Paying For Content

It’s happening again.

Just about everyone has been impacted by now with the wars that have developed between those that own content, those that deliver content, and those that receive content.

My latest problem is with the video coverage of my beloved Missouri Tigers.

This weekend, CBS (which has the rights to the their # 1 selected SEC game every weekend, and their # 2 game on their selected weekends) is passing on the # 14 ranked Tigers hosting the # 22 ranked Florida Gators. Mizzou is the top team in the SEC East, but that didn’t matter to the CBS game pickers.

ESPN has the rights to the next 3 SEC games, and they also passed on the MIzzou game. The result? I wasn’t sure if I would be able to watch the game or not.

Good news, though: the fledgling SEC network is syndicating the game to 300+ TV stations across the country (no national network picked up the game). I finally found a list of those stations, and it is here. For me, I have to watch the game on channel 56, KDOC-TV out of Anaheim. It’s a station once known for professional wrestling and roller derby. Now, it’s a sports station airing football games that CBS and ESPN don’t want.

Thank goodness.

I’m not a victim: I get to watch the game I want to watch. There’s a lot of people that won’t be so fortunate. They may have to watch CBS’s twin pick of the week: # 15 Georgia (that Mizzou just beat) at the unranked Vanderbilt, and # 24 Auburn at # 7 Texas A&M. I believe both of those games will be totally uninteresting. I’ve run around the football field at Vanderbilt … but couldn’t care less about those 2 football games.

And here’s news for you: if you are a cable subscriber … or a satellite subscriber … then you are paying to have those CBS games delivered to your home. The ESPN games, too, if you get ESPN. You see, ALL cable subscribers pay, whether they watch football or not. That’s how our system works.

How much are you paying? Those fees are negotiated with each cable system owner, but ESPN’s fees average $4.69 per month. That’s what you pay whether you watch sports or not. The CBS fees are more difficult to figure out, as they include all of the CBS affiliated networks, such as Showtime.

I don’t know how much my Dish Network pays KDOC, but I’m glad they do!

David Byrne, 2006

On another front, today I read an interview with Talking Head’s David Byrne (the voice of the 80s signature hits, “Once in a Lifetime” and “Burning Down the House”). He made the somewhat provocative statement that paying for music content the way we pay for cable content will “suck all creative content out of the world.” The link’s below. Mr. Byrne feels that if we do generic licenses for music, such as we do with Pandora and Spotify, then artists will get the short end of the stick. Record labels will suck up a large portion … and artists starve.

As Mr. Byrne pointed out,