Cable Exec Suggests Changing Consumer Behavior, Not Business Model 675
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?"
Rupert Murdoch eat your heart out (Score:1, Interesting)
I think Rupert has finally found his soul mate.
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.
Nothing new (Score:3, Interesting)
Changing customers' behavior is exactly what advertising and marketing are meant to accomplish. It's just usually aimed at getting people to buy your product. Here, instead of "Buy our $FOO now!" the message is "Don't download our $FOO!". I don't see why I should be angrier about this than about advertising in general.
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.
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?
It's way too late for change (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm raising my daughters completely away from the traditional media revenue stream. We don't go to movies, we rent them when they come to DVD. We don't watch broadcast TV at all. They will be the next generation of media consumers, and there is no way that they are going to change in order to provide profits to the media companies. I recall growing up watching a lot of TV. So far my daughters are not being exposed to that lifestyle. Maybe they will be the outliers, but if they are not media companies are in big trouble.
What about a mountaineering excuse? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Because...it was there.
Because chaning behvior is what they do. (Score:0, Interesting)
Watch video here..
http://informationliberation.com/?id=8339
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized." - Edward Bernays
Re:Might I be the first (Score:3, Interesting)
Segmented Marketing (Score:3, Interesting)
When you go to the supermarket to buy a particular product... Let's say KETCHUP... You'll usually find you have several different brands available to you. The more expensive name brands are usually placed right at eye level, whereas the least expensive store brands are usually on the bottom shelf, where you're only likely to notice them if you're really looking for a deal. This is called SEGMENTED MARKETING. The name brand is targeted to the people who have the high-stress, well-paying jobs and don't have the time or energy to try to find the best deals. But the best deals are still available for those who need them.
I'm yet to see cable companies and "content providers" doing anything equivalent. But they really ought to. The vast majority of people who spend time and energy on piracy are students and low-income people who couldn't buy the content legitimately. People who have active, stressful lives and who make enough money will frequently fork over the money for legitimate copies of the content they're interested in just because it's less of a hassle to do so.
What cable companies and content providers ought to be doing is trying to come up with that deal saving "store brand" version of their content. The content that could still appeal even to the starving college students and minimum wage slaves that they'd consider shelling out a few bucks on it here and there.
Re:How stupid can he possibly be? (Score:2, Interesting)
Respecting copyright and subscription revenue (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
Good luck (Score:2, Interesting)
I wish him good luck in trying to convince people with arguable morality to just look away from the cheaper solution.
Now, when he decides to target the rest of the people, it could be more profitable to change the message from:
"It's illegal to make any copy or to broadcast this media on your own."
into
"It's ok to record and repeat it to yourself, family and friends for no profit. If you plan to broadcast it to a larger audience, contact our Customer Service for ideas on how everyone can profit from that. We understand that we can't keep growing our profit by strangling our customers. With a little compromise, everyone will be happy."
My suggestions for the aforementioned ideas:
- If the broadcast will take place on a commerce, we only ask for a feeble 1% from the sales during the broadcast.
- If the broadcast will take place on a public area, tell us where and we'll bring the catering, to which the profit will be entirely to us or shared with the government responsible for the area.
- If you plan to distribute the media online, allow us to insert some ad service.
Re:It's both (Score:3, Interesting)
>Digital reproduction isn't killing babies
Agreed.
I like to think that for every act of piracy, I deprive some media suit a line of coke.
Completely clear conscience here, I can tell you. I almost feel it's my civic duty to do it.
Re:Perspective (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
This is a bit of a false dichotomy... another solution you overlooked is: 3rd party comes along with some better alternative than the existing provider.
This is what I did concerning my cable subscription, as of a few months ago. I don't have a problem with cable TV - I paid for it and enjoyed it, for years. It's just that the cost increases finally "broke the camels back" for me, and made me take a hard look at what I was consuming, what alternatives there were, all weighed against how necessary their product was (i.e. it is really just entertainment, not some utility like electricity or water/gas).
I found that most shows I watched, I actually watched via Netflix! Even for shows currently running. This is primarily because I hate coming into a series midway through - I always want to start at season 1 episode 1, and watch in order. Cable fails to deliver that. Netflix has several other advantages for me: convenient scheduling, access to premium channel shows, etc. All for lagging a few months behind what is currently on - a fine tradeoff for me.
I also looked into good old OTA reception with an antenna... and now for no monthly fee, I get most of the broadcast channels, for current viewing. But I watch about 2 shows a week there, all recorded on my DVR.
