Why are TV stations so scared of the internet?

Who do you think has a larger archive of content? HBO or Netflix?

They both charge under $10 a month.

You already said Netflix isn't good enough. Why would you pay for HBO, when they have less content, when you wouldn't pay for Netflix, when they have an incredible amount of more content?

You are missing the concept here.. When you get HBO from a cable provider, it usually cost about $5/month. They could bring that same model to the web and sell directly bypassing cable companies and also gain a a worldwide marketplace creating an enormous amount of new customers..

I'm not saying they would offer the same product as netflix or Hulu, but directly sell their product to consumers on the web.

There are contracts in place. Hundreds if not thousands of them. For example, when they syndicate re-runs, the company buying the re-run rights has to know nobody else is able to air those episodes. Then you go all the way down the line to producers, writers, and actors and they all get residuals based on those initial contracts. When you just air whatever, whenever, there is no way to make all those contracts.

People often wonder why media companies don't just offer all their stuff on the internet, and the simple answer is they can't. They would violate all kinds of deals and contracts that are already signed. If you play an episode on the internet for free and the producers of that show don't have anything regarding that in their contract, they can sue you. Not to mention, once you air it for free, the syndication value goes to shit and the advertising on internet videos is still nowhere near that of TV. Ads on internet videos are worth pennies. A 30 second spot on TV costs up to $250K.

I'm looking a Hulu right now..

Nothing from Discovery Chanel..

History Channel has 11 series and are all old and very limited amount of episodes. American Pickers for example is a popular show on that channel and they don't even have a full season. Pawn stars is the same..

National Geo is a bit better in the fact at least they offer a full season but again very limited amount of shows compared to what they air on cable.

This is what I'm saying, Hulu is doing what they can I'm sure, but the TV networks aren't going full in and by treating the net like they do cable and that is why they are failing.

Good to know a resident lunatic has it all figured out - surely the billion dollar companies will follow suit now that the business model has been laid out on a porn webmaster forum. Obviously, they don't know their numbers, the economics of their business, the agreements they have with producers, distributors, unions etc etc etc.

All they need to do at HBO is read GFY - sifting through 100 posts a day about how shitty everything is, how conversions suck and how many people are going out of biz, to make their next $10,000,000,000.00.

Seems kinda obvious.

I'm not missing the concept at all. I'm telling you this concept already exists in many facets, and it is not working. It is failing.

Let's just say for a minute that HBO was going to do exactly what you want. The cable companies would cut them out of the picture, because the cable companies need programming like HBO. Not only that, the movie studios would come along and do the same thing. Those movies would then go up for auction across the complete Internet spectrum and HBO would lose the contracts because they would not have the volume to beat other guys like Netflix and Walmart due to their now low subscription count.

HBO has over 20 million TV subscribers. Netflix has 28 million subscribers. There is no way HBO would be able to make up the difference by losing their TV audience after cable companies and studios cut them out of the picture. HBO would be dead.

Netflix is buying the rights to those shows. Everything you just mentioned is available on Netflix, prior seasons. I'm looking at them right now. For $20 a month you can have Netflix and Hulu.

Cable TV is more protective of their content because they don't make as much money. They need to license it out to the highest bidder so that they can pay for their shows. In this case, Netflix won. Also, in order for cable channels to get airtime from the large TV networks (Time Warner, etc.) they need to make the large TV networks happy. Time Warner is not going to be happy if Discovery Channel starts giving away all of their content online. They will get cut off, just like HBO would.

The networks, like ABC, etc. have more bargaining power because they are already free across the country. They can more or less tell the TV networks to shove it because they don't matter all that much.

American pickers and pawn stars are on netflix to watch. But I'm sure you're the kind of guy who won't buy access to any of them and will only look for excuses on why he won't pay for it. You are the internet version of a tire kicker.

BTW, hbo has on demand. I'm not sure why anyone would want it on their computer if they can stream it on their TV any time.

In for the win!

hbo is more like $10-$15 a month

and with the HBO you get online access

if they sold hbo separate less people would get cable meaning they would not be making more $$$

Man are you a self entitled prick. I hate to inform you that yes I have a subscription to netflix and that's the very reason for this topic. I find that netflix is great when it comes to archive of old shows but they are very slow to get new stuff in most cases.

The reason for this topic, is because I believe if TV studious treated things like Netflix & Hulu more in line with how they treat cable companies, they wouldn't be failing. ie treat online broadcasting like a 3rd media streaming source for fresh content instead of treating it like a red headed step child to the cable & sat companies.

I don't pay for Hulu, because I found it was kind of redundant when I already have Netflix. I tried Hulu first before I went with netflix.

Cable/Sat companies are regional.. (Sat of course has a bit broader coverage to remote areas)

Meanwhile the internet is world wide.

Would you ever offer up a porn site for just the US and exclude the rest of the countries of the world that have the ability to be billed? Seems like a silly idea doesn't it..

Buy a season pass for newer shows on iTunes (for example). Then you'll be no more than a day or so behind those who watch them on television.

There are plenty of ways to get good up to date content on the Internet, you need to pay for it.

Most TV stations embrace the web, especially in countries like Australia, they also offer catch up TV for viewers in many instances.

Yeah the sense of entitlement reeks through each of his posts.

Various ways you can get shows more quickly:

1. iTunes and similar services. Buy a season pass to the show, download and enjoy.
2. Wait for the DVD Box set and buy that.
3. Watch it on TV, subscribe to the channel or expand your Pay TV subscriptions

Correct and this is precisely why shows aren't just released onto the Internet at the same time for everyone. Different countries & regions show programming at different times. They're not going to cannibalise their own product by making it globally available before regions have had the chance to put it to air.

One day the middle man will be cut out - just isn't the time yet. But when that day comes when an HBO thinks it can make more profit on its own selling directly to its customers it will happen. HBO gets 7 dollars per subscriber, roughly half of what the subscriber pays the cable company for HBO. The formula has worked out great for them. They aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them until they have very good $$$ reasons. And offering an Internet version of HBO would certainly be biting the hand that feeds them.

HBO has a simple job now, produce and buy great programs. The cable companies pay for everything else, the marketing costs, all the hardware and engineering crap that goes into cable. Going it alone would be a huge undertaking. It's why the big sports leagues are and for a long time still will continue selling their broadcasting rights to the networks and cable. But they are inching toward a day when they will cut out the middle man.

What I always wonder about is do the cable and satellite companies shave the cable channels like HBO. Do the cable companies give them the names/addresses of every one of the 28 million HBO subscribers?

I would probably pay for HBO GO as a standalone service like Netflix if it worked on more devices and they rotated a lot more movies in than they do.
The fact that they have their entire library of shows online is very, very cool.