Blog: John Myers

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Hook 'em Early! And often...

I'll admit it.... I'm an ESPN junkie ( ... wow there's a surprise... )....

Whenever I have made a video service decision in the past 15 years I always start that the tier that ESPN is included on. ESPN is my default homepage. By default I watch ESPN while traveling. I think that ESPN knows this and that I'm not alone.... ESPN has been able to play hardball with cable and satellite operators over my habits for years. Now, it appears that ESPN is starting to play hardball with a new generation of service providers... ISPs.

With ESPN360, ESPN is now attempting to get a per subscriber fee from ISPs or block requests from their customers. As part of this, they are offering the service "free" to those in the .mil and .edu domains. The former is a great PR coup. The latter is about hooking the college age viewer on content and making them a "willing" participant in ESPN's negotiations with the ISPs in 3-5 years.

Personally, I like the move by ESPN. It shows innovation and chutzpah. It also shows that established telecoms might soon have to deal with higher and higher content fees just like cable companies have had to deal with for years.

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Brian Stelter, ESPN, subscriber fees, content costs

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