I’m going to jump on the band wagon today and talk about something that is a hot topic for the day. Currently News Corp. (owners of Fox) and Time Warner Cable are in deadlocked negotiations over renewing of a contract. This effects me directly as their current contract is set to expire at the end of the year, as in tonight. If an agreement isn’t met then at that time all of News Corp’s television stations we be blacked out on Time Warner Cable’s television services. As a Time Warner subscriber I stand to loose my ability to watch these channels come the new year.
Now, I highly doubt that it will come to that, as both companies stand to loose a lot from not reaching a deal. Generally speaking I am not a fan of Time Warner, over the years I’ve had a lot of issues with their service (or lack there of sometimes), their pricing structure and above all our the idea of pro-rated bandwidth. Despite all that however in this argument I feel compelled to take their side. The demands News Corp is making on them just seems to me to be greedy.
Where most networks get $0.25 per customer per month News Corp is now demanding $1. My initial feelings about this is they are trying to make up for lost revenue from a continue increase in people who are no longer spending time in front of their TV, much less spending time watching Fox stations. With an increase in the number of people using DVRs and streaming Media I can see why advertising dollars may be down, but that shouldn’t be a call to arms to try and nickel and dime people to death.
News Corp needs to find new creative and innovative ways to generate revenue off of their content rather than trying to charge television providers more for simply offering the availability to view their content. There is many different ways to view the content that is provided by News Corp, unfortunately right now the easiest, and yes something the only choice, is over standard television networks. I don’t particularly care if I loose the Fox Network as any show on there that I feel like watching I will find a way to watch, it is that simple.
Unfortunately, at the current time it seems that Fox is favored to win it’s full demands. Which will likely lead me and many others to re-evaluate our Time Warner Subscriptions.
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