Is Unbundling Cable The Answer - Sen. McCain Thinks So

As William Shakespeare once said, To Bundle Or Not To Bundle, That Is The Question," an age-old question that plagues us to this day.  So perhaps the real question to ask is whether bundling is a good thing or not.  The concept of bundling has been around a very long time.  Products that we buy come with other pieces, "all included" in our purchase; from electronics to vacuum cleaners those "bundled extras" make our purchase easier than trying to figure out all the pieces to buy, from cords to attachments.  In cable TV, bundling gives consumers access to a ton of channels at one price, some we may want, some we don't, but in a single purchase we have a big pile to access.   We tend to believe that if we only pay for what we watch, our price will decline, but that is not necessarily the case; buying in bulk enables all to share from the pile and keeps the individual channel prices low. 

Sometimes too we say we don't want to watch something until a show appears on a channel we never have watched before and we add that piece to our own favorite pile.  That case happened in my own family.  We never watched the Nat Geo Channel.  Unbundled we never would have paid for it.  Yet with their new show, Brain Games, advertised, my kids sought out the show and the channel and have now become viewers of both.  It was included in our package; had it been unbundled, I cannot say that we would have individually purchased the network to watch the show.  The result, the show, the network, and the viewer all lose. 

Certainly there are arguments to unbundle some more expensive programming with sports channels being the biggest culprit.  But the bill, called the Television Consumer Freedom Act, doesn't talk about expensive networks verse the inexpensive ones.  "The bill would require programmers to make their channels available to cable operators on an a la carte basis; does not allow the bundling of co-owned cable channels and TV stations in carriage negotiations;  and gets rid of the sports blackout rule for stadiums built with any public money."  The industry has matured rapidly where once broadcasters competed against cable, they now own cable networks.  Where once there were a ton of independently owned cable networks (like the old world of cable operators), today the big ones are all owned by the media giants.  In the world of cable, like elsewhere, the big fish have swallowed the little fish. There is consolidation in the industry with fewer players owning the networks.  

And while the motive of this bill to unbundle is to keep consumer costs low, it is unlikely to achieve that result.  Costs per cable network will rise and ultimately the consumer will pay more for less.  What can McCain do?  Encourage disruptive technologies to exist against the mainstream.  Aereo is one such player.  Netflix, YouTube, Google and others are all invading the media content and distribution space.  And with their arrival and development, monopolistic industries are put to the test.  Innovative disruptive is to be encouraged, not law making.  In the case of unbundling, it will only lead to other problems.

Microsoft May Have A Plan For The Nook

Did it take Barnes & Noble creating a partnership with Google for Microsoft to finally take notice?  Despite their investment in the Nook digital book reader and tablet, little has been mentioned about their involvement.  So now comes rumor that Microsoft will buy the digital assets of the Nook business to help support its own line of tablets.  "A deal to buy the digital assets of Nook Media is the natural next step for Microsoft, which first announced a plan to work with Barnes & Noble on its Nook devices and content in April 2012, ponying up $300 million at the time to help." 

Also of interest is the future of Nook tablets.  "The documents also reveal that Nook Media plans to discontinue its Android-based tablet business by the end of its 2014 fiscal year as it transitions to a model where Nook content is distributed through apps on “third-party partner” devices."  It seems that the hardware experiment for B&N could not work, despite having a strong presence in college bookstores across the country.

What Microsoft will do with the digital assets and their own devices remain to be seen.  Nook apps are already available across other competitor products including Apple and Android tablets.  I wonder what the competitive advantage for Microsoft is unless they plan to change the relationships with these other tablet makers. 

Broadband Speeds Still Need To Improve

We have grown dependent on our broadband connection.  In the past, we expected that our telephone connection was always working and that our TV could always turn on to watch our shows.  Today, we not only want a constant broadband connection; we want the fastest speed possible at the lowest possible cost.  In homes, we share the telephone, we share the TV, but we each have our own personal monitor, tablet, or smartphone, each demanding access to the broadband stream coming into the home.  The result, the more usage, the slower the speed to each device.  Videos start running slow, web pages stop loading and we are forced to wait for our device to connect.  In our household, we feel the pain of this slowdown. 

