denial – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Harvey Weinstein Tries Every Possible Response To Explosive NY Times Story

from the wanna-try-that-again,-harvey dept

Last week, the Hollywood Reporter broke the story that famed Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein (formerly of Miramax and more recently of the Weinstein Company — from which he was fired over the weekend, despite practically begging for his friends to support him) had seriously lawyered up, hiring three high profile lawyers: David Boies, Lisa Bloom and Charles Harder to deal with two apparent stories that were in the works — one from the NY Times and another from the New Yorker (two publications not known for backing down from threats) — about some fairly horrible alleged behavior by Weinstein towards young female actresses, employees and more.

A day later, the NY Times published its article about Harvey Weinstein and, damn, it’s quite an article. It details multiple cases of alleged sexual harassment by Weinstein against both employees and hopeful actresses — and includes claims of Weinstein having to pay off some of those individuals. The article was not based on a single source, but many sources, including one actress (Ashley Judd) willing to put her name behind the accusations (and just as we were completing this post, the New Yorker published its piece which appears to be more detailed and more damning, with more names and even more horrifying stories about Weinstein). And with the NY Times’ publication, much of the “legal team” leaped into action. Of course, if you’re not familiar with the three lawyers named above, it may help to do a quick review, before we dig in on the myriad (often contradictory) responses we’ve now seen from Weinstein and his legal team over the past few days.

Boies, of course, shows up everywhere these days, but often not for good reasons. You may recall him representing SCO in its quixotic attack on Linux. Or representing Oracle against Google in claiming that APIs can be copyrightable. Or representing Theranos, the now disgraced biotech firm that exaggerated what it could do. Or representing Sony Pictures when its emails were all leaked, to the point of sending a ridiculous threat letter to us for daring to report on those emails. Lisa Bloom’s only appearance here was when she was on the right side of the silly James Woods defamation case against an anonymous tweeter. Many found Bloom’s appearance as part of the team quite odd, since she’s built her reputation on representing victims of sexual harassment. She later claimed she was just advising Weinstein, rather than acting as his lawyer (hmm….) and then, over the weekend, she resigned from whatever it was that she was doing. However, the NY Times has a quite incredible article suggesting her initial response to the accusations was to effectively go after the women, by posting “photos of several of the accusers in very friendly poses with Harvey after his alleged misconduct.” Ick.

And, Charles Harder? What is there that needs to be said about Charles Harder? Oh, right, that he’s currently leading the legal team that’s suing us in a defamation suit that we’ve won (though he has since appealed).

Within hours of the article being published, Harder announced that Weinstein would be suing the NY Times for defamation.

“The New York Times published today a story that is saturated with false and defamatory statements about Harvey Weinstein,” he writes in an email to The Hollywood Reporter. “It relies on mostly hearsay accounts and a faulty report, apparently stolen from an employee personnel file, which has been debunked by nine different eyewitnesses. We sent the Times the facts and evidence, but they ignored it and rushed to publish. We are preparing the lawsuit now. All proceeds will be donated to women?s organizations.”

But here’s the thing: Weinstein himself seems to be admitting that many of the accusations are accurate. He’s quoted apologizing for his behavior in the initial NY Times article:

In a statement to The Times on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Weinstein said: ?I appreciate the way I?ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it. Though I?m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go.?

He added that he was working with therapists and planning to take a leave of absence to ?deal with this issue head on.?

That seems like an admission. The full statement is even more bizarre:

I came of age in the 60?s and 70?s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.

I have since learned it?s not an excuse, in the office – or out of it. To anyone. I realized some time ago that I needed to be a better person and my interactions with the people I work with have changed.

I appreciate the way I?ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.

