Techdirt has pointed out yet another cable exec that just doesn't quite get it. Comcast's COO, Steve Burke, recently urged the TV industry to find ways to "get consumers to change" rather than figure out better methods to cater to demand. "'An entire generation is growing up, if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors, we're going to wake up and see cord cutting.' How many consumers, in any market, are focused on 'respecting' vendors' revenue streams? How, exactly, does he propose to effect this sea change? And why not just develop products that consumers will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change consumer behavior in such a fundamental way?"
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the arrogance of the tech community at slashdot it quite astounding.. what makes you think you can really do whatever he does at half the price... I am not saying that this guy is great shakes but being the COO of a multi-billion dollar company is not an easy job at all and takes very different skills from being a tech whiz. Have you carried any revenue targets ever in your life ? This post has been marked funny but it is time that slashdotters understand that running a business is tough.
Some of us have done what he does, for 5-10% of his price. Beyond a certain point in the size of a business your actual roll, responsibilities and work load no longer increase, you delegate. Since he doesn't actually assume more responsibility by working at a larger company, then yes, some of us are capable.
It may be different if he was somehow going to be held to a higher standard, but he isn't, its just the opposite actually. If he fails, he will get treated no differently than I would. Actually thats not true, he has a golden parachute and someone else would be more than happy to hire him elsewhere, ignoring his failure, because he 'knows people'.
Being the COO of a multi-billion dollar company is no different than being the COO from a multi-million dollar company, contrary to what you would expect.
Easier, even. With a multi-million-dollar company, it's small enough that if you screw up, you might bankrupt the company. That means that you have to be at least moderately familiar with what's going on in the company. With a multi-billion-dollar company, you have a dozen divisions that are each multi-million-dollar companies, each run by someone who has to think the same way.
Up a tier, however, the management of each division is left to the VP for the division. Half the time, the CEO doesn't even know what the company makes. It really doesn't matter at that level. They just have to know enough to understand what the VP means when they ask the VP why the division is losing money and when they expect to get back on track, or at least enough to know if they're getting a snow job from their underlings....
Tell you what, put me in charge of such a cable company at 10% of this clown's salary. I'll show you how it's done. The right fix for cable companies is to tear down about ten layers of management between the top brass and the people who know what's going on, spend money on building out data infrastructure further, and finding new services to offer that make your offerings more attractive. I have many ideas for new services that I'd roll out if I were running a cable company, any one of which would make a huge difference in users' lives and would significantly cut down on piracy by doing so. Of course, the notion of piracy when you have a cable signal coming in at a flat rate is absurd anyway, and always has been....
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 06, @03:39PM (#30009340)
The arrogance of the business community is far worse. How can anyone honestly believe someones skills could be worth 2.2 million per year? Are his skills really that rare? Or maybe it's because big business leadership is an exclusive club where friends reward friends with huge sums of money?
I assure you I could run a multi-billion dollar company at least as well as some CEOs have in the past few years (I could manage to put it into a steep decline, not a precipitous one), and I'd charge less.
Shakani, In china, there are 1,200 equally qualified people to the executive in question. With such a gross oversupply of talent, the only reason we are paying these bozo's extra is that the current shareholder laws have removed all shareholder power to do anything about it.
Likewise, with regard to the article, there is an *ENORMOUS* amount of entertainment. This presents two problems for the potential consumer.
a) Most of us are able to spend, maybe, $200 to $400 a month on entertainment. Filling an Ipod would take $10,000. Do the math. Consumers are not going to cripple their life to fill an ipod. They will find a way around that price point. Once they *lose* the songs on the ipod and are asked to lay down ANOTHER $10,000 for the same songs- they get really pissy. yet this is the primary goal of the entertainment industry- rental payments anytime you use any entertainment until "forever-- less one day".
b) On the flip side, the sheer amount of entertainment is exploding. I spent 3 hours the other night just watching homemade stuff for free on Youtube. And there were a couple hours spent watching Star Wreck. There are cable stations with real programs, there are multiple real programs, which I'll never see. I ruthlessly trade down to less expensive entertainment and, in many cases, simply wait 6 to 8 months and get the same entertainment for pennies legally. The price of entertainment is not supportable-- too many people want our entertainment dollar.
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 06, @02:20PM (#30008240)
And why not just develop products that consumers will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change consumer behavior in such a fundamental way?"
Because he feels the same way you do. You don't seem at all eager to adapt your behavior to the terms on which products are being marketed. You instead want to force the providers to change.
So, you don't want to change, you just want to do things your way and force others to change. The provider also doesn't want to change. They want to do things their way and force you to change.
Both parties want to give little and receive much. Consumers want to pay little and get lots of high quality content. Providers want to expend few resources in content provision and receive lots of money.
I'd say the two groups are more alike than different. One just has more members than the other.
Oh, consumers are willing to change all right. We are willing to stop consuming - legally or otherwise - expensive music and movies ridden with restrictions that do not work for our lifestyles. I saw like 2 movies in the theater in the two years after our first child was born and, now that the "prove that we still can" feeling is out of the way, were are not going again for at least another 3 years. Had they offered the movies on our home TV, we would have payed and watched. But we are not going to buy a new, enhanced DRM TV just to have a privilege of paying more money for the movies. Similarly, I bought a few DVDs for my daughter, but they show 15 minutes worth of unskippable, not age appropriate ads and then get stuck on the menu rather than automatically playing the content. I think I will just teach her to play with other toys or watch free cartoons from broadcast TV rather then going through the hassle of trying to burn a fixed copy with complicated tools or buying expensive hardware to stream H264. I can buy some nice bikes and dolls for the same money.