Lastly, for a few shows I just have to watch as soon as the episodes are out (don't want to wait until the season comes out on DVD), there is iTunes. I am willing to subscribe/buy a few shows this way. Actually right now, I am just doing it for one show.
So basically, cable at $80 a month - that's what the monthly charges and taxes are in my area, for the typical cable channels (no premium or further subscription ones) in HD. Versus Netflix at $20 a month, OTA with HD (when available) for free, plus iTunes at $30 to $40 a show for a very limited number (so far just one but I'm considering another). No comparison for me. I do miss a few cable channels (NatGeo, History, SciFi oops I mean SyFy) and am looking for workarounds. But what I am doing now is all legal, if I were willing to violate copyright and torrent a bit, the gap would dry up.
This is what I think cable is facing... challenges to their "all you can view" high priced packages that include a bunch of channels/options I don't care about and never watch. I know they hate to offer al a carte channel packages, but perhaps over time they'll warm up to it. It's the only way I'd go back, if I could cut the bill in half by getting fewer channels, the ones I really want.
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....
doth protest etc.etc. (Score:4, Interesting)
Your cable company will sell you a DVR, but it doesn't want you to have a copy of anything?
An entire generation of CEOs has grown up believing utter nonsense about the relative values of money and freedom.
Apparently, several trillion dollars in collapsed economy hasn't improved their common sense.
Too late (Score:3, Interesting)
I already cut the cord. And no downloading (legal or otherwise) was responsible. Why? I realized that every show I watched was on the broadcast channels. So why pay $50/month (up to $60 now) for the broadcast channels (available over the air), plus a load of cable channels with nothing I watched on them. There's some good shows on the premium channels, but those few I can get later on a (rented) DVD, at far lower cost.
Re:Perspective (Score:1, Interesting)
# apt-get install anydvd
E: Couldn't find package anydvd
Just another proprietary player only available to a fraction of the market that is actually able to get Blu-Rays. In other words, BluRay still isn't playable, so you need to download files from pirates instead of buying discs.
Re:Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with our society is everybody WANTS something, and they expect the government to provide it. Nobody stops and thinks, "Does our company (Disney, MGM, or whatever) really need to hang-onto copyright for another 50 years and earn another billion dollars from sales of Snow White?" The answer is virtually all cases is no. The answer is that you could think about your fellow man and donate your wealth (or movies) to the public (domain) instead of only thinking of yourself.
Re:Perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
I would say yes, if you watched the whole thing.
But if you quit watching after 10 minutes, then no.
Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:1, Interesting)
You are (kind of) correct. The BS you have to take on that level is amazing, from vendors, manufacturers and even from your peers. Unfortunately, today, most give up. Thinking only the next quarter, next bonus, whatever - not what is good for the company / corporate. It's just human behavior.
Now, yes, I agree with people who say you could do that half (or whatever) of that price, done that, done it for Cxxs and VPs and whoever! But doing it right is more work than most in IT are ready to work for. Once you work 18-20 hours a day over a year, it starts wearing you out. Trust me (or don't), it's not technology, knowing technology, etc is easy - it's working with people, business, all the levels, entertaining people, making policies / strategies, lucky if you have a good secretary who takes half the load, and so on.
But, the problem today, it's gone to blame game, finger pointing, certification / training (for dogs?), etc, once you are on that level you can't do anything wrong and the less you do, the less it can go wrong. I have had CEOs who looked the "root cause" and amazingly (or not) most of time the management, even Cxx level got fired much more often than the people working for them. Today - change the "slaves" seems to be the answer.
So, yes, it can be done in half the price (which is not much looking the whole company/corporate budget and returns) but that's the way today, has been before, will be in future, just sometimes we have "sane" periods - they come and go.
Re:Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, another unstated rule about paying and watching, you won't pay and watch anything older than 6 months. I'm not sure why 6 months makes a movie unviewable, but it's your rule.
I can not watch the movie when people are actually talking about ...
Ok, another rule is you won't watch anything that other people aren't currently talking about.
and there is rarely a motivation to proactively scan iTunes store or Comcast On-Demand months later on an off chance that it is available for rent at that exact time.
And another rule that says you won't watch anything that is "too hard" to find in the on-demand menu.
It seems that most of these rules are yours and not based on DRM or Comcast.
Each DVD sets you back $15.
You said that you would pay and watch on your home TV. Now you don't want to pay. Your rules get more restrictive by the minute. By the way, that $15 gets you unlimited viewing for as many people as you can pack into your living room. Compare that to $6 matinee or $9 or more evening shows at the movie theater, one viewing, per person.
Now that you ripped the DVD, just how do you make it accessible in every room of the house?
