Upheaval In Television

dodgers logoIt’s my understanding the Dodgers just swept a pair from Arizona. Did Vin Scully accompany the teams to Australia? I don’t know. Forty miles from Los Angeles, I’m shut out!

Cable subscribers comprising two thirds of the market are in the same boat.

There’s a money dispute with the new Dodger network. New owners paid lots for the team and broadcast rights. Now they have to recoup.

They probably paid too much. They want me to make it better.

Friday night’s game was on MLB Network. It was blacked out for us even though it wasn’t played locally and there was no other way to see it. That’s a slimeball move.

Once again viewers are caught in the crossfire.

The Weather Channel’s off DirecTV. Some markets have temporarily lost their local network affiliates. It’s a mess.

Lots of people pay for ESPN every month though they have no interest in sports. You’ve got to take the package. Got to!

I can watch some channels and shows on my tablet, but I’m not allowed to plug the table into my TV. One cable! The rights owners say no.

From where I sit the only parties not represented are us, the viewers.

The technology exists for all of us to watch what we want when we want it and on whatever platform we choose. It’s fair to say we want what technology could easily bring today. Why aren’t we getting it?

Established businesses will suffer, but that’s always a risk of business. We are entitled to benefit from technological advances. Instead, deals made out of our sight restrict our access. How are these in the public interest?

There will be an upheaval in what used to be called television. The legacy operators are fighting it, but how long can they prevail?

4 thoughts on “Upheaval In Television”

  1. We are facing the same situation….while living 20 miles from UCONN I was unable to see many of their basketball games unless I upgraded to a sports package. Now I live in the far northeast corner of CT….exactly 1 mile from Rhode Island and an hour from Boston….but I can’t get TV stations from either one! (And having worked at numerous CT stations, you know that northeastern CT is usually ignored by the stations in CT….RI does a much better job for us!)
    So just let me know when and how the overthrowing of the cable TV companies is happening and I’ll be on the front line!!! 😀

  2. Coming from a country that pre 1986 there were 4 channels on tv. BBC 1 and 2 ITV (Independant) and Channel 4. The BBC pretty much had the rights to everything from the world of sport. what ever the BBC didn’t have ITV covered. I remember watching Mike Tyson boxing fights, Masters golf, and even the world series all on one of the four channels. This all changed when Rupert Murdoch came on the scene with Sky (satelite) TV. He monopolized the system brought the rights to nearly every sport and charged people a premium for watching what used to be included as part of the british tv license fee. today the standard sports package is around 79.00 a month. It’s not the only cable operator by any means but if you want to watch sport your pretty much stuck paying murdoch somewhere along the line. So when I moved to the USA. I didn’t really blink an eye at how similar the setup was you buy a cable package that suits you I happen to like Soccer being English an all so I had to fork out for the full sports package. Over the years however I’ve started watching more local sports and in particualar, Baseball, I can now sit and watch a full game knowing whats what a lot more. I didn’t understand blackouts for the longest time until someone explained to me it was about trying to get fans to go to the game. Now to me that is the most absurd statement I have heard. How are you supposed to get fans of your club if your never promoting yourself on the tv? What about the fans who can’t make it the sick, disabled dare i say the poor A day out for a family at a MLB game isn’t cheap. and for an NFL game forget it. Somebody has seriously messed up. A good example of how tv boosts a teams income was a program on BBC when i was younger following a scottish 2nd division team called Cowdenbeth every week they would show a documentary style prog of what was going on with the players their families as semi-pro’s they all had 2nd jobs. but every Sat or Sun depending on the match day they showed the match. the people warmed to the side and they started getting more and more people turning up, by the end of the season they were breaking divisional attendance records. Somebody needs to turn to these Cable companies and make them show ALL the programs ALL of the time. It should not be up them what we can and can’t see. If i want to watch the Dodgers v the Diamondbacks no matter where i am in the usa I should be able to…….. and I will join you on the front line with pleasure…….

  3. Geoff, I would have thought you would have been a fan of team from the northeast, not LA. I know the Dodgers use to play in NYC. Is one of the guys that bought the Dodgers, Magic Johnson? Have they blocked out the Angels games on your TV too? Their stadium is much closer to your house, since they play in Anaheim. I attended the very first game that the Angels played as a major league in the Anaheim Stadium back in the mid 60’s. It was like going to a World Series, because the place was packed.

  4. To be honest Geoff it’s all screwed up today. They have gerrymandered media markets so bad that “local “means nothing anymore.

    We live along the Connecticut coast east of New Haven, and follow New Haven and NYC City news and sports (one of us goes into Manhattan a few times each month for work). We are MUCH more tied to the NYC circle than the Boston/New England one.

    Yet, we are constantly assaulted with Boston news (who cares what happens in Boston, it has no effect on us in the New Haven area) and Boston/ New England weather (why would I care what the weather is in Concord, NH 250 miles away, what is the weather on Long Island 15 miles away)! It’s even worse in spring – as boaters we are looking for boating conditions in Long Island Sound and off the NJ coast- and the local station (way up in Hartford) is showing us ski conditions in some place called stow? It makes no sense.

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