If producers are similarly ready to stop producing and go out of business, we are truly more a like and different. I can save my money for family trips to Hawaii and they can ask me "do you want fries with that". It's funny how people who are losing sales fail to consider the simplest explanation rather than assuming that the majority of society is composed of malicious criminals.
You should check out Transformers 2 on Blu-Ray. I was completely and utterly shocked to see the disk go straight to the movie when popped-in. No FBI warning, no previews, no commercials, no menu, just the movie, starting to play automatically. It was awesome. Now to get all future movies designed in this very way.
You should check out Transformers 2 on Blu-Ray. I was completely and utterly shocked to see the disk go straight to the movie when popped-in. No FBI warning, no previews, no commercials, no menu, just the movie, starting to play automatically. It was awesome.
The proper way for your Blu-Ray player to handle a Transformers 2 disc is to eject it immediately at high velocity, causing it to shatter on the opposite wall. That would have been much better than jumping straight to the movie.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but their marketing research probably found that anyone who wanted to watch Transformers 2 on Blu-Ray probably couldn't figure out the menus and would return the disk after 2 minutes without explosions before the movie started.
Yeah, that was a joke, and it was funny for everyone except you.
Like I am going to spend $200+ on a Blu Ray player for my 2 year old daughter's $240 TV with a built in DVD player, much less for each room where we might need an hour of diversion. Even then, who is to say that they will release "Dora the Explorer" on Blu Ray, for a reasonable price, and without ads for PG13 movies?
I just wish they made a few DVDs with 6 episodes each that automatically start and play in infinite loop as soon as inserted. I already have episodes from iTunes, but these would require an $220 Apple TV in every room and the damn thing loses network connection and thus triggers tamper tantrums every time microwave is started. Bottom line, someone hates making money and makes the simplest thing overwhelmingly complicated, annoying and expensive. The cartoons already play free on Nickelodeon. Just sell watermarked videos for $2/each and get done with it.
Yes you do. If you buy a plane ticket but don't like the flight do you not get to pay? Really people that try before you buy line is just silly. If you think you should get to try before you buy then ONLY use products that offer it. You do not have the right to force a content provider to do what you want by any other means than not consuming their content and then not paying for it. To use their content and not paying for it is piracy. Dude READ THE REVIEWS!
Perhaps you're forgetting the fundamental law of free markets: The customer is always right. If the bulk of customers want X and you offer Y, then don't be surprised when some other vendor comes along offering X and winds up with all the customers. As the vendor, you either offer what the customer wants, at the price they want it, or you go out of business.
Perhaps you're forgetting the fundamental law of free markets: The customer is always right.
That's not the fundamental law of free markets. That's the fundamental law of customer service.
The fundamental law of free markets is: there is no such thing as an ideal free market.
But that's semantics, the meat of your post is:
As the vendor, you either offer what the customer wants, at the price they want it, or you go out of business.
And the foundation of TFA is that it's possible to change what the customer wants. This is what marketing is all about.
The big 3 automakers were successful at this for a very long time. When they were no longer able to shape demand, then they failed because they were unprepared for what people actually wanted to buy. But it amazes me that they were so successful for so long.
Perhaps you're forgetting the fundamental law of free markets: The customer is always right. If the bulk of customers want X and you offer Y, then don't be surprised when some other vendor comes along offering X and winds up with all the customers. As the vendor, you either offer what the customer wants, at the price they want it, or you go out of business.
Unless you are a monopoly. Unless you get the laws changed in your favor. Unless you use strong arm tactics to buy out your competition or put them out of business. Unless you steal all your competition's employees. Unless your marketing is so strong the consumer cannot make an educated decision. Unless you undercut all other stores until you are the only one left. Etc. Etc.
I think you missed the memo. The new fundamental law of free markets is: If the bulk of customers want X and you offer Y, then you lobby the government to make X illegal and raise the price of Y. Then you complain to your bought and paid for government officials that Y is still not selling and you need more power to force consumers to buy Y and raise the penalties on purchasing, owning, or even thinking about X. After all, customers' refusal to buy Y clearly indicates that they are all buying X illegally and the only reason for a customer's existence is to funnel money into your pockets.
(The sad thing is, this could be modded as Funny or Insightful and either would be true.)
Because he feels the same way you do. You don't seem at all eager to adapt your behavior to the terms on which products are being marketed. You instead want to force the providers to change.
Yes, I do expect the providers to change.
I, and other customers have something Comcast needs: subscription revenue. In order to obtain that revenue Comcast must provide something of value to me. If Comcast wants me to change my behavior, it has to provide a compelling reason for the change. Comcast must provide some benefit to me to induce my change of behavior.
This exec shows no inclination of providing any benefit in return for any change of behavior, so why should I (and millions of other customers) change our behavior?
The context of his comments is online video. Comcast is worried that people will ditch cable for streaming tv/video. What he really wants is Comcast Cable on the web. Keeping the subscribers but moving eyeballs (and ad dollars) to the web.
>>>Keeping the subscribers but moving eyeballs to the [Cable subscribers] web.
Comcast, Cox, and Time-Warner are all working on this together. Their ultimate goal is to remove the free videos from scifi.com, abcfamily.com, tnt.com, and other cable websites to a central location that is locked behind a wall. No more free rides for us non-cable subscribers.
