[mythtv-users] Data Direct Subscription Expires?

[Bruce Markey]

Brad Templeton wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 03, 2005 at 03:53:24PM -0800, Bruce Markey wrote:
> 
>>>And the stations have very little interest in providing accurate
>>>listing data to people who don't watch their commercials.   Myth
>>
>>The stations report their schedules to the listings service,
>>period. They do not provide accurate data for the listings services
>>paying customers and inaccurate info to give to end consumers =).
> 
> 
> What I mean is, it is in the station's interests to report listing data
> for viewers who will watch the show with commercials, such as those
> who read listings in the newspaper and TV Guide, and those using
> dedicated guides like the on-screen displays of satellite and cable
> companies.  (The latter sometimes include vcr control, but it's a minor
> use compared to PVR uses.)

I know that is what you meant and is exactly what I meant to
call into question. There isn't a good version and a bad version
of the data to give out to the good people and bad people. The
stations simply report one version of their schedules to the
companies that they pay to distribute the listings data. The
listings service has no interest in segregating who receives
the data. Their mission is to claim the highest number of
eyeballs.

The stations want to get the data to as many people as possible
in hopes of higher ratings and higher commercial rates. The
listings services want to show big numbers to charge the stations.
The ones that should be concerned about whether people watch
commercials (they don't BTW ;-) are the advertisers. If they
believed there was some reason to discriminate, they should
also try to screw over people with weak bladders who go to
the bathroom during the commercials.

Not all DataDirect users have DVRs. Not all DVR users skip all
commercials. Not all TV viewers watch all commercials (flip
channels, leave the room, etc.). The impact of DVRs is part of
the overall statistics of the effectiveness of TV ads and is
something that Nielsen, advertisers and and station's fee
structures need to address. However, I just think it's paranoia
to jump to the conclusion that the listings services want
to punish certain classes of users. They don't. They get paid
to promote the lineups. CBS wants you to know when CSI is on
whether or not you own a DVR. If a listing service refused to
do the job they are being paid to do, somebody else will do
the job instead.

> My point is, it makes the opposite of sense for them to want the data
> to be sold to paper users and given away to PVR users.   They would
> much rather it be the other way around.

It is the inverse of illogical non-sense to think that 'they'...
Now I'm lost. Listings services exist to get the word out. The
partnerships exist, I assume, to recoup some costs but mostly
to provide support, service and to hold someone financially
accountable for any disruption in service.

I think the confusion comes from the idea that TV listings are
something that you want and therefore something that you should
pay for or it will be withheld from you. Not true. Stations are
promoting their lineups and the listings services are an avenue
to get that information out. Listings will always, always, always
be available and listings services won't want to try to withhold
them nor could they succeed (whatever that means) if they wanted
to. TV listings are no more likely to be taken away from you then
Greenwich putting the clamps down on all that free correct time
you've been receiving without looking at their popups.

> In addition, it is in their interests to not report precise showtimes
> to tapers and PVR users when shows start a minute early or late.  They
> want to discourage watching without commercials, and encourage watching
> the commercials around the fringes of programs.

Well that's another issue but note that this would be in the
one and only version of the reported schedules. These appear
in printed copies and not sent as an exception for certain
customers. 

Next, it is most certainly not "in their interests" to do this
but poorly thought out experiments that highlight the stupidity
of the morons that make these decisions. The idea appears to be
that they may have thought they could force schedulers in simple
DVRs to record their shows and force an overlap so that the
users would not see a competitors show since the users couldn't
fix the overlap. Myth, of course, allows negative offsets. The
folly of this is that the opposite is just as likely to happen.
Their shows may not get recorded due to the overlap and their
sponsor's ads then have no possibility of being seen (and BTW,
a recorded program with the ads that might be seen is better
than the user never seeing the program at all).

On the other hand, if anyone thought that by jerking around the
schedule, users would decide that 'a DVR is a bad idea because
NBC might screw me over so I better watch Live TV from now on
so I don't miss anything', then they are truly hopeless fools.