Though I?m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go. That is my commitment. My journey now will be to learn about myself and conquer my demons. Over the last year I’ve asked Lisa Bloom to tutor me and she’s put together a team of people. I’ve brought on therapists and I plan to take a leave of absence from my company and to deal with this issue head on. I so respect all women and regret what happened. I hope that my actions will speak louder than words and that one day we will all be able to earn their trust and sit down together with Lisa to learn more. Jay Z wrote in 4:44 “I’m not the man I thought I was and I better be that man for my children.” The same is true for me. I want a second chance in the community but I know I’ve got work to do to earn it. I have goals that are now priorities. Trust me, this isn’t an overnight process. I’ve been trying to do this for 10 years and this is a wake-up call. I cannot be more remorseful about the people I hurt and I plan to do right by all of them.

I am going to need a place to channel that anger so I’ve decided that I’m going to give the NRA my full attention. I hope Wayne LaPierre will enjoy his retirement party. I’m going to do it at the same place I had my Bar Mitzvah. I’m making a movie about our President, perhaps we can make it a joint retirement party. One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC. While this might seem coincidental, it has been in the works for a year. It will be named after my mom and I won’t disappoint her.

That whole statement is… weird. Others have covered the many problems with it, but it seems like a pretty clear admission. Given that, it’s pretty ridiculous to then claim you’re suing the NY Times. Under what theory? Well, according to Weinstein, because it didn’t give him enough time to respond:

?I mean every word of that apology,? he told TheWrap. ?The reason I am suing the New York Times is they didn?t give me enough time to respond.?

Um. What? First of all, he gave an entire statement to the NY Times. So he clearly had time to respond. Second, there’s no legal requirement that a news publication needs to give you “enough time to respond,” let alone any time to respond. That’s not how the press works.

In another interview, he told the NY Post that he’s suing because the NY Times wasn’t honest with him:

Weinstein said, ?What I am saying is that I bear responsibility for my actions, but the reason I am suing is because of the Times? inability to be honest with me, and their reckless reporting. They told me lies. They made assumptions.

?The Times had a deal with us that they would tell us about the people they had on the record in the story, so we could respond appropriately, but they didn?t live up to the bargain.

?The Times editors were so fearful they were going to be scooped by New York Magazine and they would lose the story, that they went ahead and posted the story filled with reckless reporting, and without checking all they had with me and my team.

Once again, Weinstein seems to be confused about how journalism works — and what legal requirements there are. Even as rich and powerful as Harvey Weinstein is, there is no legal requirement to give him as much time as he wants to respond. Indeed, his lawyer Bloom admits they had two days:

?Two days ago, after begging, they gave us a couple dozen allegations that spanned 30 years and a dozen countries. They said we have until 1 pm today. We said ?Why?? They never said.?

Again, giving two days actually seems kind of generous.

The whole thing seems like Weinstein is trying out any and all possible responses at once. Normally you select one: you deny and sue or you apologize or you try to make a quip and laugh off the accusation. Harvey seems to be doing all of this at once.

He even tried denial (and a quip) before the admission and the threat:

In a brief interview on Wednesday, Weinstein declined to comment on the charges.

“I’ve not been aware of this,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, honestly.”

[….]

Weinstein later issued a statement through a spokesperson, as did Bloom. ?The story sounds so good I want to buy the movie rights,? said Weinstein.

Of course, as the NY Times has pointed out, at no point has Weinstein said what is factually untrue in its reporting. And if you’re suing for defamation, that’s kind of the first thing you’re supposed to do. Meanwhile, it appears that other stories are starting to come out (and they keep coming) — including some fairly damning claims about attempts to cover up previous investigations. And, perhaps most troubling, a claim that the NY Times had this story a dozen years ago and was pressured into killing it. Of course, perhaps that’s the real reason behind the threat of the lawsuit — to try to scare off others from coming forward. All of the links in this paragraph suggest if that’s the theory, well, it’s not working. It’s also not clear that a lawsuit would be wise. Beyond the failure to give an actual legal reason for the lawsuit so far, as many people have pointed out, it’s unclear that Harvey would want to go through the discovery process in such a lawsuit should it get that far.

And, in the meantime, the NY Times has said that Weinstein “should publicly waive the NDAs in the women’s agreements so they can tell their stories.” If he fails to do so, that says a lot right there.

