MultiChoice not blocking Netflix, video streaming in SA

And I am sure some months back I mentioned in another thread that VOD will come within 14 months and be offered via FTTH - things are evolving quicker than I thought. Someone is going to eat humble pie (or a hat) :whistle:
 
Good to hear and get that clarification. Brings some kinda relief
 
Good to hear - people keep going on how Multichoice have everything tied down; while this might be true for sports, it's nice to know the competition can get any movie/series they want if they can pay for it. Now we must stop moaning at Multichoice for charging so much for it, and start asking the competition why they don't have it available for purchase cheaper than on DSTV :)
 
Chevron said:
They buy exclusive agreements though. And limited content producers it just pushes costs up.
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Once there's some competition, the issue of exclusivity goes away - if 3 or 4 guys go to, say, HBO and want Game of Thrones, Multichoice would have to pay 3-4x the going rate to secure that exclusivity, else HBO would rather just sell to everyone and make more money.

When there's enough competition, at some point, even Multichoice loses the option of exclusivity. That's the "BUT" though... BUT it has to reach that tipping point.
 
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TimTDP said:
I thought competition brought prices down!
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akescpt said:
not in south Africa...
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One would think it's obvious...

When buying tv content you and many other content buyers buy the same frikken thing - demand pushes price up. Think auctions or adwords (ppc).
With VOD it gets more expensive - you buy that same already high priced content to air within a certain window, the closer that window is from release date, the higher by default the price is.
That is a hell of a lot different then say 3 suppliers trying to sell you a similar mass produced product - this drives prices down.
 
JustAsk said:
One would think it's obvious...

When buying tv content you and many other content buyers buy the same frikken thing - demand pushes price up. Think auctions or adwords (ppc).
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Your analogy is wrong. You're right in a an auction demand pushes prices up - but in an auction you sell a single instance of an item to the highest bidder (in adwords case, it's a one-off piece of screen real estate, in a content sense, it'd be exclusive rights). If you're selling the same content to many people, the price per unit goes down as you get more buyers, and your profit margin goes up. You want as many people as possible to buy that content from you, so you push the price down. It's a more sustainable and safer business model to have more customers. Eggs in baskets, and all that!
 
elvis_presley said:
Once there's some competition, the issue of exclusivity goes away - if 3 or 4 guys go to, say, HBO and want Game of Thrones, Multichoice would have to pay 3-4x the going rate to secure that exclusivity, else HBO would rather just sell to everyone and make more money.

When there's enough competition, at some point, even Multichoice loses the option of exclusivity. That's the "BUT" though... BUT it has to reach that tipping point.
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I think you're under estimating the costs:

Netflix Spends $1 Million Per Episode of 'Mad Men' for Streaming Rights

And that was 3 years ago.
 
Some real Multichoice Employees/Supporters in this thread..
 
Chevron said:
I think you're under estimating the costs:

Netflix Spends $1 Million Per Episode of 'Mad Men' for Streaming Rights

And that was 3 years ago.
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Netflix isn't a good example - it's common knowledge that they have to pay a GIGANTIC premium to get their content, because all the broadcasters are scared of them. Reed Hastings said he'd give HBO a blank cheque for Game of Thrones, but HBO said no.

You are right that this stuff isn't cheap, but it can't be THAT expensive - DSTV has streaming rights to many of their series (as they make them available on their online catchup service) - so either DSTV really is overpriced and content isn't THAT expensive, or content is that expensive and DSTV are reasonably priced.

I'm hoping that DSTV *IS* overpriced, else there's very little hope for a competitor to emerge.
 
elvis_presley said:
Netflix isn't a good example - it's common knowledge that they have to pay a GIGANTIC premium to get their content, because all the broadcasters are scared of them. Reed Hastings said he'd give HBO a blank cheque for Game of Thrones, but HBO said no.

You are right that this stuff isn't cheap, but it can't be THAT expensive - DSTV has streaming rights to many of their series (as they make them available on their online catchup service) - so either DSTV really is overpriced and content isn't THAT expensive, or content is that expensive and DSTV are reasonably priced.

I'm hoping that DSTV *IS* overpriced, else there's very little hope for a competitor to emerge.
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Content is priced according to market size. SA tiny market so it's cheaper.
 
Chevron said:
Content is priced according to market size. SA tiny market so it's cheaper.
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There you go then - Netflix being the biggest service of this type in the world certainly isn't a good example. My point stands - if DSTV is such a ripoff, and they have the streaming agreements already, competitors should easily be able to aggressively undercut them. Personally I don't think it's that easy, even though most these forumites seem to think it is.
 
Chevron said:
Content is priced according to market size. SA tiny market so it's cheaper.
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It's also charged on what people are willing to pay. Take R5 DVDs in China. And also look at price differentials for different editions.

Compare Thai, Korean, Japanese, US and European releases on DVD. You'll find Japanese DVDs will always be most expensive, followed by Scandinavian, with the rest in between and US and finally Thai/Indian/Chinese/Vietnamese the cheapest. These are legit releases.

That's the original rationale for the different DVD/BD regions. Cheap Asian DVDs (official ones) were put in a different region to Europe, US and Japan to protect those markets.
 
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