QUOTE: "TV Everywhere is an authentication system whereby certain premium content (TV shows, movies, etc.) are available online -- but only if you can prove that you have a subscription to a multiservice operator (e.g. cable, satellite, telco TV)..... Cable companies pay big chunks of money to cable networks (USA, MTV, FX) to carry their programming. Comcast and its ilk are none too happy when these networks then turn around and put said content on the Internet for free."
So basically slashdotters are correct to be suspicious of this guy's "change consumer habits" statement.
Hardy har, so funny. Or maybe instead they could make their money the way broadcast television has successfully done so for longer than most of us have been alive? Hint: advertising does actually work. Then just offer a subscription service to folks who don't want to see ads. Easy as pie. Shame the cable companies are too busy double dipping (subscription AND ads) to realize consumers hate it.
Advertising doesn't work for me. I use a DVR to skip all commercials all the time. Maybe product placement works a little. I know that for the next month I will laugh whenever I see a Cisco logo because of last nights 30 Rock. So I guess we can call that 'working'.
But advertising does work, period. Not all ads work. But in general, companies pay billions of dollars to advertise because it makes them billions more. If it didn't, advertising wouldn't be a multi-billion-dollar industry. Even people with DVRs are not fast forwarding through commercials as much as producers and advertisers feared. Now, there's no guarantee people are watching those commercials. My twelve year old daughter likes for me to mute the commercials and we take turns making up our own audio. It's usually a lot of "look at this car. isn't it a cool car. it costs more than you can afford. Look at it drive in ways you can't safely drive. it's an awesome car you can't have...and here's a cute girl...sell everything you own and buy our car."
I'm always at a loss for what to say when the Cialis commercials come on.
"I fail to see how the cable companies are double dipping but this seems to be a very common misconception around here."
Sigh. I'm old enough to remember when cable TV was first rolled out. There were NO commercials. It was touted as a subscription-based alternative to over-the-air, advertising-supported programming.
Didn't take too long for greed to take over. Now, the only non-commercial channels are the premium ones, like HBO, Showtime, etc. - and they're all busy advertising themselves between shows.
I see the same thing eventually happening to satellite radio. The siren-song of advertising dollars is just too strong to resist.
My favorite button on the remote control is 'mute'.
On one hand, yes, media companies (and indies, etc) should develop things that people are willing to pay for, instead of putting out remakes and rehashes on a regular basis (i.e. Fark's "In yet another sign that Hollywood has truly run out of new ideas...")
On the other hand, there's no real ethical or legal excuse for pirating something, simply because you don't like the price of it. If you don't like the quality of the offering at the price it is offered, then don't buy it. It's quite simple.
I now expect 4 dozen posts, making car analogies, expounding on the "false" argument of lost sales, and pointing out that I'm likely an astroturfing RIAA/MPAA shill.
"I now expect 4 dozen posts, making car analogies, expounding on the "false" argument of lost sales, and pointing out that I'm likely an astroturfing RIAA/MPAA shill.
Might I be the first to give a gigantic "Whoosh!" in Comcast's general direction. I cut that cord a few years ago and with the help of MythTV, Boxee, Hauppage, Turtle Beach, Netflix, and Xbox Live have never looked back for a second.
Absolutely. They missed the boat by 5-10 years. Had they started offering convenient digital services instead of stubbornly trying to protect their existing, entrenched businesses, they probably could have transitioned people into a new business model back when everybody was still used to paying through the nose for content. But no, that would require work, and vision, and why would you do that when you're making money hand over fist and the good times will never end?
So yeah, just another industry that failed to adapt to change when they had the opportunity. Well, you missed it buddy.
If nothing changes, producers will stop producing when they realize they'll never make back their $250 millon in production costs. The cable companies won't be able to keep subscribers if all they're showing are Gilligan's Island reruns. They'll be poorer and we'll be richer as a result. Is there still a problem?
...if all they're showing are Gilligan's Island reruns
I'm hoping for a Gilligan's Island "reboot". Something darker and edgy. Too bad Chris Farley is dead, he would have made an awesome, cocaine addicted Skipper. I would still download torrents of it instead of paying for cable, because I believe great art should be a labor of love, unsullied by commercial interests:-D
The sense of entitlement is sickening. No business has a right to make profit, and I certainly don't have to "recpect" their revenue stream. This generation grew up wanting certain things, the dinosaurs in the content industries refused to adapt and now people are used to getting music, movies, and games they want for free. There are now millions of people who will go their entire lives without purchasing much content, and they were created by the greed and incompetence of the RIAA/MPAA and friends.
Entitlement goes both ways. The entire generation you speak of feels entitled to enjoy free content because its *distribution cost* and *replication cost* is $0. The creation cost for the content has always been, and will always be, non-zero, but it was always amortized into the distribution cost. Distribution via broadcasting always brought in advertising revenue, which covered all the costs. Distribution via BitTorrent brings in $0 in revenue and covers no costs. [1]
This generation grew up wanting certain things, the dinosaurs in the content industries refused to adapt and now people are used to getting music, movies, and games they want for free.
I disagree. There is iTunes/Amazon for music, Hulu for TV (*even* if they go to a subscription model), Netflix on demand for movies. I would say lots of good content is now available on-demand, via the Internet, pretty easy to get to. The business models weren't going to change in the one year that Napster came out. It's taken 10 years. But it has happened. The only thing that hasn't happened is content creators giving away stuff for $0, and if these creators are going to stay in business, I don't see how that's ever going to happen.