"Yet broadband seems to be the one area of the information economy that has not followed Moore’s law, named after the proposition by Intel’s co-founder Gordon Moore that the power of digital devices would roughly double every couple of years, radically expanding their capability and driving down their cost."  Our demand for faster speeds at low prices grow, but there is little competition in the marketplace to help drive down pricing and force innovation.  "That means that in most American neighborhoods, consumers are stuck with a broadband monopoly. And monopolies don’t strive to offer the best, cheapest service." 

Will new competitors, like Google Fiber, emerge to compete against telco and cable for broadband share.   Dish Network certainly wants to expand by buying Clearwire and Sprint but other entrants are also needed.  Till then, there may not be much impetus for current companies to aggressively improve their broadband infrastructure.

Internet Sales Tax Moving Forward

Main Street has been fighting the web for years over the discrepancy in state sales tax collection.  And online consumers have benefited from this "discount", using brick and mortar stores to check items and then purchase online without paying an additional tax on the purchase.  But that advantage seems destined to end.  "The Marketplace Fairness Act — which will force online merchants to collect tax on behalf of other states — passed the Senate on Monday."

While Amazon has been building out distribution centers and managing state agreements to gain incentives to build in exchange for a tax-free status, other online retailers like the simplicity in neither collecting or reporting state sales tax across all 50 states.  And while it may cause new accounting issues, it will certainly help states (those with sales tax) add revenue back into their budgets.  

Certainly, the bill still has a long way to go to pass the House and some changes to it could occur.  "eBay, one of the law’s prime opponents, said in a statement that it will keep pushing for merchants who collect less than $10 million to be exempt."  But it seems an inevitability that such a law will eventually pass now that the size of internet sales is no longer a niche business.

You Tube Subscription Service

Multiple revenue streams matter.  Broadcast learned from cable and caused cable operators to pay for carriage to assure more revenue.  Hulu built Hulu Plus to add a subscription service above its free streaming platform.  And You Tube wants to do the same.  "The subscription service would not be for general use of the web site. Reports suggest it would be for specialist video channels. However, it could involve as many as 50 video channels, with single channel subscriptions for $1.99 a month. Details of the plan were told to the The Financial Times over the weekend."  So will consumers pay for You Tube original channels?

For Hulu Plus, the offer includes theatrical movies and network series.  Netflix and Redbox offer similar know content.  But for You Tube, the hope is that these original networks offer unique content that consumers will pay a monthly subscription to gain access.  It works IF consumers value this premium content and see value in paying.  It works IF these same consumers have a credit card or have parents willing to pay for their children to watch. It works IF the consumers sees enough original content each month for the cost to determine that it makes sense to not cancel their subscription.  So You Tube has some big IFs to overcome. 

Other streaming networks have discovered different paths to new revenue.  Partnering with known media brands in the print and tv space works.  AwesomenessTV was purchased by Dreamworks Animation.  HuffPost TV is airing on cable network AXS TV.  I see the key to success for streaming content is based on multi-platform partnerships.  With so much content being created to fill new distribution growth, breaking through the clutter is key.  That is best done by working across platforms.  A great example is Defiance, a video game partnering with SyFy Channel.  It creates exposure, interest, and hopefully most important, engagement that leads to revenue growth.  Not that content on a single platform can't survive; it is just that it is harder to get off the long tail and into a quantifiable audience share.

Can You Tube Channels survive in a subscription model?  Perhaps tied with another media platform, like a magazine subscription, the chance for success is greater.  Without, I wonder if consumers will indeed pay a monthly subscription fee for original You Tube content.

Barnes & Noble Looks To Play With Google

Any mobile device is only as good as the content that drives it.  Today, the two biggest libraries for apps and content are Apple and Google.  But while Apple is a closed architecture built around its exclusive product line, Google Play has taken the opposite approach to open itself to multiple devices.  So add to that list the Nook devices. 

"Barnes & Noble is adding Google Play’s full complement of videos, music and apps (and ebooks) to its Nook HD and HD+ tablets. The tablets will also include Google services like Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and the Chrome browser."  Nook devices will continue to access its own store as well.  Certainly more is better than less and should result in a better user experience for consumers who use the Nook tablets. 

