PSA: Dish Network Dropping MASN 4/1/2021

[baloriole4]

1 minute ago, baloriole4 said:

double post

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by baloriole4
double post

[rm5678]

6 hours ago, drjohnnyfeva said:

 

Weren't they supposed to have they app up by now anyway? 

The original announcement said the app would be up & running by Opening Day. There have been no updates since then.

[VaBird1]

42 minutes ago, rm5678 said:

The original announcement said the app would be up & running by Opening Day. There have been no updates since then.

When I asked it sounded like it will be ready for opening day, not before.

[DrungoHazewood]

19 hours ago, baloriole4 said:

No way.   The value of all of it for MASN (aka the Orioles) is to have the cable network and sell the 'carriage' to the cable and satellite companies for the monthly carriage fee PER SUBSCRIBER.  EXAMPLE -- Let's say you have Comcast and 20 of the other 23 houses in your neighborhood (in MD, DC, VA, NC, DE, WV, southcentral PA) have Comcast, and the other three houses have DirectTV.  But of the 24 total houses in your neighbhorhood, only 5 of the 24 houses ever turn on MASN in a given month --- well, it doesn't matter because every Comcast household, every DirectTV household, etc, that service provider pays MASN a monthly fee for every single household in the MASN territory.  (and its 12 months per year!!    MASN has trash programming from October through March, so much so that its very possible to go the entire fall and winter with ever turning MASN on, yet MASN still gets the monthly carriage fee for every single household that gets MASN, whether that household ever turns on the station or now).    Having an RSN on a cable or satellite system is printing money.    That's probably also why MASN stopped simulcasting those 50 or 60 games on WJZ -- push everyone to cable and suck up the monthly carriage fees (instead of buying the time on WJZ to broadcast those games). 

Except now 11 or 15 of the houses in your neighborhood have cut the cord and use Hulu, Neflix, or YouTube or whatever to watch what they want without paying monthly RSN fees.

[baloriole4]

14 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Except now 11 or 15 of the houses in your neighborhood have cut the cord and use Hulu, Neflix, or YouTube or whatever to watch what they want without paying monthly RSN fees.

Absolutely.  That's the whole other wrinkle that there are many less households that get MASN than years ago, thus less carriage fees than in the 2000s when MASN started.   But still, and RSN is key, and why MASN wants to have all of the broadcasts on the RSN and not on an over-the-air station

[DrungoHazewood]

8 hours ago, baloriole4 said:

Absolutely.  That's the whole other wrinkle that there are many less households that get MASN than years ago, thus less carriage fees than in the 2000s when MASN started.   But still, and RSN is key, and why MASN wants to have all of the broadcasts on the RSN and not on an over-the-air station

MLB has to be concerned about the math.  Let's say for the sake of argument that MASN has 5 million subscribers, or did five years ago.  I don't know what the real number is.  And let's say they each pay $5 a month for MASN, or $60 a year.  That's $25M a month, or $300M a year.

But let's say 20% of those subscribers are actively watching MASN, and would pay to see the Orioles/Nats on a streaming service.  So if they lose half of their cable/satellite subscribers (2.5M in this hypothetical), they get 500k of them back on streaming.  To make the revenues even out they have to charge the streamers $25 a month, or $300 a year.  If the streaming rate is 10% instead of 20% the cost has to be $50 a month/$600 a year to make the math work.  If it's 5% it's $100 a month, $1200 a year.  And that doesn't consider that almost no one (aside from people who're too lazy to cancel) would subscribe to MASN from October-February.

What's MLB.tv's single-team plan cost? $110 a year?  If that's where they set the MASN cost they won't even remotely approach their current revenues if they lose many cable/satellite subscribers.

Whatever the numbers are, I find it difficult to believe that any team is going to increase real revenues by switching from compulsory RSN fees to streaming.  Most will lose money.  But it will be smaller losses than if they take the path of not having a streaming option at all, because cord cutting will continue.

