re: BitTorrent Live - A potential ESPN killer?

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how, if none of you ware willing to pay for it

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I would pay for it, that is the thing.

I would have snapped up spotify 10 years ago. I wanted it and it annoyed the shite out of me it didn't exist. But now, I am pretty much hooked on pirating. And I know I am not alone in this.

ESPN, and HBO too, need to get out ahead of this or face the economic consequences.

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In the end I think for most people that would cost the same or more than just paying for cable, that's why I don't think stuff will go away anytime soon.

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I actually think it will be cheaper. Bundling is a scam, and almost always benefits the seller at the cost of the purchaser. I used to be a product manager, and we would bundle our products to drag the low selling ones and raise our ASP. Customers in general hated it. of course that was B2B but I think the economics hold.

they have an a la carte cable model in canada. I don't hear about that being a problem, and canadians have lower monthly bills.

You can buy streaming ESPN sports in europe. that obviously is not causing them major headaches, as they continue to support it. If you talk to europeans, they are always astonished at our cost for telco and entertrainment. They just don't get it.

I do, its a gov't mandated monopoly (or duopoly) in many instances. And monopolies always rape their customers.

I would love for them to crack this problem b.c its probably the #4 problem in my life. #1 is my boss is a fricking jackass and a half. #2 is all my friends are breeding and have very little free time to do stuff.

Of course that speaks to how awesome my life, more than anything else.

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ESPN, and HBO too, need to get out ahead of this or face the economic consequences.

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I get what you are saying, but my point is they may not be offering it to you because it is not economicaly viable for them.

Take HBO, most on here object to paying, whatever, $60-80 a month for cable and then another $15 or so for HBO. But how does HBO get to you? Internet? You have to pay for that, so is that cheaper in the end to pay for internet service and then $10-15 for HBO?

As far as their original programing, it take a lot up front to make those shows, it would be very risky to do that to just sell that show if people just pay for the show. something like GOT which has an audience from the books, but something like the Sopranos is different, they have to build an audience and broadcasting it like they do is probably the cheapest way to do that. Now you are right, tech will bring production costs down, so I'm not saying it can't happen, just that it has to before we get to the total a la carte world, not just a la carte channels but a la carte shows.

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I get what you are saying, but my point is they may not be offering it to you because it is not economicaly viable for them.

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well I think HBO and ESPN are slightly different use cases. I do agree with you to a certain extent.

I feel confident that HBO and ESPN have run the numbers, and have decided not to offer this. They have people whose job it is to figure this out, and chances are they know the economics better than I do.

At the same time, I would also bet there was a finance person at blockbuster saying late fees were their cash generator and not to lower them. But to get stricter. What they failed to see is how the market was going to change. And blockbuster was crushed b.c everyone hated them, and were eager for a new service. While ESPN will unlikely face the same fate, if they don't get out ahead of these things....they will see their revenues eroded over time, especially as people seek alternatives. This is just my opinion tho, and who knows what actually happens.

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As far as their original programing, it take a lot up front to make those shows, it would be very risky to do that to just sell that show if people just pay for the show. something like GOT which has an audience from the books, but something like the Sopranos is different, they have to build an audience and broadcasting it like they do is probably the cheapest way to do that. Now you are right, tech will bring production costs down, so I'm not saying it can't happen, just that it has to before we get to the total a la carte world.

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TV shows are different than sports though, I can always watch on netflix at a later date or buy the DVD. And I would guess that HBO has made the right decision on GoT, despite what reddit says.