Time Warner Cable and Fox are having a bit of a spat right now over programming. That is, Fox is demanding increased fees for the use of Fox-branded content, including the Fox Network, FX, Speed, Fuel, Fox Movies, Fox Reality, Fox Soccer, and Fox Español.
Time Warner, so far, is refusing to pay those fees. Which means that, unless an agreement in the 11th hour is agreed upon, Fox’s programming will not be seen on Time Warner’s 14 million cable-subscribing households starting on 12:00 A.M on Jan. 1st.
Sadly, this will cut Carmen Electra off in her “New Years Eve Live” show.
To me – this is a no brainer. Time Warner has just been handed a foolproof excuse for getting rid of eight channels off their cable lineup. Analog cable television service consumes 2/3rds of the bandwidth of a typical coaxial cable – those eight analog channels can be repurposed for better VoIP quality on the digital phone offerings, better throughput on the cable Internet offerings, etc.
Would it hurt to lose Fox’s programming? Maybe in the short term. But if Time Warner plays it’s cards right, it can force Fox to return to the bargaining table without analog cable service – limiting it only to digital cable, saving the bandwidth.
Because here’s the real problem: Cable television is incredibly inefficient. Why would you allocate 235 different channels worth of bandwidth when you only watch one channel at any one time? Even a household might watch no more than six or seven channels at once. Ultimately, the best move for the cable companies is to find a way to transmit the programming on-demand, and just-in-time, over the same network technology that data and VoIP service runs on. But doing so requires weaning the content distribution model away from the 1950s era of “one channel, one network.”
I’ll admit that I don’t know much about the specifics of the “television business,” but TW really needs to see itself as a “network business,” providing connectivity, not programming. In that respect, the goal for TW should be to make the most of their infrastructure, and that means starting a transition to all-data sooner rather than later. Fox just gave them the perfect excuse to start the transition.
Of course, they may still come to an agreement to preserve the status quo. Which just means that somebody else will get to make the first move towards the all-network television.
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