EightBlack.

I read with interest today in AdNews that Foxtel has had a cracker of a year. In terms of profits and subscribers.

SYDNEY: Foxtel is showing solid growth in subscribers and profitability, recording a record profit of $76 million for the year ending 30 June 2007.

There are now 1.44 million households subscribing to Foxtel, up 12.4% the previous year. In late 2004, Foxtel had only 500,000 subscribers to its subscription television service.

Surely there can’t be that many bored Australian households out there - can there?

I’m hoping my 6 year old son doesn’t see this article. You see, I cut off Foxtel a few weeks ago, fed up with the nonsense they were palming off as  “football” coverage. I’d been a subscriber for 3-4 years I reckon.

I don’t watch free to air TV (much). But during the football season, I do want to watch the footy. And if we win, I want to watch the replays during the week. A couple of times. The old Fox Footy Channel would let you do that. It also had Grumpy Old Men. And Tiffany Cherry.

My American wife couldn’t for the life of her, understand why someone could possibly want to watch the replay of a football game as soon as they just got home from the very ground where they had just watched it live for the past 2 hours. More perplexing was the fact that why would I want to watch it again and again during the week.

I have tried to tell her that barracking for the Collingwood Football Club is an affliction. A disease. Something requiring a different mental state.

When we lost, I knew she would be quietly celebrating. Same with our kids because everyone knew that the TV remote was theirs.

Anyway, when I told our TV addict of a son that a man was coming to the house to remove the cable box, he was apoplectic.

“But why Dad??”

“Because”.

“But Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“But thats not a reason.”

“Yes, it is. Look - go and play on the road.” Or something like that.

I am convinced that during his first therapy session when he’s 17, that the issue of his mean old man cutting off the cable was the reason he hacked into the Reserve Bank of Canada’s payment clearing system. Or the real reason why and how he managed to get a girl pregnant in the back of Ford Transit Van. Either way I’m screwed.

Call me a simple minded consumer, but I thought the whole rationale behind paying $70-$100 bucks a month for subscription TV was so I wouldn’t be subjected to a barrage of advertising. Watching Foxtel now is virtually indistinguishable from free to air. Actually, truth be told, I’d be prepared to pay more during the footy season for content I wanted. With no ads.

Bring on TiVo. And I’m so glad that IceTV won their case today against Channel 9.

The whole model of subscription content, premium content and free to air has a long way to go in Australia. Unfortunately, the cartel that controls it won’t (or refuses) to let go. And sadly, the consumer is the poor loser.

Not all is bad though. The recently announced merger between NBC Universal and News Corp holds promise. Even if the silly buggers can’t figure out between them how or what to call their website.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 7:14 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.