Look, everyone here can make up plenty of reasons for why they deserve free content, but in a capitalist economy I have yet to hear a single good one. "Live performance" isn't good enough. Many TV shows that I enjoy can't be live. Software developers should *not* have to go on speaking tours to make money, like that ridiculous study out of Harvard said they should. I do not want to go to a book reading.
[1] As an aside, I fully support the notion that *distributors* should get much less of the money. They are just a pipe, a utility for the content creators to sell their content. No one on Slashdot ever wants to make the distinction between distributors, who are invariably big media conglomerates that are easy to hate, and content creators, who might be a team of talented writers and actors and filmmakers that actually produce enjoyable stuff.
... I say maybe I'll start to worry about what is fair to you a little bit when you start to worry about the level of service given to ME.
The corporations of the U.S. are not monarchy (yet) so it's not our job to make sure you live high on the hog. Maybe if you treated me like a customer I would feel some loyalty.
I was all ready to pop out a funny, pithy comment like "Cable Consumer Suggests Changing Cable Exec", but decided to RTFA (yeah, stupid me, here, let me turn in my geek card...), when I realized that it's just a bunch of manufactured hype. The Techdirt article that the Slashdot article is based on is based on is a piece of crap. Here's a link to the original article [broadcastingcable.com] rather than the Techdirt regurgitation.
I get the feeling this guy is being quoted somewhat out of context. Techdirt goes on a rant about how the cable companies need to develop new business models, not just beat up consumers. From a quick glance at the www.broadcastingcable.com article, it appears that he's saying that if cable doesn't evolve their business models, they'll bet run over by internet-based content providers. The original article discussed targeted ad content and better-than-Nielsen viewing measurement as future directions cable could move in to improve their business model. So, yeah, the Techdirt guy has his head up his ass.
Now, with that being said, I'm sure that whatever "new" business models the cable companies dream up will largely consist of overcharging consumers, providing crappy service, and extending DRM tentacles into everything they touch, and hence won't really be seen as a win here on Slashdot, and certainly won't be all that different from their current customer abuse.
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 06, @02:34PM (#30008434)
Congratulations on ruining everyone's Friday with your facts and information. Everyone would have been better off left alone in their 2-minute hate session.
I would have modded the story a troll, if possible. There are two ways of looking at things that are not contradictory. Changing business plans and changing consumer behavior. While he is proposing to change consumer behavior, obviously the only way he has to do that is through their product line up ( ie changing his business model). Like the whole super sizing of popcorn at movie theaters. its 4.59 for small (8 oz), 4.75 for a medium (12 oz), or 4.80 for a large(24 oz). The product is set up to sell a large volume of popcorn. If he made all sizes an equal price per oz, then that would likely change consumer behavior towards buying smaller sizes of popcorn. In fact the current model was designed to get people to buy popcorn at a high price, but think of it as a value. Tricky, huh.
So the business model will most definitely change, but most likely not in a way that will make any of us ( with brains ) happy. Then agian, I don't watch tv much. Already pulled that plug a while ago.
Comcast's COO should be focused on giving people what they want at a price that will make money for Comcast.
And for all we know, this is exactly how he intends to go about getting those behavioral changes he is advocating. Though, I suspect he'd advocate instilling some sense of value in these customers first.
If people want downloadable media and the existing corporations refuse to provide it legitimately, it is clear that people will simply take it illegitimately.
That is clear, you're correct. What is unclear is whether there is a middle ground. It is entirely possible that even with penny DVD's people will still take it illegitimately. It doesn't take a huge imagination to see where that would wind up leading.
If instead the large content providers had simply created distribution mechanisms where digital media could be obtained easily at a reasonable price with reasonable usage terms then people would have had much less incentive to search out pirated media.
Again, absolutely true. There would be less incentive. Whether 1% or 100% less, is unclear.
I for one don't find fault in the content providers for having their own point of view, even when it doesn't match my own.
I lived in a house for a year with six other 18-25 year olds.
We had no TV.
Well, we did have a TV, but you couldn't watch TV on it. It was rigged up to a PS3, Xbox, Wii, and when neccessary, laptops. We played games, watched downloaded films and TV shows, the odd youtube video, in fact on occasion and actual webpage. We'd get a hanking for a show, say Heroes, we'd download the whole thing in one slurp at watch it all. Come Halloween, it was Friday 13th marathon(Do not watch 4). The TV was not even rigged up to terrestrial channels. If I'd been so inclined, I would have set up a central server we could have all thrown our movies, etc onto. Bit of a missed opportunity now that I think of it.
I can actually remember sitting down to watch TV for a fews hours, or waiting for a good show to come on that evening, and I swear its like I'm remembering a past life. The idea to me now, of sitting down to watch TV for more than a half hour, sitting through all those ads, actually making my leisure time fit someones else schedule; this idea is by now a completely foreign notion. I cannot imagine doing it anymore, and I don't.
It's going to be very difficult to explain to the generation currently growing up exactly how we managed to waste so much time in front of the TV. If they see what we had to put up with, they're just never going to believe it. When the time comes, and they are asked to stump up $50 a month for such garbage, they are literally going to laugh in the face of the likes of Comcast. The notion of TV itself will be absurd to them, let alone paying for it. It will be as absurd to them as those old 1950's informational shorts are to us now.
This business model has perhaps, 20 years before the bottom falls out, and this article shows that the know it.
dinero (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was making 2.2 million dollars a year salary [forbes.com] I would probably say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear, too.
Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:5, Funny)
I hereby declare that I'm willing to do exactly this for half that price!
Any takers?
Hello?!
