DISH Enables TV Everywhere to Android Devices

While Comcast was making noise in advance of CES with a VOD iPad app, DISH Network had their own announcement as the satcaster unveiled its Android app that enables Google enabled Smartphone users to access DISH programming. A former professional gambler, DISH CEO Charlie Ergen has undoubtedly raised the stakes in the TV Everywhere game. While the Comcast model will provide roughly 3000 hours of VOD content plus some streaming networks, the DISH service goes one better and allows customers access to their entire line-up of channels and all of their DVR content via a Sling enabled set top box, allowing for ultimate flexibility.

At a time when cord cutting has become a primary concern among multichannel providers, operators are looking to TV Everywhere as part of the solution to deal with the estimated quarter million video subscribers lost by the industry in the second and third quarters of 2010. While the multichannel sector as a whole as seen subscriber losses, Verizon, AT&T and DirecTV have seen gains. DISH is down about 50k subs in 2 and 3Q while Comcast is down over half a million video subscribers in the same period.

Comcast’s iPad VOD and streaming app will not launch until later this year, so the jury is still out as to whether its streaming to tablets will be enough of a silver bullet to hold on to subscribers or whether digital customers will continue to vote with their feet (and wallets) that they see better value in getting a limited amount of programming for less, or even free, from on-line options like of Netflix and Hulu.

Retrans Rhetoric Heating Up

This week sees the formation of the American Television Alliance (ATA), a consortium of multichannel providers with a goal of raising awareness and ultimately changing policy on retransmission consent. Among the “strange bedfellows” in the ATA are Time Warner Cable, Direct TV, Cablevision and AT&T – companies that often compete against each other for multichannel subscribers, and in the case of Cablevision and AT&T, fight over access to and pricing of programming (but that’s for another day). A large part of the argument made by the ATA is that retransmission consent is essentially a consumer issue since any payment made by cable operators to broadcasters are ultimately passed on to the subscriber.

Predictably, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) scoffed at the ATA’s consumer rights stance, with an NAB spokesman berating it “as credible as BP executives joining Greenpeace”.

The rhetoric on both sides of the issue is just about as predictable as Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck discussing the economy. Both sides passionately make valid points filtered through their own lenses. There is no doubt that the broadcast business model is changing and that cable operators have long benefitted from the carriage of local broadcast signals. However, cable operators are increasingly coming under pressure to keep rate increases in check and have even renewed an industry conversation on smaller and cheaper programming packages. All of this comes at a time when viewer options are expanding and much of the broadcast programming is finding its way to the web for free (Hulu’s premium aspirations notwithstanding). However, for the broadcasters to paint the formation of the ATA as an effort to do little more than protect the bottom line of the operators is a bit disingenuous given the boasting that NAB member companies have been doing on their quarterly calls about how much retrans dollars are contributing to their profits.

At the end of the day, retransmission consent is a consumer issue. It is one more cost that cable operators need to either absorb or pass along. Very often, these kinds of disputes turn into high profile corporate pissing contests, where the consumer is the one who ultimately gets soaked.

But really, is it wise for either side to be airing their grievances in public? Do viewers really need or want to peek into the “sausage factory”? I don’t think so. At the end of the day, viewers are not interested in the disagreements of corporate behemoths. Don’t ask them to take sides or get involved in the details or you may find they have little appetite for supporting either company in an argument over money. They just want to turn on their TV to get relevant entertainment and information without having to pay a whole lot of money to be advertised to in the process. But on the other hand, they do have a right to know why they might be losing access to their local news broadcast.

There is no doubt that both sides are preparing the battlefield and oiling the guns for upcoming renewals. The heightened rhetoric by both sides will certainly draw increased scrutiny from Washington should any of the negotiations get close to failing or actually fall apart and result in TV stations going dark on cable systems.

As with anything involving legislation, this is very much a matter of being careful what you wish for. The issues of Retransmission Consent and a la carte programming have been raised by legislators and interest groups in the course of the Comcast-NBCU merger hearings. Granted, what Retransmission Consent has turned into may indeed have been an unintended consequence of the 1992 Cable Act (which, by the way, was the result of Congress overriding a presidential veto), but can you really expect that the people who gave you the problem have any idea of how to fix it?