RIP NBCSN

The subscription fee is $65 a year. To read ONE guy's blog? Really?

 

He posts one every day, Monday to Friday, so that's what, 40 cents per article. And they aren't short.

 

He’s not holding you up at gunpoint. He set a value on his work.

 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Comcast is making massive changes to the sports division after losing ad revenues from the canceled Olympics.

Consolidating Golf Channel (basically shuttering the Orlando operation) and now folding their sports properties into Peacock is just how TV runs things. They operate in a completely foreign mentality to everything else, and I still don't really understand the business model: they spend like demons when the going is good, then turn right around and axe to the bone when the money or audience dries up.

To them, Golf Channel or NBCSN are just "TV programs" -- forget the hundreds of people and millions of dollars it takes to put those shows together -- and TV execs (SUITS!) don't think twice when canceling an expensive show, so why should this be any different? If you're the executive producer of "Nancy Drew Mysteries," for example (like my SIL), if it gets axed, you're out looking for work. So there's no loyalty whatsoever in the TV business. Your employment is just like life: day to day.

I experienced it with Turner Sports' odd "all-in" buying up of sports league websites, only to dump all but the NBA and NCAA to fund Bleacher for an insane amount of money -- even though they had ALL of the manpower and tools available in-house to do it at half the cost. There's no actual long-term plan, in many cases. Just throw money at something, and if it doesn't work, shut it down and throw money somewhere else.

My big worry is that Peacock will put anything of value behind the subscription wall, and I'm already ticked that Hulu just added a 25 percent surcharge over the past 12 months despite dropping the regional sports networks, bumping their basic fees up to $65. They know they've got you, because everybody else is priced in -- and there's no way I'm going back to satellite. Nasty way of treating your loyal customers.

The big players are betting that the cord cutters will eventually have to add all these premiums -- without having to pay a third party for the carriage rates. It's a risky strategy, especially if the economy doesn't rebound and people have to choose between Netflix and food on the table. So far, people are still choosing to be entertained.

 

There are no other entertainment options out there right now. No (or few) ballgames, no concerts, no shows, small crowds in theaters, if they’re even open. Supply and demand — middle class folks want entertainment, and the cable companies have you by the balls.

 

OT, but got me thinking. Netflix’s price is just now starting to get where you even think about dropping it. The $7 price used to make it a no-brainer. I wonder how long it will be before can hit the $20 price point. The $10 barrier seemed like a psychological barrier, at least to me. $20 will be a big hurdle for them, I think. That’s the point at which I consider a recurring charge significant enough to consider dropping when I’m tightening up my budget.

 

I didn't know these companies owed you anything.

 

I already paid them once. It's called the cable bill.

 

One more step, I think. The RSNs and sports networks are so badly overleveraged in the demand for live content (since it's the only thing that's relevant across the age spectrum and largely can't be streamed or time-shifted) that the only way they can make the costs of their rights fees back is by charging exorbitant price increases. Cable, which has also been bled nearly dry by new technology, high overhead, cord-cutters and people who are just fed up with their abysmal customer service, appears to have finally reached the point as an industry where it is refusing to pass those increases on to the consumer.

Things like Peacock are happening because the networks are trying to create an alternative source of revenue, where they can turn their old inventory, shows they might not have taken a risk to put into production or shows they think can generate sufficient demand, and second-screen sports experiences into a means of taking a chunk out of the cost of sports (mostly NFL) rights. Most of them don't have subscribers they can bleed like cable.

 

Anyone know what impact this might have on the NBC Sports regional cable networks and their local coverage? I can't imagine it's good news but those outlets seem very different from the national cable network.