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Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:5, Funny)
the arrogance of the tech community at slashdot it quite astounding.. what makes you think you can really do whatever he does at half the price... I am not saying that this guy is great shakes but being the COO of a multi-billion dollar company is not an easy job at all and takes very different skills from being a tech whiz. Have you carried any revenue targets ever in your life ? This post has been marked funny but it is time that slashdotters understand that running a business is tough.
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Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:5, Informative)
Some of us have done what he does, for 5-10% of his price. Beyond a certain point in the size of a business your actual roll, responsibilities and work load no longer increase, you delegate. Since he doesn't actually assume more responsibility by working at a larger company, then yes, some of us are capable.
It may be different if he was somehow going to be held to a higher standard, but he isn't, its just the opposite actually. If he fails, he will get treated no differently than I would. Actually thats not true, he has a golden parachute and someone else would be more than happy to hire him elsewhere, ignoring his failure, because he 'knows people'.
Being the COO of a multi-billion dollar company is no different than being the COO from a multi-million dollar company, contrary to what you would expect.
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Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:5, Interesting)
Easier, even. With a multi-million-dollar company, it's small enough that if you screw up, you might bankrupt the company. That means that you have to be at least moderately familiar with what's going on in the company. With a multi-billion-dollar company, you have a dozen divisions that are each multi-million-dollar companies, each run by someone who has to think the same way.
Up a tier, however, the management of each division is left to the VP for the division. Half the time, the CEO doesn't even know what the company makes. It really doesn't matter at that level. They just have to know enough to understand what the VP means when they ask the VP why the division is losing money and when they expect to get back on track, or at least enough to know if they're getting a snow job from their underlings....
Tell you what, put me in charge of such a cable company at 10% of this clown's salary. I'll show you how it's done. The right fix for cable companies is to tear down about ten layers of management between the top brass and the people who know what's going on, spend money on building out data infrastructure further, and finding new services to offer that make your offerings more attractive. I have many ideas for new services that I'd roll out if I were running a cable company, any one of which would make a huge difference in users' lives and would significantly cut down on piracy by doing so. Of course, the notion of piracy when you have a cable signal coming in at a flat rate is absurd anyway, and always has been....
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Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:5, Funny)
I assure you I could run a multi-billion dollar company at least as well as some CEOs have in the past few years (I could manage to put it into a steep decline, not a precipitous one), and I'd charge less.
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Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:5, Interesting)
Shakani,
In china, there are 1,200 equally qualified people to the executive in question. With such a gross oversupply of talent, the only reason we are paying these bozo's extra is that the current shareholder laws have removed all shareholder power to do anything about it.
Likewise, with regard to the article, there is an *ENORMOUS* amount of entertainment. This presents two problems for the potential consumer.
a) Most of us are able to spend, maybe, $200 to $400 a month on entertainment. Filling an Ipod would take $10,000. Do the math. Consumers are not going to cripple their life to fill an ipod. They will find a way around that price point. Once they *lose* the songs on the ipod and are asked to lay down ANOTHER $10,000 for the same songs- they get really pissy. yet this is the primary goal of the entertainment industry- rental payments anytime you use any entertainment until "forever-- less one day".
b) On the flip side, the sheer amount of entertainment is exploding. I spent 3 hours the other night just watching homemade stuff for free on Youtube. And there were a couple hours spent watching Star Wreck. There are cable stations with real programs, there are multiple real programs, which I'll never see. I ruthlessly trade down to less expensive entertainment and, in many cases, simply wait 6 to 8 months and get the same entertainment for pennies legally. The price of entertainment is not supportable-- too many people want our entertainment dollar.
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Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast [wikipedia.org] (yeah, yeah, wiki, but it copy/pastes nicely)
Comcast fiscal data:
Revenue US$ 30.895 Billion (2007)
Operating income US$ 5.578 Billion (2007)
Net income US$ 2.587 Billion (2007)
Total assets US$ 113.417 Billion (2007)
Total equity US$ 41.340 Billion (2007)
I'd say Comcast is a textbook definition of a multi-billion dollar company.
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Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
And why not just develop products that consumers will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change consumer behavior in such a fundamental way?"
Because he feels the same way you do. You don't seem at all eager to adapt your behavior to the terms on which products are being marketed. You instead want to force the providers to change.
So, you don't want to change, you just want to do things your way and force others to change. The provider also doesn't want to change. They want to do things their way and force you to change.
Both parties want to give little and receive much. Consumers want to pay little and get lots of high quality content. Providers want to expend few resources in content provision and receive lots of money.
I'd say the two groups are more alike than different. One just has more members than the other.
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, consumers are willing to change all right. We are willing to stop consuming - legally or otherwise - expensive music and movies ridden with restrictions that do not work for our lifestyles. I saw like 2 movies in the theater in the two years after our first child was born and, now that the "prove that we still can" feeling is out of the way, were are not going again for at least another 3 years. Had they offered the movies on our home TV, we would have payed and watched. But we are not going to buy a new, enhanced DRM TV just to have a privilege of paying more money for the movies. Similarly, I bought a few DVDs for my daughter, but they show 15 minutes worth of unskippable, not age appropriate ads and then get stuck on the menu rather than automatically playing the content. I think I will just teach her to play with other toys or watch free cartoons from broadcast TV rather then going through the hassle of trying to burn a fixed copy with complicated tools or buying expensive hardware to stream H264. I can buy some nice bikes and dolls for the same money.