But the article speculates, and rightly so, what about Microsoft.  Despite partnering with B&N, Microsoft has seemed to do little to take advantage of the deal.  Where is Microsoft in the device, where is Microsoft in the retail space of B&N, where is Microsoft in the content?  And I must suspect that Microsoft must be a little upset that B&N is now cavorting with the "competition".  But since Microsoft has done little to utilize this partnership and the Nook needs content to gain popularity for its device, B&N made the right decision to push ahead. 

Liberty Buys Into Charter...Time To Takeover?

According to reports, Liberty has completed its quarter ownership of Charter Communications.  With its ownership, Liberty also gets seats on the Charter Board.  So what is next?  Does Liberty let Charter run independently with its current management team or is Liberty already thinking of full ownership.  It would not be the first time, as SiriusXm has found out first hand.  That is not to say that having Liberty and its management team on your board is a bad thing; rather, John Malone and his team have proven themselves successful in running these businesses.  It is more conjecture as to what Charter may become in the next few years. 

CE Study 47% IP Devices Connected - Really?

Numbers are a funny thing.  They can be manipulated any number of ways to tell a story.  Yet sometimes those analyses tend to cause a bit of head scratching.  One in particular appeared in Multichannel suggesting that less than half of all IP capable CE devices are actually connected to broadband.  "Makers of Blu-ray players, gaming consoles, smart TVs and streaming media devices are banking on users to connect to revenue-generating services over broadband, but less than half of those devices are actually tapped into the Internet, The NPD Group revealed in its latest a Connected Home report."  Do you spot the device that may have brought down this percentage?

If you guessed blu-ray player, you are right.  Now I admit to not seeing the actual study, but I do wonder what the numbers look like without Blu-ray in the mix.  But this item also was a head scratcher, "According to NPD’s survey of 4,000 U.S. consumers, streaming media players are connected at the highest rate, followed by game consoles, Blu-ray players and IP-capable TVs."  You mean to tell me that IP connected, smart TVs are not actually connected; in fact, they are less likely to be connected than Blu-ray players. I can understand people buying Blu-ray players solely to play discs and not to connect online, but why would a consumer buy an IP connected set if they had no plans to connect.  Was the price of the set cheaper than another without the feature? 

But back to the numbers.  So with a sample of 4000, were they equally divided among the 4 devices?  Perhaps it would be more interesting to dig deeper into each of these devices specifically to see how each is utilized.  Certainly, consumers are buying more and more connected devices AND actually connecting to broadband.  My final thought, I think these numbers seem skewed and another study might prove that consumers are quickly embracing IP connectivity and the percentage is higher.   And households with more than one of these devices in their home are using a particular one as the primary connecting source.  Of note, what they are currently connecting to. "The study also found that 40% of TVs connected to the Internet either through the TV itself or via a separate device are used to stream Netflix content, while 17 percent tap into YouTube, and just 11 percent head to Hulu."  

Should Apple Buy Or Build A Subscription Service?

I keep wondering whether it makes sense for Apple to expand its iTunes' business to include a subscription model.  For Wall Street, a regular monthly revenue stream from paid subscribers is easy to forecast and certainly increases the connection that Apple can make with its customers.  And Apple has never shied away from new innovation that can possible eat in to old revenue models.  So the threat that a subscription model has on its purchase model shouldn't be an issue either.  And a subscription model opens the doors for Apple to build out its own ad model around the rental business.  Apple has shown itself to be both a hardware and software leader so I keep wondering if Apple is even considering such a strategic move.

I could see three possible scenarios shaping up.  If the intention is to buy, Hulu most certainly could be at the top of the list.  While smaller than others, it has built a growing reputation for original content and usage.  Whether Apple is interested in kicking the tires of this business or another remains to be seen.  Certainly, the business is still a nascent one and Apple could simply build a subscription model from scratch.  With relationships already in place on the purchase side of the business, a library of content could be available quickly.  It may take time to build it as large as Amazon, Netflix, or Redbox, but it is doable. The third scenario would be to partner with one of the current platforms.  A little cash from Apple could go along way in moving a business further ahead of the pack while limiting any downside for Apple.  And adding iTunes as a platform to entry would help to extend reach and performance.  For now, we can only speculate.