[Aglets]

39 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

MLB has to be concerned about the math.  Let's say for the sake of argument that MASN has 5 million subscribers, or did five years ago.  I don't know what the real number is.  And let's say they each pay $5 a month for MASN, or $60 a year.  That's $25M a month, or $300M a year.

But let's say 20% of those subscribers are actively watching MASN, and would pay to see the Orioles/Nats on a streaming service.  So if they lose half of their cable/satellite subscribers (2.5M in this hypothetical), they get 500k of them back on streaming.  To make the revenues even out they have to charge the streamers $25 a month, or $300 a year.  If the streaming rate is 10% instead of 20% the cost has to be $50 a month/$600 a year to make the math work.  If it's 5% it's $100 a month, $1200 a year.  And that doesn't consider that almost no one (aside from people who're too lazy to cancel) would subscribe to MASN from October-February.

What's MLB.tv's single-team plan cost? $110 a year?  If that's where they set the MASN cost they won't even remotely approach their current revenues if they lose many cable/satellite subscribers.

Whatever the numbers are, I find it difficult to believe that any team is going to increase real revenues by switching from compulsory RSN fees to streaming.  Most will lose money.  But it will be smaller losses than if they take the path of not having a streaming option at all, because cord cutting will continue.

Have you heard about our exciting new MASN streaming app?   Coming to Roku on or around April 1st?

The future is now!

All you need is a streaming device, (and a MASN cable subscription), and you can stream as much as you want in-network!    

It's the best of both worlds if you think about it.

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, Aglets said:

Have you heard about our exciting new MASN streaming app?   Coming to Roku on or around April 1st?

The future is now!

All you need is a streaming device, (and a MASN cable subscription), and you can stream as much as you want in-network!    

It's the best of both worlds if you think about it.

It's truly an exciting time to be alive.

In related news, I now get four phone calls a day from ATT/Directv begging me to come back after dropping them in December.  A handful of times I stayed on the line long enough to tell them I'd gladly come back if they halved their prices and added a bunch of content I can only get online, but they've declined so far.  So I do not have a MASN cable subscription...

[Aglets]

They should run new ads promoting the app.

The MASN streaming app is perfect for those willing to pay for cable, but UNwilling (or unable!) to sit in front of their home TV.

There must be dozens of people who feel entrapped by having to watch on their big screen at home.

[DrungoHazewood]

19 minutes ago, Aglets said:

They should run new ads promoting the app.

The MASN streaming app is perfect for those willing to pay for cable, but UNwilling (or unable!) to sit in front of their home TV.

There must be dozens of people who feel entrapped by having to watch on their big screen at home.

Have you ever met a 13-year-old?  My middle school aged boys will often sit in front of our 65" 4K TV with it on a program they chose, while watching something else the 5" screens on their phones.  It's the 2021 version of picture-in-picture (remember when that was a thing?).

[eddie83]

Another part of this equation is not ticking off the cable and satellite providers. You offer an app that offers everything those companies don’t want people dropping them because they no longer need cable/Sat to watch games.  
 

It is a delicate balance. The RSN fee is a only a small part of the money cable/sat providers make off of customers. It’s more of an enticement to keep your service for some people. 

You also want to reach as many eyeballs as possible. Many people who watch the Ravens aren’t die hard sports fans. They are the local team. You want to have mass appeal not just to fanatics. 

[TWpj]

4 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Have you ever met a 13-year-old?  My middle school aged boys will often sit in front of our 65" 4K TV with it on a program they chose, while watching something else the 5" screens on their phones.  It's the 2021 version of picture-in-picture (remember when that was a thing?).

We picked up our 12 year old a Roku tv on sale for his room, it’s not 65” but it’s probably as large as the ‘main’ tv we had growing up. He only watches YouTube and games anyhow so it’s perfect right? 99% of the time I stick my nose in his room he’s laying in bed watching YouTube on his phone. 

 

Me: You know you can literally watch the same thing on that tv there right?

Him: Yup

Me: So why aren’t you?

Him: