bluepenguin
06-03-2010, 03:30 PM
There's certainly no shortage of big fights brewing in media-land with two of the biggest swirling around (a) the next big "thing" in TV; and (b) those always touchy programming costs.
To start with the latter, watch for a whole lot of yelling this fall as News Corp deals with Cablevision and DISH come due and as Disney squares off against some of its key customers. The one to watch closely is Time Warner Cable's midnight Sept. 1 deadline to come to a new agreement with Disney. That, of course, means ESPN (among many others) and, according to the New York Post, Disney is looking for a high single-digit percentage increase in its monthly sub fees. ESPN already pulls in around $4.40/sub (waaay the highest in the biz) so you can expect some fireworks.
Meanwhile, on the next big tech to-do, the topic du jour is whether Google or Apple will be the next TV game changer. Both are moving in on the TV/Web space with digerati dithering over whose approach could win the war. So far Google gets points for the best TV/Web merger mix. Apple gets points for smaller and lower cost via a rumored ~ $100 mini-connector using the iPhone OS with 6GB of Flash storage supporting 1080P HD and video streaming from the internet. Both are hammered over questions of whether programmers will cooperate. Which sounds to us like the really key question
To start with the latter, watch for a whole lot of yelling this fall as News Corp deals with Cablevision and DISH come due and as Disney squares off against some of its key customers. The one to watch closely is Time Warner Cable's midnight Sept. 1 deadline to come to a new agreement with Disney. That, of course, means ESPN (among many others) and, according to the New York Post, Disney is looking for a high single-digit percentage increase in its monthly sub fees. ESPN already pulls in around $4.40/sub (waaay the highest in the biz) so you can expect some fireworks.
Meanwhile, on the next big tech to-do, the topic du jour is whether Google or Apple will be the next TV game changer. Both are moving in on the TV/Web space with digerati dithering over whose approach could win the war. So far Google gets points for the best TV/Web merger mix. Apple gets points for smaller and lower cost via a rumored ~ $100 mini-connector using the iPhone OS with 6GB of Flash storage supporting 1080P HD and video streaming from the internet. Both are hammered over questions of whether programmers will cooperate. Which sounds to us like the really key question