If producers are similarly ready to stop producing and go out of business, we are truly more a like and different. I can save my money for family trips to Hawaii and they can ask me "do you want fries with that". It's funny how people who are losing sales fail to consider the simplest explanation rather than assuming that the majority of society is composed of malicious criminals.
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Funny)
You should check out Transformers 2 on Blu-Ray. I was completely and utterly shocked to see the disk go straight to the movie when popped-in. No FBI warning, no previews, no commercials, no menu, just the movie, starting to play automatically. It was awesome.
The proper way for your Blu-Ray player to handle a Transformers 2 disc is to eject it immediately at high velocity, causing it to shatter on the opposite wall. That would have been much better than jumping straight to the movie.
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Funny)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but their marketing research probably found that anyone who wanted to watch Transformers 2 on Blu-Ray probably couldn't figure out the menus and would return the disk after 2 minutes without explosions before the movie started.
Yeah, that was a joke, and it was funny for everyone except you.
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Re:Perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
Like I am going to spend $200+ on a Blu Ray player for my 2 year old daughter's $240 TV with a built in DVD player, much less for each room where we might need an hour of diversion. Even then, who is to say that they will release "Dora the Explorer" on Blu Ray, for a reasonable price, and without ads for PG13 movies?
I just wish they made a few DVDs with 6 episodes each that automatically start and play in infinite loop as soon as inserted. I already have episodes from iTunes, but these would require an $220 Apple TV in every room and the damn thing loses network connection and thus triggers tamper tantrums every time microwave is started. Bottom line, someone hates making money and makes the simplest thing overwhelmingly complicated, annoying and expensive. The cartoons already play free on Nickelodeon. Just sell watermarked videos for $2/each and get done with it.
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes you do. If you buy a plane ticket but don't like the flight do you not get to pay? Really people that try before you buy line is just silly. If you think you should get to try before you buy then ONLY use products that offer it. You do not have the right to force a content provider to do what you want by any other means than not consuming their content and then not paying for it.
To use their content and not paying for it is piracy.
Dude READ THE REVIEWS!
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Re:Perspective (Score:4, Informative)
Slysoft's AnyDVD + CloneDVD makes it real easy to remove the "unskippable" BS from DVDs.
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Funny)
What low UID?
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not the fundamental law of free markets. That's the fundamental law of customer service.
The fundamental law of free markets is: there is no such thing as an ideal free market.
But that's semantics, the meat of your post is:
And the foundation of TFA is that it's possible to change what the customer wants. This is what marketing is all about.
The big 3 automakers were successful at this for a very long time. When they were no longer able to shape demand, then they failed because they were unprepared for what people actually wanted to buy. But it amazes me that they were so successful for so long.
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you're forgetting the fundamental law of free markets: The customer is always right. If the bulk of customers want X and you offer Y, then don't be surprised when some other vendor comes along offering X and winds up with all the customers. As the vendor, you either offer what the customer wants, at the price they want it, or you go out of business.
Unless you are a monopoly. Unless you get the laws changed in your favor. Unless you use strong arm tactics to buy out your competition or put them out of business. Unless you steal all your competition's employees. Unless your marketing is so strong the consumer cannot make an educated decision. Unless you undercut all other stores until you are the only one left. Etc. Etc.
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you missed the memo. The new fundamental law of free markets is: If the bulk of customers want X and you offer Y, then you lobby the government to make X illegal and raise the price of Y. Then you complain to your bought and paid for government officials that Y is still not selling and you need more power to force consumers to buy Y and raise the penalties on purchasing, owning, or even thinking about X. After all, customers' refusal to buy Y clearly indicates that they are all buying X illegally and the only reason for a customer's existence is to funnel money into your pockets.
(The sad thing is, this could be modded as Funny or Insightful and either would be true.)
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I do expect the providers to change.
I, and other customers have something Comcast needs: subscription revenue. In order to obtain that revenue Comcast must provide something of value to me. If Comcast wants me to change my behavior, it has to provide a compelling reason for the change. Comcast must provide some benefit to me to induce my change of behavior.
This exec shows no inclination of providing any benefit in return for any change of behavior, so why should I (and millions of other customers) change our behavior?
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
Did any of you click through to the original article being quoted?
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/366272-CTAM_Summit_2009_Comcast_s_Burke_Tells_TV_Biz_To_Help_Stop_Cord_Cutting.php [broadcastingcable.com]
The context of his comments is online video.
Comcast is worried that people will ditch cable for streaming tv/video.
What he really wants is Comcast Cable on the web.
Keeping the subscribers but moving eyeballs (and ad dollars) to the web.
They call it "TV Everywhere" [google.com] and there was apparently a press conference about it in June:
The top google result: http://newteevee.com/2009/06/23/what-you-need-to-know-about-tv-everywhere/ [newteevee.com]
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Re:Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
>>>Keeping the subscribers but moving eyeballs to the [Cable subscribers] web.
Comcast, Cox, and Time-Warner are all working on this together. Their ultimate goal is to remove the free videos from scifi.com, abcfamily.com, tnt.com, and other cable websites to a central location that is locked behind a wall. No more free rides for us non-cable subscribers.
QUOTE: "TV Everywhere is an authentication system whereby certain premium content (TV shows, movies, etc.) are available online -- but only if you can prove that you have a subscription to a multiservice operator (e.g. cable, satellite, telco TV)..... Cable companies pay big chunks of money to cable networks (USA, MTV, FX) to carry their programming. Comcast and its ilk are none too happy when these networks then turn around and put said content on the Internet for free."
So basically slashdotters are correct to be suspicious of this guy's "change consumer habits" statement.
