“Those requirements aim to ensure that the nation’s largest cable TV company, with nearly 23 million video subscribers in 39 states, cannot stifle the growth of the nascent Internet video business,” Tessler reports. “Although they apply only to Comcast and NBC, these conditions could serve as a model for other big entertainment companies in dealing with new online competitors. They also send a powerful message that the government believes these promising young rivals deserve an opportunity to take on established media companies.”
“That said, the rules make no promises. Internet companies may not be able to afford the full NBC Universal programming package as satellite TV and other rivals now do, said Thomas Eagan, an analyst with Collins Stewart. Even Netflix, with more than 20 million subscribers, would have trouble paying a tab that Eagan estimates at $1.5 billion a year,” Tessler reports. “This approach also shackles these new companies to traditional business models and inhibits innovation, added Philip Leigh, an analyst with research firm Inside Digital Media.”
Tessler reports, “Corie Wright, policy counsel for the public interest group Free Press, said she is disappointed that the government conditions do not attempt to break up a new online service being pioneered by Comcast and other subscription-television providers. This service, which Comcast calls Xfinity, puts popular cable shows on the Internet, but restricts access to subscribers. ‘The government may have effectively blessed a business model that forces consumers to pay for a cable subscription to watch video online,’ she said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We want à la carte choice at the individual episode level, not the network level. We most certainly do not want the current cable model of forced bundling (basic, tiers, and the rest of their assorted BS).
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