Forget the AFL: Time Warner vs Fox is Throw Back Sport of the Moment

Posted by Jonathan in INTERNET, TELEVISION on 12-22-09    No Comments


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Who Who would have thunk that a cable carriage fight would give the sports tech world a whiff of nostalgia. But Fox going off on Time Warner Cable over the price it wants to charge is like going back to a simpler time. Time Warner is pissed at Fox for juicing its rates. And it is threatening to retaliate by blowing off News Corps networks from its channels. Fox, which seems to take all affronts — business or political — personally, is doing its yell-the-loudest best. It is running pretty hilarious ads trying to pressure Time Warner to bow to its price increases. Time Warner in turn is playing it stoic best. Pretending Fox is not there. The big play issue is supposedly sports. Fox is attempting to send shivers down Time Warner sports fan’s spines that Joe Buck won’t be on anymore. And Time Warner is claiming that it is doing fine with its Versus and other sports programing.

Now, sure this is all entertaining, in a old school WWF, media cage battle royal sort of way. But let’s be honest here: The age of this sort of media spat is over. Neither Time Warner nor Fox  can afford to fool around like this.

First of all, both companies  have far too much competition these days to be getting into tussles over fees, particularly for sports. Satellite competitors, DirecTV and Dish, both offer compelling sports packages for local and national content. Forget the crazy priced Sunday Ticket. The RedZone Channel for example is the sleeper content pick for football fans. Marry that to a decent — and free —  direct over the air digital broadcast feed for local games, and there is literally not one minute of sports programming an average fan will lose by jumping from cable all together.

Second, the Webification of sports content is making this whole fight moot. Comcast announced its TV Everywhere technology earlier this year, which threatens to put cable sports content in any market. (Forget this nonsense that cable ops will not compete with each other over the Web, that is just a matter of time.) And the rumor mill is in full crank over expectations that Apple’s iTunes will carry a pay TV channel using CBS and Disney content. That move will puts the pure TV feeds of March Madness, ESPN, The Super Bowl, The Masters, NASCAR, and many bowl games on line sometime in 2010.

Considering the sports content alternatives, both Fox and Time Warner will lose customers by threatening them with no sports. And the fact is, these two operations will both suffer if they cannot strike a deal. So you can bet this pro wrestling dumb show will come to a last minute deal in early Jan 2010.

So what to do?  Sit back, relax and enjoy the media body slams and headlocks. This is nothing put pure entertainment right now. This battle was scripted for an older, innocent time. These days, nobody has the patience to watch two old gray fighters wrestle to a no decision.

So you might as well enjoy it while you can.

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