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By David Rothman

Quick! Which media-related companies are about as popular as tax collectors on April 15?

Comcast and cable brethren. You’ve heard of the sleeping Comcast service guys. And that’s just the start of it. Here in Alexandria, VA, the lines can stretch forever when you need your cable box replaced. People also hate cable gouges, the topic of more than a few irate congressional speeches from genuine reformers. The cable industry offers valuable public services via CSPAN, BookTV and the like, but if the cable monopolies couldn’t buy off congress with campaign donations, there’d be a lot more competition. My own nirvana would be long-range broadband wireless everywhere, with far, far more choices for content providers and consumers alike.

Dumb proposal from Mark Cuban, who should know better

imageSo I’m more than a little disappointed to see Mark Cuban, normally more astute, proposing that newspapers knock "on the doors of cable and satellite providers offering their subscribers exclusive access to the online versions of their newspapers. That’s right, the New York Times should be going to CableVision, Time Warner, Comcast, Charter, Directv, Verizon, ATT, Echostar et al, and offer to each that for 25c per month for those subscribers in the New York area, and for 5 c per month for those outside the immediate NYCity area, their subscribers will get exclusive access to the NY Times Online. Non subscribers will get what Wall Street Journal non subscribers get today, access to some content, but not the most timely or valuable content."

Rotten deals inevitable for both subscribers and newspapers

Given cable companies’ existing track record, would this be good for either cable subscribers or newspapers? If arrangements were exclusive, I’d find the cable companies to be highly untrustworthy.

A better way—with an e-book angle

But without exclusivity, I can see cable companies getting more into Net-related areas and maybe even offering really simple e-book readers that would also work for newspapers. Yes, there could be fair compensation for cable companies, and a number of newspapers and books could be offered through subscription, with purchase arrangements for the latter. But retreat from the open Web? Bad mistake.

Reminder: Cuban controls a high-def TV network. Would he have written the same blog item if he didn’t? Could personal business interests be a factor here?

(Found via Jon Noring.)

 
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