Today, over at the website New TeeVee, we learned a bit of info about how the Networks are viewing what is currently happening in the market. Essentially, Fox is saying that their new “plan” will thwart users by blocking Hulu and Fox.com access to anyone who can’t prove they are a cable or satellite subsriber. They will do this by only allowing access of recently released episodes to those users and forcing everyone else to wait eight days for “yesterday’s show”.
It seems to me, and I could be wrong here, that Fox hasn’t done much (any) research on their users, or TV viewers in general. In our household, we are running an average of three weeks behind on TV shows – some as many as 5-7 weeks. Have we cut the cord? Partially. The cord comes back when football season comes back. It gets cut again after the Super Bowl. There is nothing we need to watch live other than sports and football is the only one that doesn’t offer an online package….yet.
Fox’s president uttered the following comment:
“We’re concerned that cord-cutting is going to be a problem . . . The more you enable it by putting content out there for free without any tether to a pay-TV subscription, the bigger that danger becomes.”
They will have to take access away all together, because few people today care WHEN they watch something, just if. And some are starting to not care IF.
To get the full effect, and breakdown, of that statement I recommend reading the article over at New TeeVee. For now, though, they should know that some of us have already cut the cord and that this makes no difference to us at all.
I agree that Fox probably hasn’t done research on the the habits of their online (and regularly-schedule program) viewers. Don’t the commercials that are shown on their online shows produce any revenue? I rarely have the time to watch television and when I want to catch a show, I watch it online.