re: ESPN Now Offering Streaming For $20 A Month

THIS i can fap to

hmmm

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That's not going to happen, literally no chance at all

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Look at it another way. Comcast is already offering (at least in Nashville) 50MBPS speed WITH HBOGo for $50.

Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner, Cox etc. all have more purhcasing power than we do. It's inevitable that they put together an internet only solution that gives you ESPNs, HBO, Netflix.... only a matter of time. You won't cut them out of the equation. My hunch is they'll get it at a cheaper bulk rate and sell it to you for $18.99 a month.

The cable company actually saves money in this scenario because they don't have to invest a metric asston in buying new set top boxes and managing the inventory of returned out of date shitty technology set top boxes.

They'll have to recoup their investment in broadband somehow. It ain't cheap to lay all that cable.

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nor will Apple TV be included

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This seems silly

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of course they will, but the outrageous dollars they were offering will no longer be there; when more people decide cut the cord, there is less money to go around.

So the BIG will, in time, need to split less money among more programs (and that deserves a LOL)

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If it comes to that, then the B1G will not sell the rights and just offer the B1G Network a la carte just like ESPN is trying to do. And probably make more money that way then they are now.

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And probably make more money that way then they are now.

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wait, you really think ppl in DC, NJ, and NY are going to subscribe to the B1G network if they dont have too

Their profit margin will be higher on their own network.

Less subscribers, more money per subscriber = perhaps more total profit

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Damn. Seriously don't know if there's a reason to have cable now

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The future of the industry in my opinion is a la carte viewing via a streaming device (roku, appleTV, the google and amazon things) for a small fee paid direct to the networks that you like and want to watch.

A huge complaint of cable/satellite subscribers is that they have hundreds and hundreds of channels and there's still nothing interesting or new on.

Live sporting events is the outlier in piracy and the one thing that can't be leaked or reproduced. Games and fights garner huge captivated audiences and the industry has given more options and outlets but made it more difficult to watch what individuals want to watch.

Rather than paying for 200 channels of mostly garbage, people will increasingly opt to pay for only the networks/channels that interest them. The networks charge the cable companies and satellite companies per subscriber already. These fees range from free add ons bundled with other branded channels to nearly $4 per ESPN subscriber.

The middle men can be removed from the equation and the networks can actually charge more from the end user and then charge the advertisers more as the concentration of actual engaged users/more homogenous audiences make the advertising more valuable by being better targeted and more precise.

Selling ads on sheer numbers is a losing proposition in this age especially when you can't reliably provide demographic data that proves who's seeing what and how they're responding.

So the future will be instead of having 600 channels and paying $140 a month, we'll have 6-10 networks w/ a handful of channels each and we'll pay $60-80 a month for all of them in total.

then someone will come along and bring all of those in on a flat rate type of structure and we'll eventually pay under $50/month for the specific things we want to watch. Churn rate will be paramount and networks will offer great deals you can take advantage of and lower your costs down to $30-40 a month if you spend enough time playing the soon to be competing individual networks.

HBO is moving to a la carte as well.

You people need to stop cutting the cord to keep paying for me not having cable.

So the industry is going to move from a stable platform in cable to a non-stable platform in internet streaming?? I highly doubt that. Cable will just have to adapt to the market place when it sees fit, which would probably result in lower prices and more options.