[mythtv-users] Data Direct Subscription Expires?

[Brad Templeton]

On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 03:00:00AM -0800, Bruce Markey wrote:
> >dedicated guides like the on-screen displays of satellite and cable
> >companies.  (The latter sometimes include vcr control, but it's a minor
> >use compared to PVR uses.)
> 
> I know that is what you meant and is exactly what I meant to
> call into question. There isn't a good version and a bad version

I'm not sure I am conveying what I mean to you here then.

Of coruse there is just one set of data.  There are, however, many
distribution channels for the same data.   There are channels to
newspapers, to Cable companies, to Satellite companies, to Tivo, to
Replay, via the web on zap2it and tvguide.com, and to each and every
individual datadirect account.

Each of these is an independently controllable distribution channel.

Each can have a different price.  Each can have a different filtering
of the data as it goes through it.  And in fact they do.   Tivo,
for example, pays a lot and gets every possible station's data and
cable lineup databases etc.   We pay nothing and get one local lineup.

> Not all DataDirect users have DVRs. Not all DVR users skip all
> commercials. Not all TV viewers watch all commercials (flip
> channels, leave the room, etc.). The impact of DVRs is part of

Who else is using datadirect besides PVRs?  That is not a rhetorical
question, I don't know the answer.  Datadirect is not sold via any
product, or so they say, it is only given to end-users.  What other
applications are significant with end-users other than video recording?

And seriously, while yes, some PVR users still watch some commercials,
let's face it, we're a pretty poor audience for somebody who plans to
base their business model on people watching interstitial ads!  Really,
really poor.

And yes, while the folks who go to the bathroom are "stealing TV" according
to some TV executives, that's factored into their equation already.
Existing commercial avoidance, from surfing to VCR use to going to the
bathroom probably cuts commercial viewing as much as in half, to make a
rough guess.   PVR use probably cuts it 20fold, an order of magnitude
difference.

When everybody gets a PVR it is going to be a real issue, and require
a reworking of the free TV business model.  Which is fine by me.


> to jump to the conclusion that the listings services want
> to punish certain classes of users. They don't. They get paid

I don't think they do.  You just said that it was the TV networks
who were paying to subsidize the listing services.  The TV networks would
indeed want to differentiate.

> to promote the lineups. CBS wants you to know when CSI is on
> whether or not you own a DVR. If a listing service refused to
> do the job they are being paid to do, somebody else will do
> the job instead.

Why should CBS care if DVR owners know when CSI is on?  They care that
non-DVR owners know, of course.  But I would have to venture they
will eventually be making close to zip from us.

Now, today, that's not factored in.  DVR owners are 2% of the TV population,
not enough to worry about.   They will only start caring when the ratings
people start measuring accurately not simply the audience but commercial
viewership (which is what the ad buyer really cares about) and they
start breaking it out according to has PVR vs. not.

And once that happens -- and I don't think it has happened yet -- I
think the TV networks would say, "I see no reason for us to run around
subsidizing the process of watching our shows without ads."

I am not saying they need go on an actual campaign to stop it, but they
certainly would not want to be making active efforts and spending money
to _help_ it.
> 
> It is the inverse of illogical non-sense to think that 'they'...
> Now I'm lost. Listings services exist to get the word out. The
> partnerships exist, I assume, to recoup some costs but mostly
> to provide support, service and to hold someone financially
> accountable for any disruption in service.

Actually, listings services exist to make the most revenue from
the mix of sources they can get revenue from.  That's sometimes a trite
statement in business, but it's always true.    I would still like
to see confirmation that commercial networks pay to put their listings
in the TMS & TVGuide databases.  If they do I am impressed with TMS and
TV Guide!  (PR Newswire also pulls of this feat, charging PR people and
online readers, though they give it free to newspapers.)


> to get that information out. Listings will always, always, always
> be available and listings services won't want to try to withhold
> them nor could they succeed (whatever that means) if they wanted
> to. TV listings are no more likely to be taken away from you then
> Greenwich putting the clamps down on all that free correct time
> you've been receiving without looking at their popups.

Well, my personal view is that the concept of a broadcast schedule
will eventually go away, but as long as there is a schedule, I agree,
it will be out there to get.

But that doesn't mean it will be accurate enough for PVR use, for
example, without paying.   Or in a highly convenient, reliable format
without paying.