>>>users are worse than Tivo users as they have automatic commercial
>>>skip.
>>
>>Data is gathered and distributed. There is no such distinction.
> 
> 
> But there is.  They know what data goes to newspaper, what goes to
> cable companies, to Tivo, to Replay and to datadirect/Mythtv users.
> They may not be making any distinction at present, but they can make
> it, and will make it if they see it as being in their interests.

Their interest is number of eyeballs (http://biz.zap2it.com/history.html
if you don't believe me). The station's interest is Nielsen rating
(should be self-evident). The idea that someone wants to segregate
and screw over seems more like irrational fear than any practical
strategy. How would they choose to harm DVR users and to what end?
Retaliation for the fact that they wish DVRs didn't exist? For me,
it just doesn't add up.

>>That's moot. They are in the business of distributing data not
>>preventing distribution. If they didn't want individuals to get
> 
> 
> They are in the business of making the most money from the role they
> play.

The role they play is to distribute listings. If they turn away
recipients, they reduce their reach and can not command high fees.

>>DD is not a for MythTV only thing. If it was attributed to one
>>applications it would be XMLTV.
> 
> 
> Aren't PVRs like Myth and BeyondTV etc. the biggest users of XMLTV
> and datadirect?   By far the biggest users?

Good question. I have no idea. I do know that there are a lot
of other applications that used XMLTV for purposes other than
scheduling data for DVRs. I have no idea what the proportions
or numbers are like or how to possibly figure this out. But I
do know who does know this. Tribune Media Service Entertainment
Products has done a fairly exhaustive study of precisely how
many users use their data for which specific applications. I
bet they even know the number of users per capita in the 18-34
age range in urban areas west of the Mississippi that use MythTV
with a subscription cable service. That's something they didn't
used to know. Maybe you should ask them instead of me ;-).

>>* So rather than just assuming this, I decided to find out for
>>a fact if stations pay the listings services. I called a couple
>>local network affiliates and got voice mail for the person who
>>knows at each of them. However, when I asked my local PBS station,
>>KLVX, if they pay to have their listing go to Gemstar and TMS, I
>>was told (emphatically ;-) that they absolutely and pay and that
>>they "go through TRAC Media" (http://www.tracmedia.org/).
> 
> 
> TRAC media is devoted to public television, so I am not sure what
> this says about the rest of the situation.

Oh, nothing in particular. I didn't include this as some evidence
of something. I just thought it was interesting that not only do
they require the listing services but they even out-source the 
interface with the services.

> However, if the stations do indeed pay Tribune Media to put the data
> in and the media companies (newspapers, Tivo etc.) pay to get it out,
> then they've got a sweet little deal going.

See, this is what I've believed all along. Don't know if I'd
heard it somewhere or if it was just obvious to me. The way
advertising generally works is that a company with a product
or service pays to get the message out to potential customers.
In this case, it is the networks that are paying someone,
anyone, to tell the home viewers what's on and this is an
opportunity that lead to TV Guide (I claim no specific knowledge
about the history of Genstar =).

I can't imagine a business model where some company went around
begging stations for data in hopes of selling it to newspapers
just for the TV listings on the entertainment page. I believe
the re-distributer agreements would be secondary and have more
to do with support and accountability and for the listing
service to track the reach of the partner. It just doesn't
seem that valuable to newspapers to pay a lot for this feature
in hopes of increasing their circulation. On the other hand,
it is very valuable to stations to get their schedules out
into the hands of everyone who owns a TV.

> However, it doesn't suggest they will want to give it to us for free
> forever.   If they feel they could charge, I think they will.  They
> will, in any event, charge _somebody_ as they are not philanthropists.

Right, they are not which is why I've been trying to point out
that they want to do this for their own selfish reasons. They
will not discourage circulation and lessen their clout with
the TV station that they are charging. I honestly believe that
they will never charge as it is counter-productive to their
mission to serve their primary customers.

> I am concerned about the suggestion they would charge the stations for
> feeding the PVR users data so the PVR users can watch commercial free,
> it just isn't in the station's interests to subsidize that.

Sounds like a good argument on paper for why users should feel
afraid but it doesn't add up. Stations cannot force people to
not use DVRs by telling the services to withhold data from them.
The stations pay once to get their one schedule out to as many
people as possible and couldn't benefit from trying to keep this
information out of the hands of DVR users.

--  bjm