By LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer
PASADENA, Calif. (July 12, 2002 8:15 p.m. EDT) - (link)Television viewers could face paying for channels they now receive free if digital video recorders kill commercials, said Jamie Kellner, chairman of Turner Broadcasting System.
The wider use of systems like TiVo and ReplayTV, which allow viewers to easily skip through commercials, would force a change in how broadcast and basic cable television is supported, Kellner said Friday.
"Don't think for a moment there's a free lunch involved in this," Kellner told the Television Critics Association. Viewers could end up paying about $250 a year above any cable or satellite fees, he said, based on his own rough calculation.
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I hope that TBS and all other television broadcasters do in fact begin to make noise about ending "free" television broadcasting. For to do so will give lie to the farce that it is in the "public interest" that commercial television broadcasters are allowed to use prime sections of incredibly valuable spectrum without fees or other payment! You see, the argument that the television broadcasters have made with Congress and the FCC for the continued use of their spectrum without payment is that they will continue to offer their programming free of charge (at least some of it, but that's another story) in return for not being subject to fees for the use of the spectrum that they occupy.
So... no free programming, no free spectrum? Mr. Kellner and the other broadcasting "skipping the television advertisements are bad" crowd oh-so-conveniently ignore this delicate subject. I suspect that's because to do so that would enter into the ugly reality that 1) the vast majority of current viewers simply would not be willing to pay anything to view the dreck that is the majority of commercial broadcast television, and 2) even the specter of being subject to fees for their spectrum completely wrecks the economics of commercial broadcast television.
Blessedly there are gems among the programming mud of commercial broadcast television, and digital video recorders such as Tivo and Replay TV allow viewers to record and condense their viewing to watch only those gems during the increasingly few hours that they're willing to devote to watching commercial broadcast television. To me, this is just another case of digital technology empowering the individual... and in the process causing wrenching change to industries that don't "lead the trend." The music industry "led the trend" in the change to digital formats by coming out with Compact Discs and did well - people largely repurchased their LP and casette music collections to get the CD versions. Conversely, the music industry is now having wrenching change imposed, having not "led the trend" to online distribution of music.
The trend in commercial broadcast television is unmistakable - every purchase of a digital video recorder is a "vote with one's wallet" for (watching) only the better programs (whichever one's taste dictates those are.) If commercial broadcanst television wants to remain relevant, it will adapt to this new reality of the digital video recorder. To attempt to fight the digital video recorder trend is to be rendered irrelevant.
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