If you watch the local Fox Network TV channels you may have seen some rather ominous warnings appearing during your favorite shows that seemed to indicate that you were about to lose that channel because of some kind of battle between the station and your cable provider. Ever wonder what was really going on? I can shed a little light on the subject plus point out that the problem isn’t going to go away any time soon.
At the bottom of the whole issue is what’s called retransmission fees and it’s a big deal in the cable/satellite/network business these days. Basically the argument is that the cable type folks are getting entire networks worth of content for very little money. The local stations and/or the networks feel like they put up all the cash, do all the work and the cable types are making big profits for very little investment. The cable types already pay a fee to use that content (the “retransmission fee”) and feel that the TV folks are trying to grab an unfair portion of their operating profits. Guess who is in the middle of that tug of war? That would be you the viewer.
A lot of the fee structures were set when many fewer folks were getting their TV entertainment via cable or satellite. The business model has changed and the fee structure probably has to change with it. We the viewers will get shouted at by both sides but in the end they’ll find a way to just charge us more and then they’ll move on.
The long range problem is actually for the small specialty cable networks. The ones with limited though dedicated viewers but which generate very little ad monies for the local cable/satellite companies. As their budgets get pinched they’ll have to make cuts somewhere. It seems inevitable that some of those smaller networks will get dropped or have their fees negotiated down. And bunches of them will simply go belly up. Instead you’ll just one more cookie cutter network owned by the big media companies.
Or maybe the little guys will just move over on to the world wide web and we’ll start the process all over again.
Call that the View From the Phlipside.
"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY. You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010
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