Still, in the end, it appears that Weinstein’s strategy here seems to be… to do all of the following, even if some parts contradict other parts:

Deny with a quip (“I don’t know what you’re talking about, honestly.” “I want to buy the movie rights.”)
Offer a weak excuse that’s not even a real excuse (“I came of age in the 60’s and 70’s”)
Apologize (“the way I?ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain,” “I cannot be more remorseful about the people I hurt and I plan to do right by all of them.”)
Threaten to sue (“the reason I am suing is because of the Times? inability to be honest with me, and their reckless reporting”)
Claim the story is not accurate (“a story that is saturated with false and defamatory statements about Harvey Weinstein”)
Say the real problem was that the paper didn’t live up to its word (“The Times had a deal with us”)
Also claim that the problem was not enough time to respond (despite responding) (“The reason I am suing the New York Times is they didn?t give me enough time to respond.”)
Deflect from being accused of using your power to bed powerless women by… talking about the NRA?!? (“I’m going to give the NRA my full attention.”)
Insist that you’ve seen the light and are changing (“I want a second chance in the community but I know I’ve got work to do to earn it. I have goals that are now priorities. Trust me, this isn’t an overnight process. I’ve been trying to do this for 10 years and this is a wake-up call.”)
Talk about how you’ve thrown money at womens’ issues, as if that makes this okay (“I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC.”)

None of these seem particularly genuine at all — which perhaps explains the contradictory nature of many of them. Instead, it looks an awful lot like how people who are caught doing something bad act when they can’t come to terms with what they’ve done, and will thrash about wildly, trying on every possible response, hoping one of them gets them out of the situation. Who knows if an actual lawsuit will be filed, but of all the possible responses above, that one seems the least likely to end well.

Filed Under: assault, charles harder, david boies, defamation, denial, harassment, harvey weinstein, lisa bloom, threats
Companies: miramax, ny times, weinstein company

The Cord Cutting The Pay TV Sector Keeps Saying Isn't Happening — Keeps Happening

from the televised-revolution dept

Tue, Mar 15th 2016 06:32am - Karl Bode

Several cable operators managed to eek out some modest subscriber gains in the fourth quarter of last year, prompting some renewed claims by the industry that cord cutting was “on the ropes” or was otherwise an unfair hallucination of the media. After all, Comcast saw a net gain of 89,000 pay TV users during the fourth quarter. Time Warner Cable similarly saw its best year since 2006 with a net gain of 54,000 TV subscribers. Charter also saw a net gain in the fourth quarter of 29,000 video subscribers. For some of these companies, this was the best performance they’ve seen since 2006.

As such, cord cutting is clearly yesterday’s news, right?

Not so much. Full analysis of the fourth quarter and full year numbers by analysts like Leichtman Research indicates that while cable operators might have had a solid fourth quarter, most of them still saw a net loss on the year. As a whole, the pay TV sector as a whole lost 385,000 pay TV subscribers in 2015, according to Leichtman:

And Leichtman’s analysis, as a firm that has traditionally downplayed cord cutting, appears to be conservative. Full year analysis by SNL Kagan indicates the pay TV sector as a whole lost 1.1 million subscribers last year, four times the drop seen the year before:

“SNL Kagan estimates the combined cable, DBS and telecommunications (telco) sectors lost more than 1 million video customers in 2015. The 12-month decline was more than 4x the 2014 decline, and marked the third consecutive overall annual drop for the industry. That said, the waning months of 2015 carried signs of stabilization after steep losses for the better part of the year. The industry dipped by only 15,000 total customers in the period ended Dec. 31, 2015, essentially matching the losses of fourth quarter 2014.”

So why did cable have a better-than-usual fourth quarter? Charter, Time Warner Cable and Comcast have all been deploying faster speeds and new cable set top boxes, which appear to be luring back some customers that had previously fled to satellite and telcoTV alternatives. So what we’re seeing is a lateral move of some customers between different types of legacy TV (deck chairs, Titanic, etc.), while cord cutting continues unabated in the background. Cable companies have also ramped up promotions in which they offer pay TV and broadband for significantly less than a customer can buy broadband alone — meaning many of these tallied customers may not even have wanted (or even use) television service.

