MidtownTVguy said:
There are serious credibility issues with these claims. It sounds more like someone's wishlist. Perhaps they will pick up the Voom HD nets, but who cares? Rainbow is willing to give that crap to anyone who will carry it. Verizon can't even get their programming deals completed with the likes of Disney, Viacom & Fox. And there is no way In Demand is going to provide anything exclusive to Verizon--In Demand is owned by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox.
And NFL is tied-up with DirecTV on an exclusive basis. Period.
Your only right about Voom being willing to give away the Voom21 suite. Other than that your shall we say way off. Now what makes you so sure that Verizon doesn't have deals in place today (not announced) with Viacom. Now I say this because unlike your statement Verizon does indeed have an official press release stating that they have a deal in place with Disney right now which covers all Disney channels including both ABC and ESPN. I can also say that as of Friday afternoon Verizon now has a deal with Fox in place and you will hear about this most likely on Monday. A press released also stated that Fox was about 99% done on their contract with Verizon. Now all that is left is Viacom and nothing official is out on this but I can indeed say that they are 90+% done and you will hear about the Viacom deal on a Verizon press release within the next week to two weeks. You can mark my words on this. So the only player they don't officially have today is Viacom unlike the bad information you just stated because you didn't bother to check a Verizon website.
Now your second rant about InHD happens to be one of the deals that Verizon has in place just not announced and in case you wanted to know Verizon payed a package deal for all InDemand based offerings and yes they paid more for InHD than DirecTV or Dish wanted to pay. Again they decided to pay the piper instead of pissing around and guess what they are still cheaper or at least no more expensive offering way more.
Now your third rant about InDemand not allowing Verizon todo this HDTV stuff should be answered as follows. Verizon will foot nearly all the bills for this. InDemand would be doing very little (very few expenses) while both getting money from Verizon and the HDTV feeds free for their sports package customers. They will also expand the InHD sports offerings which only increases their subscribers and this results in more companies paying the piper. What you fail to understand about companies is that they feel one way today and another tommorrow depending on which way the money flows. If InDemand can get more money by doing this compared to trying to make it exclusive they will. Also keep in mind that Verizon, DirecTV and Dish Network were all interested in taking InDemand to court over the unfair pricing of InHD. Now keep in mind that InDemand would lose this case and would have to pay all the court costs and a settlement for lost customers due to these practices. Now facter in the wallets you have going against you and who those wallets know in high places.
Again if you had access to the information I and others on here know you would have a much better understanding about future issues and plans.
Now onto your last rant about DirecTV never allowing the cable companies to have NFL Sunday ticket I'll answer below.
You are partly correct in that yes DirecTV won't ever allow cable companies to have access to NFL Sunday Ticket. Now your wrong in thinking that DirecTV won't sell other cable companies the right to NFL Sunday Ticket. Again you must understand the difference between access and paying because they mean very two different things. You also must keep in mind this viewpoint below.
What if DirecTV starts losing NFL Sunday Ticket customers. What if the price point greatly slows new customers getting this package. As we know DirecTV uses this package to try and get new DirecTV customers and they pretty much lose money on the package hoping to make it up in two years because they buy other DirecTV programming. Now again lets say they aren't getting new customers and they are losing customers. Now as we know this is a bad and wicked combo to have considering how you make money with this package. So if DirecTV accepts that they can't gain more new directv customers with this package why wouldn't they consider selling the package to other providers to make up their losses. The feeds are on satellites so DirecTV doesn't have any extra costs at all so any money they make is pretty much pure profit and I'm sure both CBS and Fox will get some of that money.
Again in the past DirecTV could make more short and long term money by being the only company to offer it but times have and do change and this is one of them. They can't continue to lose money so they must try something. Again if by having this package to themselves doesn't give them the advantage anymore why wouldn't they sell the package and make money that way.
I know I keep repeating myself but again until you understand that money and politics are everything in this business you will never have a clue unless people set you straight.
Now with all this said please do not take this the wrong way but next time trying looking at things from the point of view of what a company might do in certain situations before you start saying to someone (who by the way does have contacts at News Corp, DirecTV and Verizon and in many cases has proven himself) that what they say will never happen.
When all this happens and occurs I'll just be glad to know that I was right and that consumers might actually benefit from something for once.
. I think the fiber cable fight will be much more long and drawn out if texas is a model of things to come. There's too many rules and too bureacracy involved that is individual to each state. It would be awesome though if they pull it off.
