An alternative to anti-siphoning: unbundling

The federal government's sport anti-siphoning list is in the media today. Bernard Keane pointed out in yesterday's Crikey that it's a giant, anti-competitive con that hands sports broadcasting rights to the free to air TV cartel at the expense of sporting codes, and it doesn't even result in those sports being shown live on free to air TV!

The anti-siphoning list is a populist federal government fudge that purportedly prevents important and iconic sporting events from disappearing onto pay TV platforms. Things like the Melbourne Cup, the NRL and AFL grand finals, the Olympics and Commonwealth Games. The concept, I suppose, might be a good one if you're a fan of those sports. Though ask a Melbourne Storm fan from Melbourne whether they get good coverage down there on free to air TV. After winning the NRL Grand Final, apparently the Melbourne broadcaster switched to the evening news rather than show the local NRL team receiving the trophy.

Of course what this list means is that pay TV operators (that is, Foxtel and Fox Sports) can't bid for these events. One less cashed up bidder means less money for the sporting codes selling the rights. By way of example, the football (round ball kind) A-League was snapped up quickly with a very generous at the time deal to only be shown on Fox Sports.

There's a fundamental problem with the basis of the anti-siphoning concept. It prevents the pay operators from bidding for the primary rights, but doesn't force the free to air players to actually use the rights, or to run the events uninterrupted. So you end up with Seven switching from the Australian Open (on the list) to Home & Away for ratings reasons.

Now I'm an A-League fan. I go to Sydney FC's home matches so I only want to watch the 16 away matches of the season. The cheapest Foxtel package that'll give me the A-League is $60/month on a 12 month contract, with $100 installation. $820 annually to watch 16 games. $51.25 per game.

Unbundling the sports you want to watch

If the aim of the anti-siphoning list is to ensure people aren't prevented from watching the sports they love, perhaps another approach is required. Foxtel insist you buy their "basic" package at $44 even if all you want is the sports channels ($16/month extra). Now once upon a time I suppose they had some fixed delivery costs in the cable or satellite delivery paths. With Internet delivery now an option, a better approach would be to require that there be an option to watch only the sports they want.  I'd be willing to pay $5-10 per game to watch the sport I love. Right now Fox Sports, Foxtel and the A-League make nothing from me for away matches.  Given they only charge $16/month for the sports channels, the A-League component of that would be even smaller, so the $5-10/game could be quite significant.

So how about this Conroy? Instead of an artificial fudge that actually costs the sporting codes money without delivering good sports viewing to fans, how about forcing the rights holders to offer unbundled access to the sports?

ObDisclosure: I work for Telstra, who no doubt would love to have the option of buying sporting rights on the anti-siphoning list. These views are my own, not those of my employer.
Posted

Spam attack

If you seem to have received an email from me about my new Chinese web presence, yes it's spam. Seems to have been some kind of break in on my Google-hosted email.

The emails look like they've gone to everyone who's ever communicated with me. My apologies. I'll try and work out how it happened.

Looks like they got my shermozle at gmail account, though the default from address there is my usual. Bugger.

Hey Telcos, lift your game and stop lying!

Optus have been served a Federal Court injunction preventing them from doing further misleading advertising. Optus is one of the worst in the sneaky behaviour department, with insane amounts of fine print in every piece of marketing they do. Have a look at this quick analysis of their fine print I did a while back, and a quick check shows it's still pretty accurate. Optus aren't, however, alone in this. All telcos have whole departments of people trying to find sneaky ways to legally say one thing when they mean another, to change plans so prospective customers can't compare them with competitors' plans and generally shonky tactics.

Here's a challenge for you, telco marketing people: become the only telco with a "no fine print" rule. Make a big thing of it. Sure, you'll certainly end up with some kind of formal contract, but start with your advertising, marketing and web site. Get a culture where the test becomes "would an ordinary, non-telco employee get the truth from reading this".

I think a telco taking this approach would have a genuine advantage in the marketplace. A significant proportion of the market are sick of lying, sneaky telcos and just want straightforward propositions.

Now I hear you say it's too hard, the ACCC requires us to have all these weasel words and fine print.  I call bullshit.  I've worked on copy writing for telcos, and it's possible to avoid funny symbols pointing to fine print. First up, you have to tell the truth. Difficult, I know, but doable.  Next up you need to find someone in your legal team who can handle being challenged on their calls.  Lawyers are there to give you advice on the legal risk of what you're doing, not lay down what you can and can't say. Push the envelope with them, force them to come up with words you can use that are true and won't get you sued.  It's hard work, but it's actually quite fun!

So how about it Australian telcos?  Is Australia ready for a no-bullshit telco?

ObDisclaimer: I am a contractor for Telstra, though I have barely anything to do with product management or product marketing.  I'm just the dude who collects and crunches the web numbers. My views are my own, not my employers' views.

Why don't we all switch banks?

The Prime Minister is telling angry bank customers to "take their money and their business somewhere else". For your transaction and savings accounts, this is reasonably easy. If you have a mortgage, it's quite difficult.

I attempted to move our transaction accounts to the ING Direct "Orange Everyday" account. It has some very compelling features: no fees from any ATM when you withdraw $200 or more at a time, free EFTPOS cash out for any amount (and they even pay you $0.50 when you get over $200 out this way) and no monthly fees.

The thing that stopped it? Actually it was the Federal Governments anti-money laundering KYC process.  I'd signed up without using Holly's middle name. Her middle name is on her identification. Australia Post would not validate the document unless it also included her middle name.  Erm.

That said, the PM's suggestion has got me thinking I should try again.

Some other things I'll have to sort out:
  • Automatic payments, including my mortgage and to my high-interest savings account (UBank have been the winners there for some time).
  • I handle the money for our fruit and veg co-op, so everyone there will have to update the details they use.
  • I'll have to learn to use a new Internet banking service.

All up, these aren't really show stoppers.  Changing mortgages, however, would be a big deal. We don't need to, as we have an excellent mortgage provider, but for those who do, the government needs to get involved to make switching easier.

For a comparison of low-fee transaction accounts, Choice has a review. I'll give a spoiler for those who don't subscribe to Choice: ING Direct Orange Everyday and NAB Classic Banking are the "Best Buys".

Is your News Limited?

titch of sydney Posted at 2:40 AM Today

to the critic open your eyes alot more iraquis would have died at the hands of the taliban regime if we did not intervene

via news.com.au

Only the smartest make it through the filter at news.com.au

Spreets: a bit shonky, a lot badly organised

The concept of the Groupon has been going on in Australia for a bit. Essentially it's a "deal a day" idea where, if enough people sign on to the day's deal, it happens. Suppliers can use it to build interest or get rid of stock. Bargain hunters can get good deals.

I've followed a few of them and yesterday bought up an offer on Spreets for some good quality meat.  The offer looked good at $99 for a fair selection of good quality meat.  Sneakily there was an additional $25 delivery charge, which is pretty shoddy (and likely illegal under the Trade Practices Act) behaviour. I spotted the sneaky fee and still thought it a good deal at $124.

When the coupon arrived this morning, I tried to check out only to find the seller's site didn't recognise the coupon code. To be fair to Spreets, they responded to my enquiry pretty quickly, and it seems the problem was sorted out.

Next problem comes when I can finally pay for the goods, they now want to add a payment fee to the delivery fee! There's three payment methods, all of which incur additional fees.  Now we're getting into the territory of completely out-of-order. This is like the airlines charging a "credit card fee" while providing no other mechanism to pay.  It's just not on.

I'll be getting my money back thanks Spreets.
Posted