiction.

This is an extremely valid point. The problem is not "Sky" but "a Monopoly exists" - Monopolies (and even duopolies) are always, and without exception, abused to the detriment of the consumer.

Very hard to prevent this unless governments start regulating the industry (rather than the other way around)

Yep, and whilst it is possible to regulate NZ based companies like Sky, Spark etc, it is impossible to regulate global firms that deliver a digital only product, since there is literally no way to stop people using it. They can't even lobby the governments in the home countries to change the laws, since they could just relocate their office to wherever they want (NEtflix's 'official' head office is in Amsteram at the moment, for 'tax reasons')

(I guess if the government wanted to get really extreme, they could force ISPs to block Netflix and/or force NZ banks to refuse payments to Netflix - but that would pretty much make Nz = China, so it won't happen)

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1278153 7-Apr-2015 09:03

StarBlazer: I'm not saying *I* could, I'm saying that if content providers and broadcasters actually wanted to reduce piracy or geo-avoidance by offering a true global mode, that they could. The cynic in me suggests that they are happy with gouging the public and that nothing will change. Change always has to come from inside for it to be real and beneficial.

they make more money by selling exclusive regional rights, even if it means some people pirate.

So if it's a choice between making $400bn and having a bunch of people pirate your content, or making $300bn but having nobody pirate your content, they will pick the $400bn every time.

1 | ... | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | ... | 54