Wow. I must have missed the Mi Media story while instead being “enraged” about US gunboats or something.
I’m not exactly sure how I feel about that yet. I like the apparent transparency in this example, but it is also discomforting actually getting to see it happening. Kind of like seeing how sausage is made I suppose.
From George Hrab’s Podcast
Glorious worker's revolution has finally led to advancement in hovel entertainment. Present: Nyetflix. Sitting down. No talking. Watch now.
For subscribe to Nyetflix, is very simple. Go to kitchen and speak clearly into toaster "I want Nyetflix". And in 26 to 65 months VHS tape comes in post.When you are wanting to return Nyetflix movietape simply go to bathroom, speak into toilet hole “I want to return movietape” and in another 16 to 48 months man shows up at front door to take movietape back.
Nyetflix. Sitting down. No talking. Watch now.
It is fascinating to watch just how quickly OTT is disrupting the living bejesus out of the traditional broadcasters. I had the fun opportunity to give a few talks over the years to several of the East Coast SMPTE sections, on the subject of how OTT was on the threshold of radically altering the definition of “broadcast” and it is satisfying to see that not only was I right, but I was not aggressive enough in emphasizing just how disruptive this process would be, and just how quickly it would start to gel.
Because more and more people are ditching the networks entirely in favour of Netflix, and the networks are desperate for data that could use to fight back more effectively.
Welcome to old media, where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.
Ratings never reflected reality, nor the profitability of shows. Consider Star Trek - canceled after only 3 seasons presumably due to low ratings, yet everything even loosely related to it has made vast uncountable profit for half a century since then.
Why should a new media company want to risk losing billions or trillions of dollars playing that stupid game?
Are the olds just trying to trick Netflix into making the same mistakes they did? Hoping they’ll kill a show with a fanbase like Firefly after one season?
It’s all smoke and mirrors.
The networks base advertising rates on viewership established, at least in part, by completely meaningless information. Take “Sweeps Week” for instance. The networks bend over backwards to provide content that will goose ratings–tabloid content–that is, anything they can dream up to get someone to tune in. Never mind the fact that this is not reflective of the other 51 weeks of the year. Or using social media metrics. “Look how popular we are! People like us on Facebook!” Numbers that are inflated by what ever means necessary. All of these figures (and others) are hardly reflective of reality, yet apparently still important. Netflix will probably have to cough up this information at some point as the shareholders (or Wall Street Analysts by proxy) will demand it. But when that happens, direct comparison will still be largely meaningless.
Why would Netflix have to give up ratings numbers? It’s not like the ratings are useful for anything. They’re not selling advertising slots, nor do they have to optimize a programming schedule since they can serve out all their content all the time individually to each customer. If a Netflix exclusive wasn’t popular, it’s not like that project loses money. It’s already been paid for, and doesn’t pull in or lose ad revenue, nor does it get royalty fees since the distributor (Netflix) is also the producer.
The TV detection vans are a lie. The TV licencing authority doesn’t have nearly enough trained manpower to scan the residences of the entire UK for unlicenced TVs with finicky scanning equipment for the few hours a night that a TV might be on.
It’s much easier to send out threatening letters to every home that doesn’t have a licence, sight unseen. The most they’ll do by way of checking is send someone round to see if there’s an aerial or satellite dish, and I doubt if they even bother with that.
Do you have to pay the TV license if you’re only pulling off of an American or European satellite? Or is it the fact that you even own a TV enough for the license fee? What if you have a TV hooked up as a monitor for your computer?
Yeah, I know I’m an Ugly American with little understanding of other country’s laws.
Tangentially, I actually find it rather shameful that most of the developed world teaches American history in schools as well as their own history, while in the US it’s usually just US history plus general European history. Seems unfair.
As best I can tell from the model of clarity provided by the statute, the deciding factor seems to be whether or not the device is used for receiving or playing back a television service at the same time it is publicly broadcast; not whether it is merely capable of doing so.