And it’s worth noting these numbers may be even worse than they appear. For one thing, companies like Dish and Comcast have started including streaming video customer numbers in their legacy TV numbers to try and sooth investor worries that the legacy cable cash cow has caught a nasty case of pneumonia. You’ll also note that as the housing recovery accelerates, broadband subscribers aren’t growing in parallel, meaning there are millions of new home owners and renters that aren’t signing up for traditional television service.

So, no, despite some analysis you’ll read, cord cutting isn’t “on the ropes,” “overhyped,” or the rogue opinion of a few mean old bloggers and journalists. It’s a continued, very real consumer response to an industry that simply refuses to seriously compete on price.

Filed Under: cord cutting, denial, tv
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

ESPN Gets Nielsen To Revise Its Data To Suggest Cord Cutting's No Big Deal

from the massaging-statistics dept

Thu, Feb 4th 2016 06:25am - Karl Bode

We’ve discussed for years that as an apparatus directly tied to the wallet of the cable and broadcast industry, TV viewing tracking company Nielsen has gladly helped reinforce the cable industry belief that cord cutting was “pure fiction.” Once the trend became too obvious to ignore, Nielsen tried to bury cord cutting — by simply calling it something else in reports. And while Nielsen was busy denying an obvious trend, it was simultaneously failing to track TV viewing on emerging platforms, something the company still hasn’t fully incorporated.

We’ve also been talking about how ESPN has been making the rounds, trying to “change the narrative” surrounding cord cutting to suggest that worries about ESPN’s long-term viability in the face of TV evolution have been overblown. Part of that effort this week apparently involved reaching out to Nielsen to demand the company fiddle with its cord cutting numbers, which ESPN then peddled to reporters in the hopes of creating an artificial, rosier tomorrow:

“On Thursday, ESPN reached out to reporters to let them know that cord-cutting isn?t nearly as bad as it sounds, and that the reason is the way Nielsen revised its pay-TV universe estimates. Nielsen (under client pressure) decided to remove broadband-only homes from its sample, but it didn?t restate historical data. It is now showing that, as of December, 1.2 million homes had cut the cord, a much smaller number than its earlier figure of 4.33 million homes for the year.”

Isn’t that handy! This of course isn’t the first time Nielsen has tweaked troubling numbers on demand to appease an industry eager to believe its cash cow will live forever. The irony is that the same industry that’s happy to gobble up potentially distorted data is simultaneously deriding Nielsen out of the other corner of its mouth as a company whose data is no longer reliable in the modern streaming video age. In a profile piece examining Nielsen’s struggle to adapt, the New York Times (and Nielsen itself) puts the problem rather succinctly:

“Yet Nielsen is established on an inherent conflict that can impede the adoption of new measurement methods. Nielsen is paid hundreds of millions of dollars a year by the television industry that it measures. And that industry, which uses Nielsen?s ratings to sell ads, is known to oppose changes that do not favor it. ?People want us to innovate as long as the innovation is to their advantage,? Mr. Hasker said.

Obviously getting a distrusted metric company to fiddle with data even further won’t save ESPN. The company’s SEC filings still suggest ESPN lost 7 million subscribers in the last few years alone. Some of these subscribers have cut the cord, but others have simply “trimmed” the cord — signing up for skinny bundles that have started to boot ESPN out of the core TV lineup. Similarly, studies have recently shown that 56% of ESPN users would drop ESPN for an $8 reduction on their cable bill. This sentiment isn’t going to magically go away as alternative viewing options increase.

BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield, who funded that survey and has been a thorn in ESPN’s side for weeks (for you know, highlighting facts and stuff), had a little advice for ESPN if it’s worried about accurate data:

“?If this is an important issue for ESPN, they should start releasing actual subscriber numbers rather than relying on third parties [Nielsen]. If they are upset with the confusion, let?s see the actual number of paying subscribers in the US over five years.”

