WayOutWest wrote:no97 wrote: the BTN could televise every single BTHC game, every year and not have a single advertiser, not have a single person tune in and THEY WOULD STILL MAKE MONEY BY STARTING A HOCKEY CONFERENCE if they do what everyone expects and raise subscriber fees. Get it now?
Sure. Following your logic
the BTN can raise subscriber fees at their discretion with no chance of repercussions. It would be a perfect plan, if it happened to be true.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the BTN, like any other cable network, DOES NOT write their own ticket. Viewership rates drive those subscriber rates, and if there is a substandard product being offerred, the BTN will not be justified in raising them. Sorry, Bright Eyes, but whoever told you that the BTN could virtually print money, got that story off the same shelf as Alice in Wonderland. You aren't Alice, herself, are you? That might explain some things...........
Funny, I remember paying ~ $20 a month for cable TV back in the day, don't you? How much is your package now? I'm over $100 a month for my satellite package with over 100 HD channels, DVR, movie channels, 3 rooms, sports package, etc. Even still, they pulled FSN for about a month over a contract dispute back in the Fall. Sure, Dish Network had the upper hand, in that they withheld the channel from me (and the money from Fox), but I complained enough (and demanded a rebate - which they provided) that the dispute didn't last very long. And guess what? My bill went up the next month. Why do you think that is? Because Fox demanded less money?
And, to further clarify, it doesn't matter what people watch. If a channel has ONE show that people care about, that's all that matter. * How many people watched Northwestern @ Illinois softball on BTN today? If that was all the channel showed, no one would care. But take the BTN away (especially in the fall or winter) and how many people would call their provider and bitch up a storm that they are missing football or basketball. Half you Gopher rubes would plop a brick if all those football games weren't on TV anywhere, right? Then what choice does (insert your cable/satellite provider) have about paying a larger fee, even if it's due to hockey?
* Hell, Dish Network basically charges $6 a month for that NFL Red Zone channel, and that thing is literally on for only 7 hours every Sunday during football season. Seriously, if I turn it on any other day it tells me to check back when there is programming. The BTN could do the same and save itself the cost of running stuff that no one watches (they're running reports on spring football EVERY night for crying out loud - how many people are watching that?), but instead, they're putting on programming and making the customer pay - and the thing about sports is that people are vocal when they either don't get what they want, or get their team taken away.
Really, take away some channel that you watch one show on (maybe its the NASA channel, or the Military Network) and are you gonna call your provider and go ballistic? No, but take away the BTN and your Gopher football or basketball (let alone your Buckeye football if you're in Ohio), and the phone lines light up like a Christmas tree. And it's not like your provider is sitting there saying, "well, people watch that channel for football, so we'll pay your $.75 in Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec, but we'll only pay $.25 the rest of the year..." No, they pay year round for programming that's only on for 3-4 months of the year.
Seriously, how is it you don't understand how this works? Oh, that's right, you're an ignorant, dense moron. I forgot.