I assume that this means that non-UK satellite feeds or even IPTV might be covered; but on-demand streaming out of sync with any broadcast schedule would not be; nor would possessing a monitor that incidentally includes a tuner that you aren’t making use of. In practice, I assume that you’ll probably get a nastygram if some orwellian database picks up your purchase of a TV, since monitoring sales records would generally be easier than operating scary vans; but you would seem to be within your right to use a TV as a big monitor if you wanted to.
“any reference to receiving a television programme service includes a reference to receiving by any means any programme included in that service, where that programme is received at the same time (or virtually the same time) as it is received by members of the public by virtue of its being broadcast or distributed as part of that service.”
Thanks. I actually expected to just be called a dumbass on this one.
I’m not deeply in tune with the pulse of British regulatory practice; but as far as I can tell the definitions are actually pretty fuzzy; but have typically be treated as simple because the most common case is “Do you own a TV? We are pretty sure you do, and really sure that if you do you watch TV on it. We’ll proceed accordingly unless you kick up a real fuss.”
The way the law is written leaves plenty of room in terms of delivery mechanism, so the march of technology on that side doesn’t raise too many questions; but the fixation on ‘received at the same time(or virtually the same time) as it is received by members of the public by virtues of its being broadcast or distributed as part of that service.’ seems like quite the can of worms. No, you aren’t exempt just because you are receiving a stream of Channel Whatever over IP, rather than DVT-B; but do you need a BBC License to watch Twitch.tv gaming videos? Only ones that are livestreamed; but not archived ones? If I were to postal-mail a DVD to my 10,000 kickstarter backers ‘at the same time’ would they need a license to play it back; but not if they received it piecemeal?
I can only assume that they are going to be taking it in for a rewrite at some point in the not so distant future to deal with the fact that this ‘regurgitate the same thing to everyone at the same time’ stuff just isn’t as large a share of the market as it used to be; but for the moment it still seems pretty broadcast fixated(to the extent that using BBC’s own ‘iplayer’ streaming service, so long as you only use it for back catalog stuff, not simultaneous-with-broadcast, might actually be acceptable without a BBC License, while you would have to pay team BBC for the privilege of watching nothing but foreign broadcasts, if you do so in real time. I’m guessing that this isn’t precisely the spirit of the law…)
That’s an interesting case with Twitch. I didn’t think of that one. Although it seems like it’d fall into that category of a “broadcast service” although with a lot of streamers there’s no “regular programming”. And some of the streamers I follow have no “programming” at all besides play whatever the chat demands.
I suppose owning a Roku hooked up to a TV falls into that category as well, since they have an IPTV broadcast service and about a few thousand free channels.
Come to think of it, Youtube might even fall within the letter of the law as well. I know for a fact Markiplier uploads on a set schedule of two videos a day, one at 8AM and one at Noon Pacific Time. And everyone gains access to those videos simultaneously. So that might be considered a “regular programming schedule”.
Yeah, that’s the sort of stuff that (to my admittedly American-layman’s eye) seems to make the law as currently written actually somewhat nontrivial; and in the context of a lot of newer ‘not just a video file on some FTP server; but not really just cable shoved over IP’ offerings arguably somewhere between counterintuitive and downright unjust, were the resources and will present to actually enforce it as written).
So long as it was basically “You bought a TV, OK, pay up unless you double pinkie swear that you only use it for watching movie rentals”, a few edge cases didn’t really matter much. Now, though, it’s much more plausible to use a TV as a monitor, or for console gaming, exclusively; but it also seems arguable that a bunch of things wholly unrelated to the BBC, and not even really in the same business, might qualify as broadcast television that needs a license.
Maybe some of the resident UK-ites can provide more detail; but I’ve never heard of anyone being shaken down purely for owning a computer and accessing online video(live or on-demand); but that may just be because the number of people who own a computer but not a TV or DVT-B tuner card is small enough that it simply isn’t worth the cost of shaking them, or current policy is to avoid “London Man, 18, BBC Taxed for using Youtube!” headlines.
If I had to bet, I’d assume that the long-run trajectory would be for the notion that it is a ‘TV/radio license fee’ to be dropped, and team BBC to just be funded out of some ‘Arts/Culture’ budget in order to simplify the bookkeeping and avoid quibbling over edge cases; but who knows how long any such changes might take.