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Just release TV shows for free (Score:5, Funny)
And make your money on touring.
Re:Just release TV shows for free (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardy har, so funny. Or maybe instead they could make their money the way broadcast television has successfully done so for longer than most of us have been alive? Hint: advertising does actually work. Then just offer a subscription service to folks who don't want to see ads. Easy as pie. Shame the cable companies are too busy double dipping (subscription AND ads) to realize consumers hate it.
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Re:Just release TV shows for free (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Just release TV shows for free (Score:5, Interesting)
But advertising does work, period. Not all ads work. But in general, companies pay billions of dollars to advertise because it makes them billions more. If it didn't, advertising wouldn't be a multi-billion-dollar industry. Even people with DVRs are not fast forwarding through commercials as much as producers and advertisers feared. Now, there's no guarantee people are watching those commercials. My twelve year old daughter likes for me to mute the commercials and we take turns making up our own audio. It's usually a lot of "look at this car. isn't it a cool car. it costs more than you can afford. Look at it drive in ways you can't safely drive. it's an awesome car you can't have...and here's a cute girl...sell everything you own and buy our car."
I'm always at a loss for what to say when the Cialis commercials come on.
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Re:Just release TV shows for free (Score:5, Insightful)
"I fail to see how the cable companies are double dipping but this seems to be a very common misconception around here."
Sigh. I'm old enough to remember when cable TV was first rolled out. There were NO commercials. It was touted as a subscription-based alternative to over-the-air, advertising-supported programming.
Didn't take too long for greed to take over. Now, the only non-commercial channels are the premium ones, like HBO, Showtime, etc. - and they're all busy advertising themselves between shows.
I see the same thing eventually happening to satellite radio. The siren-song of advertising dollars is just too strong to resist.
My favorite button on the remote control is 'mute'.
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It's both (Score:4, Insightful)
On one hand, yes, media companies (and indies, etc) should develop things that people are willing to pay for, instead of putting out remakes and rehashes on a regular basis (i.e. Fark's "In yet another sign that Hollywood has truly run out of new ideas...")
On the other hand, there's no real ethical or legal excuse for pirating something, simply because you don't like the price of it. If you don't like the quality of the offering at the price it is offered, then don't buy it. It's quite simple.
I now expect 4 dozen posts, making car analogies, expounding on the "false" argument of lost sales, and pointing out that I'm likely an astroturfing RIAA/MPAA shill.
Have fun!
Re:It's both (Score:4, Funny)
You're not an RIAA/MPAA shill, but after:
"I now expect 4 dozen posts, making car analogies, expounding on the "false" argument of lost sales, and pointing out that I'm likely an astroturfing RIAA/MPAA shill.
Have fun!"
you're definitely trolling. :)
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How stupid can he possibly be? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ask any IT professional what's the hardest thing to change?
User behavior.
Technology is supposed to make out lives easier, not the other way around.
Re:How stupid can he possibly be? (Score:5, Funny)
Ask any IT professional what's the hardest thing to change?
User behavior.
Well, in my experience, I've found that really depends on how hard you hit them.
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Might I be the first (Score:5, Interesting)
Might I be the first to give a gigantic "Whoosh!" in Comcast's general direction. I cut that cord a few years ago and with the help of MythTV, Boxee, Hauppage, Turtle Beach, Netflix, and Xbox Live have never looked back for a second.
Re:Might I be the first (Score:4, Insightful)
So yeah, just another industry that failed to adapt to change when they had the opportunity. Well, you missed it buddy.
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Re:Might I be the first (Score:5, Funny)
And the Internet connection required to make any of that less than worthless come from where exactly?
My neighbor's WEP-protected access point.
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Of course we'll see a shift (Score:4, Interesting)
If nothing changes, producers will stop producing when they realize they'll never make back their $250 millon in production costs. The cable companies won't be able to keep subscribers if all they're showing are Gilligan's Island reruns. They'll be poorer and we'll be richer as a result. Is there still a problem?
Re:Of course we'll see a shift (Score:5, Funny)
I'm hoping for a Gilligan's Island "reboot". Something darker and edgy. Too bad Chris Farley is dead, he would have made an awesome, cocaine addicted Skipper. I would still download torrents of it instead of paying for cable, because I believe great art should be a labor of love, unsullied by commercial interests :-D
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He's Right! (Score:4, Funny)
We should all change to meet his business goals. You all need to stop being so self centered.
Entitlement (Score:5, Insightful)
The sense of entitlement is sickening. No business has a right to make profit, and I certainly don't have to "recpect" their revenue stream. This generation grew up wanting certain things, the dinosaurs in the content industries refused to adapt and now people are used to getting music, movies, and games they want for free. There are now millions of people who will go their entire lives without purchasing much content, and they were created by the greed and incompetence of the RIAA/MPAA and friends.
Re:Entitlement (Score:5, Insightful)
Entitlement goes both ways. The entire generation you speak of feels entitled to enjoy free content because its *distribution cost* and *replication cost* is $0. The creation cost for the content has always been, and will always be, non-zero, but it was always amortized into the distribution cost. Distribution via broadcasting always brought in advertising revenue, which covered all the costs. Distribution via BitTorrent brings in $0 in revenue and covers no costs. [1]
This generation grew up wanting certain things, the dinosaurs in the content industries refused to adapt and now people are used to getting music, movies, and games they want for free.