Traditional live-tv watching needs neither the minute-level accuracy,
and the paper and live-guide methods are also fine for these users,
with the odd web surf thrown in.
> 
> of the morons that make these decisions. The idea appears to be
> that they may have thought they could force schedulers in simple
> DVRs to record their shows and force an overlap so that the
> users would not see a competitors show since the users couldn't
> fix the overlap. Myth, of course, allows negative offsets. The

Actually, it has nothing to do with PVRs.  It existed long before
the PVR, though sometimes PVR owners think it was a conspiracy to
get us.   It might have a slight anti-VCR purpose but many VCRs have
done soft padding for a decade or more.

It's mostly a trick against channel surfing at the start end end of
shows.   Ditto the placement of non-commercial content right at the
start or end of a show -- push the viewer to be tuned in 30 seconds
before 8 o'clock, and they can't be surfing around on other stations
to see what's on.  Plus they will see the commercials even earlier
than that.   Viewers will, they hope, stay on their network when the
show transitions at 8:59 rather than 9.

Is it a good idea or not?  Who knows.  But it is one of the sort of
things they like to try.   And yes, it does happen to screw with PVR
users.

One reason they would not have put these times in the listing data
as well is that paper listings would not want to say "8:59" for one
show and 9 for others.  Paper and web listings like nice even intervals.


> On the other hand, if anyone thought that by jerking around the
> schedule, users would decide that 'a DVR is a bad idea because
> NBC might screw me over so I better watch Live TV from now on
> so I don't miss anything', then they are truly hopeless fools.

Correct.  Again, while I don't know what they would do to actively
thwart PVR users, they have  -- or will have in the future at least --
little incentive to go out of their way to help us, by subsidizing our
listing data etc.
> 
> The role they play is to distribute listings. If they turn away
> recipients, they reduce their reach and can not command high fees.

Before we go further we should find out if it's really true that
they do command high fees from the commercial networks.  The example
cited, for PBS, is a different story.  PBS stations don't run commercials
the same way and work by entirely different economics.
> 
> >then they've got a sweet little deal going.
> 
> See, this is what I've believed all along. Don't know if I'd
> heard it somewhere or if it was just obvious to me. The way
> advertising generally works is that a company with a product
> or service pays to get the message out to potential customers.

Right.  This is where it doesn't make sense to be getting the money
from both ends.   If I were a TV network, and I was paying TMS to
put out my listings to newspapers, I would say, "Why are you charging
the newspapers for my listings?   Why are you discouraging some
newspapers from getting them when I pay you to get them far and wide?"

I used to buy newspaper syndicated services and I looked into getting
TV listings and they were too expensive, so I didn't.  This implied
to me that the other side was not paying to subsidize getting it
to me, though I never actually asked, just assumed.

Likewise when it came to PR Newswire, we have a situation where PR
agencies pay $400 to put a release on PR newswire.  In exchange, all
major newspapers are given free equipment and connections to get the
releases, the PR agencies are paying for that.

PR Newswire, however, figured out that the agencies didn't care as
much about whether geeks on compuserve got their releases (though they
certainly wanted them as far and wide as possible) so PR Newswire
started charging Compuserve, and eventually all the other online
services, a fee to get their releases.   I know because I paid this
fee every month!   I tired to convince them that though we were online
we were getting the releases out to ordinary readers and we should not
pay.  They didn't go for it.


> I can't imagine a business model where some company went around
> begging stations for data in hopes of selling it to newspapers
> just for the TV listings on the entertainment page. I believe

In the old days, there were just a handful of TV stations, all local,
and the local newspaper built its own TV listing page.   The page
got bigger and bigger.  Eventually newspapers were happy to pay
somebody else to work it all up for them, it was taking staff time.

I can't say for sure, but I doubt the local TV stations paid the
newspaper to run the listings.  Perhaps they did at first.  I wasn't
alive in the earliest days.

> >I am concerned about the suggestion they would charge the stations for
> >feeding the PVR users data so the PVR users can watch commercial free,
> >it just isn't in the station's interests to subsidize that.
> 
> Sounds like a good argument on paper for why users should feel
> afraid but it doesn't add up. Stations cannot force people to
> not use DVRs by telling the services to withhold data from them.

Sure, they think they can.  If, as you say, the stations are paying
to subsidize the free datadirect, I can certainly see that once they
fully understand it, they pass the order to say, "Look, we're paying
so stop giving the data out free to the PVR users."  If they are
paying.

I'm not saying it would work -- as noted, people would scrape, etc.

But I am confident they will want to try it.