I don't need to because I'm seldom IN every room in the house at the same time. I didn't know that this was yet another rule you apply to what you will pay for and watch.
Wireless-enabled H264 players are not cheap...
I don't need wireless, and I can get a used PC from the local surplus for $100. Problem solved.
Even after all that, suppose I started Dora in the nursery to eat my dinner in peace. Now if I want to heat up some more food in microwave, Apple TV is going to promptly lose its wireless connection...
Wow. Layer after layer of rules about what you won't do. You don't need wireless to play a file you've ripped off a DVD, and I have no idea what "Apple TV" is or why you need it to watch that file. All so you can park the baby somewhere and ignore it for awhile.
On the other hand if I go with original DVD, I need to wait in the room for 15 minutes listening to protests about "Doda" not playing...
So now we're back at blaming the production house for the poor design of DVD players, and ignoring the fact that the computer you have in the room to play DVDs doesn't care about ads nor does it take 15 minutes to start playing. (Maybe a minute as it deals with deCSS on a disk it has never seen before, but not much longer.) And guess what? This "region" coding that people whine about -- completely ignored by the ripping software. FREE software.
I suspect that the only reason that babykins complains about "Doda" not playing is because Papakins is standing in the room complaining about how Doda isn't playing. If Papakins started the DVD and then said "let's read a book" and spent 15 minutes reading a book with Babykins, I bet Babykins wouldn't even notice the lack of DVD. I dunno, maybe you've miswired Babykins too badly at this point.
I suppose there are some ways to eventually hack around all this without spending hundreds of dollars just to be able to play cartoons which are free on broadcast TV.
The only good cartoons on broadcast TV are much older than 6 months. You can't watch them. Nobody with a vocabulary of more than 20 words talks about them, so they fail the "talk about" test, too. As for finding them to play "at that exact time", that's even harder than looking in the on-demand menu. Eight PM and there are few, if any, broadcast TV cartoons that are "age appropriate" for babies used to Dora.
I just can't imagine that the idiots are so resistant to making money.
I suspect that even were the "idiots" to do everything your way, you'd find some other rule that would prevent you from paying for their content. "It's letterbox and I want full screen"?
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.
Re: say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear (Score:1, Interesting)
But isn't knowing people the skill that he employs to get his job done? I doubt that anyone in a low level tech job has the type of "sway" with potential revenue streams for his company have. The reason why the CEO etc. get the money they do, well sometimes at least, is because business is all about getting someone else to pay for your product in some form. Whether those people are within a corporation or not doesn't matter, as long as the money is there. Business deals are made by connections, not by who offers the best product for the best price.
Re:Perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
They have been trying to alter our behavior for years
It's not like there is not much content worth pirating on cable anyway, at least on basic cable. They have already watered down the content of once popular and worthwhile channels such as MTV, VH1, Discovery, and the History Channel, so that you pretty much have to upgrade a tier to actually get music videos or real science and history programs instead of mostly reality programming. Don't even get me started about the commercials and self promotion spots that take up nearly half of the programming time. They have also pretty much perfected the art of tailoring programming on the cable channels to tie in with theatrical releases of the latest remake, sequel, or ripoff of the few good original ideas that are allowed to see the light of day. The other 80 percent of basic cable that isn't local broadcast usually fall into several mostly equally insipid categories:
1. Crime and punishment shows, such as Law and Order, CSI, and all of their spinoffs mixed in with a generous mix of Cops, Judge Judy clones, and the like. Nothing like seeing the best of America to lift one's spirits. Typical advertisers are security companies, lawyers, and dodgy debt relief companies
2. Get Rich in Real Estate: Flip this House, Designed to Sell, and similar other programs of this ilk. They are soo 2004, but they gotta fill the airtime somehow when they can't find a real Get Rich Quick huckster with a rented yacht and beachfront villa trying to sell his latest scam.
3. Turner, which takes old movies that have been around forever, and butchers them into an unrecognizable form. Typically they take a 2 hour movie, cut a half hour out of it, then add back in an hour of commercials.
4. Two bit Reality Programming which has taken over even once "respectable" channels.
The "Premium" channels are just as bad, but you have to pay extra for them. In the beginning, there was HBO, and it was good. It was like a second run movie theater with some smaller films and a few turkeys thrown in for good measure. Then HBO spun off Showtime and Cinemax, so you had to subscribe to all 3 to get pretty much the same variety of stuff that used to be available on HBO.
I probably spend 3 times as much time in front of the computer as I do the TV. Yes indeed, Comcast has changed my behavior.