GregHowley.com

Out Of Touch Telecoms

November 7, 2011 - -

Telecoms like Comcast, Time-Warner, Verizon, and Cox are part of the 1%. They're rolling in the dough, and they've succeeded in collecting fees for infrastructure they never put in place, which still drives me nuts. I believe that internet service should be a public utility, since it's already a monopoly.

But I'm writing today because I've been thinking about television delivery. Cable providers are offering on-demand and DVRs because they realize that people today don't want to watch live television and be beholden to the broadcast network's time schedule. People want to be able to answer a phone call or go to the bathroom without missing their favorite singer on American Idol or another of Walter Bishop's antics. But when you talk about television providers, you're really talking about two groups: the telecom and the network.

Telecom providers, such as Comcast, make their money from subscription fees. So whether you're watching live, watching on-demand, recording the programming on a DVR, or streaming from Hulu Plus, you're paying their cable or internet subscription fee and they're getting their money. Heck - they're getting paid even if you download and watch a torrent, although they seem to vehemently oppose those distribution methods.

The network (NBC, Fox, Showtime) makes their money through advertising revenue. They place commercials. This means that if you DVR the show and skip the commercials, they're essentially not getting paid. The telecoms and networks work together closely, and so you've likely heard rumors of technology that would make it impossible to skip commercials, like when you watch a show on Hulu. I've been hearing about that for years too. Thankfully, it doesn't really seem feasable at present. Product placement seems a good approach, and it can be done unobtrusively, but when it's done as tactlessly as in a show like Chuck, it grates.

I have a suggestion. It's radical, but I really do think it's a good idea.

The networks should make their shows available via BitTorrent.

There are a few main reasons why people choose to get TV shows via torrent rather than over cable. The biggest two are convenience and cost. Why paid a hundred dollars per month for a thousand channels you never watch when streaming alternatives like Netflix and Hulu exist? Netflix provides shows commercial-free, and Hulu has far fewer commercials than broadcast TV. If Fox were to upload episode torrents of Terra Nova with commercials, I believe that they'd get a lot of downloaders. Of course some people would download those, edit out the commercials, and re-upload, but files like that are already available, so in the end that part of it would remain unchanged. the only difference would be a net increase in people watching Fox's commercials.

A network's primary concern with such a move would likely be the tacit condonation of such transmission methods. Their apparent current stance is that BitTorrent users are all criminals. But I'll bet that the telecoms wouldn't be too keen on such a move either, even though they're still the ones getting the money for the internet connections that deliver the content.