Back when TVs were actually relatively uncommon, and trivial reception of transmissions from just about anywhere technologically impractical, you could make a real case for a user-pays license fee arrangement; but given the plummeting cost of a functional TV(probably below zero, if you are willing to put up with a nasty CRT that would cost money to dispose of properly; ~$10 to add DVB-T to a remotely recent computer; pretty cheap for a new-but-lousy LCD TV) and the wide variety of non-BBC, often foreign, services, many arguably in no real competition with the BBC, it seems like the principled justification isn’t there and the headache of pretending that you are actually collecting on a user-pays basis probably costs more than it is worth.
Again, this is just my not-a-lawyer-your-lawyer-or-even-in-a-common-law-jurisdiction of the law, and my speculations based on reading occasional BBC and BBC-license based news. The UK is in UTC, so maybe somebody on lunch break can fill us in with an on-the-ground view.
You only need a licence if you’re watching live TV.
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ95
My emph:
It makes no difference how you watch TV whether it’s on your laptop, PC or mobile phone or through a digital box, DVD recorder or TV set. If you use any device to watch or record television programmes as they’re being shown on TV the law requires you to be covered by a TV Licence. You can buy a TV Licence online.
You will not need a TV Licence to view video clips on the internet as long as what you are viewing is not being shown on TV at the same time as you are viewing it.
Personally, I think the TV licence is a massive bargain. The BBC is dirt cheap for what you get, because spread out across all/most households gives them a massive budget even if each household doesn’t pay much. I paid it for years even when I was out of the country but maintaining a UK address. The Tories are only trying to destroy the BBC because they’re in bed with Murdoch/Sky. (see also the NHS). The shady motherfuckers that bankroll the Conservatives can’t compete on quality so they want it gone.
The old media giants, especially entertainment media, are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, but they refuse to give up their money makers without a fight. They whine and cry and use every dirty trick up to and including legal bullying and paid-for legislation to hold back technology in a world which has already passed them by.
I didn’t get the wording right, but I think I captured the spirit of the sketch.
The actual Nyetflix sketch done by George Hrab is at 19m:17s in this podcast:
Podcast Notes and site: http://geologicpodcast.com/the-geologic-podcast-episode-444
The ratings game is funny because it means that the people who are generally behind whether a show is picked up or continues are the advertising companies. It’s the companies that bundle those Audi, Prevnar13, Audi, Prevnar13, Audi blocks together while people are viewing Jeopardy! They care more about how to measure their advertising dollars, and in many cases care more about specific demographics than total possible revenue. If they believe that 32 year old males are watching TV at 6pm, they don’t care if your critically acclaimed show that happens to be extremely popular among teenagers or 55 year olds is on at the same time, because it’s not where they wish to spend their money. So that extremely popular show MUST be moved to the “old people” or “teenager” timeslot that advertisers determine to be their key timeslot.
Nevermind that most of these timeslots are determined arbitrarily, and people will generally watch whatever as long as they’re home. Given that, it’s no wonder that we’re not only getting better TV from the Netflixes, Hulus, and Amazon services, but we’re also getting it whenever we want in replacement of the reruns, repeats, and filler content we see on the networks.
I can think of a secondary motive on Netflix’s part not to disclose the information: They don’t want the studios to have a good idea of what to charge Netflix to provide them with the rights to the shows. Netflix likes that information asymmetry because it benefits them, and decreasing relevance of ratings makes their job easier. I would do the same in Netflix’s shoes, and I would be just as pissed in NBC’s shoes. As a subscriber though, this policy benefits me (for now), so NBC can go suck an egg.
I have nothing against the BBC(not that I have a dog in that fight; but my impression has always been positive); I just find the practice of funding it through a nearly-universally-applied license fee, rather than a generic tax appropriation for culture/public media thing to be somewhat anachronistic. Licence fees and other user-pays arrangements make much more sense when you are actually talking about a fairly limited set of users. As it is, they’ve got another no-doubt-scrupulously-competent-and-well-priced contractor running a parallel collection scheme when you could just use the tax system you already have.