I disagree. There is iTunes/Amazon for music, Hulu for TV (*even* if they go to a subscription model), Netflix on demand for movies. I would say lots of good content is now available on-demand, via the Internet, pretty easy to get to. The business models weren't going to change in the one year that Napster came out. It's taken 10 years. But it has happened. The only thing that hasn't happened is content creators giving away stuff for $0, and if these creators are going to stay in business, I don't see how that's ever going to happen.
Look, everyone here can make up plenty of reasons for why they deserve free content, but in a capitalist economy I have yet to hear a single good one. "Live performance" isn't good enough. Many TV shows that I enjoy can't be live. Software developers should *not* have to go on speaking tours to make money, like that ridiculous study out of Harvard said they should. I do not want to go to a book reading.
[1] As an aside, I fully support the notion that *distributors* should get much less of the money. They are just a pipe, a utility for the content creators to sell their content. No one on Slashdot ever wants to make the distinction between distributors, who are invariably big media conglomerates that are easy to hate, and content creators, who might be a team of talented writers and actors and filmmakers that actually produce enjoyable stuff.
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as a comcast customer... (Score:4, Insightful)
... I say maybe I'll start to worry about what is fair to you a little bit when you start to worry about the level of service given to ME.
The corporations of the U.S. are not monarchy (yet) so it's not our job to make sure you live high on the hog. Maybe if you treated me like a customer I would feel some loyalty.
Crap article, again. (Score:5, Informative)
I was all ready to pop out a funny, pithy comment like "Cable Consumer Suggests Changing Cable Exec", but decided to RTFA (yeah, stupid me, here, let me turn in my geek card ...), when I realized that it's just a bunch of manufactured hype. The Techdirt article that the Slashdot article is based on is based on is a piece of crap. Here's a link to the original article [broadcastingcable.com] rather than the Techdirt regurgitation.
I get the feeling this guy is being quoted somewhat out of context. Techdirt goes on a rant about how the cable companies need to develop new business models, not just beat up consumers. From a quick glance at the www.broadcastingcable.com article, it appears that he's saying that if cable doesn't evolve their business models, they'll bet run over by internet-based content providers. The original article discussed targeted ad content and better-than-Nielsen viewing measurement as future directions cable could move in to improve their business model. So, yeah, the Techdirt guy has his head up his ass.
Now, with that being said, I'm sure that whatever "new" business models the cable companies dream up will largely consist of overcharging consumers, providing crappy service, and extending DRM tentacles into everything they touch, and hence won't really be seen as a win here on Slashdot, and certainly won't be all that different from their current customer abuse.
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Re:Crap article, again. (Score:4, Funny)
Congratulations on ruining everyone's Friday with your facts and information. Everyone would have been better off left alone in their 2-minute hate session.
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Re:WE must change? (Score:5, Insightful)
There were many fine works when copyright didn't even exist; hell, if copyright existed, we wouldn't have had Shakespeare's.
We would have had Bacon's.
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Re:WE must change? (Score:5, Interesting)
So the business model will most definitely change, but most likely not in a way that will make any of us ( with brains ) happy. Then agian, I don't watch tv much. Already pulled that plug a while ago.
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Re:I'm no financial wizard, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Comcast's COO should be focused on giving people what they want at a price that will make money for Comcast.
And for all we know, this is exactly how he intends to go about getting those behavioral changes he is advocating. Though, I suspect he'd advocate instilling some sense of value in these customers first.
If people want downloadable media and the existing corporations refuse to provide it legitimately, it is clear that people will simply take it illegitimately.
That is clear, you're correct. What is unclear is whether there is a middle ground. It is entirely possible that even with penny DVD's people will still take it illegitimately. It doesn't take a huge imagination to see where that would wind up leading.
If instead the large content providers had simply created distribution mechanisms where digital media could be obtained easily at a reasonable price with reasonable usage terms then people would have had much less incentive to search out pirated media.
Again, absolutely true. There would be less incentive. Whether 1% or 100% less, is unclear.
I for one don't find fault in the content providers for having their own point of view, even when it doesn't match my own.
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Re:It's way too late for change (Score:5, Interesting)
I lived in a house for a year with six other 18-25 year olds.
We had no TV.
Well, we did have a TV, but you couldn't watch TV on it. It was rigged up to a PS3, Xbox, Wii, and when neccessary, laptops. We played games, watched downloaded films and TV shows, the odd youtube video, in fact on occasion and actual webpage. We'd get a hanking for a show, say Heroes, we'd download the whole thing in one slurp at watch it all. Come Halloween, it was Friday 13th marathon(Do not watch 4). The TV was not even rigged up to terrestrial channels. If I'd been so inclined, I would have set up a central server we could have all thrown our movies, etc onto. Bit of a missed opportunity now that I think of it.
I can actually remember sitting down to watch TV for a fews hours, or waiting for a good show to come on that evening, and I swear its like I'm remembering a past life. The idea to me now, of sitting down to watch TV for more than a half hour, sitting through all those ads, actually making my leisure time fit someones else schedule; this idea is by now a completely foreign notion. I cannot imagine doing it anymore, and I don't.
It's going to be very difficult to explain to the generation currently growing up exactly how we managed to waste so much time in front of the TV. If they see what we had to put up with, they're just never going to believe it. When the time comes, and they are asked to stump up $50 a month for such garbage, they are literally going to laugh in the face of the likes of Comcast. The notion of TV itself will be absurd to them, let alone paying for it. It will be as absurd to them as those old 1950's informational shorts are to us now.
This business model has perhaps, 20 years before the bottom falls out, and this article shows that the know it.
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