Wall Street’s realization that ESPN may not fare well under the new pay TV paradigm at one point caused $22 billion in Disney stock value to simply evaporate. As a result, ESPN executives have addressed these worries in the only way they know how: by massaging statistics and insulting departing subscribers by claiming they were old and unwanted anyway. One gets the sneaking suspicion that’s not going to be enough to shelter ESPN from the coming storm.

Filed Under: cord cutting, data, denial, measurement, metrics
Companies: espn, nielsen

Comcast 'Only' Lost 36,000 Pay TV Subscribers Last Year, Prompting Renewed Cord Cutting Denial

from the best-bad-year-we've-ever-had dept

Wed, Feb 3rd 2016 12:48pm - Karl Bode

Despite 2015 being a banner year statistically for cord cutting, you’re going to see a renewed surge in cord cutting denial over the next few weeks. Why? Cable companies like Time Warner Cable and Comcast managed to eek out modest gains in pay TV subscribers in the fourth quarter.

Comcast’s earnings indicate a net gain of 89,000 pay TV users in Q4, despite seeing a net loss of 36,000 video subscribers for the year. Despite still seeing a net loss, that’s the best video performance the company has seen in eight years (which in and of itself speaks volumes). Time Warner Cable’s earnings (pdf) note the cable provider added 54,000 TV subscribers in the fourth quarter, while only seeing a net gain of 32,000 TV subscribers for the year. That’s the best Time Warner Cable has done since 2006, and it’s a stark improvement when each year’s subscriber numbers are put in graphical form:

We’ll ignore for a second these companies continue to see impressive subscriber and revenue growth thanks to network improvements, despite claiming Title II would destroy the known universe (that’s a different blog post). But the fact that these companies finally saw a modest turnaround after years of steep video subscriber losses was quickly used as evidence by the cable industry, some investment websites and a few analysts that cord cutting is “overblown”:

And I'll go further. Cord-cutting fears were overblown by a combination of the journalistic echo chamber and analyst self-interest.

— Swanni (@SwanniOnTV) February 3, 2016

Cable cord-cutting fears overblown. Comcast Gains 89,000 Video Subs In 4Q; other MSOs also gaining. https://t.co/FFgC51M7hy via @SwanniOnTV

— Lee Spieckerman (@spieckerman) February 3, 2016

Except these gains don’t debunk cord cutting. Many of these additions are users that had previously fled to satellite TV and phone providers. For years, cable’s subscriber losses were predominately to satellite and telco TV providers, whose set top boxes were notably more innovative (Dish’s Hopper, for example). In the last few years Comcast and Time Warner Cable have dramatically bumped broadband speeds and updated their own set top boxes, moves that have won some former defectors back. As a result Verizon FiOS saw its worst video subscriber additions since 2006, while AT&T and DirecTV combined saw a 54,000 broadband user net loss and a net loss of 24,000 TV customers last quarter.

That’s lateral subscriber movement between legacy pay TV providers, not evidence that cord cutting isn’t real. And there’s absolutely nothing in those numbers that suggests the very real trend of cord cutting has been “overblown” as a broader industry phenomenon.

There’s another major reason cable companies are once again adding video subscribers: their growing monopoly over broadband markets. There are now hundreds of markets in which AT&T and Verizon (now focused almost solely on more profitable wireless) are actively trying to hang up on unwanted DSL customers via a one-two punch of price hikes and apathy. Those annoyed users are being forced to flee to cable if they want current generation broadband speeds. When those users arrive, companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable are offering them TV and broadband bundles that are cheaper than what they’d pay for broadband alone in order to boost legacy TV subscriber rolls.

As a result, many of these subscribers may not have even wanted TV, and once the promotional rate expires may decide to simply leave again. That’s of course where Comcast hopes that the use of usage caps comes in. The company is now exempting its own streaming service from usage caps in the hopes of preventing TV users from cutting the cord. Should they cut the cord anyway and embrace streaming alternatives, they run face-first into usage caps and overage fees. If cable is forced to compete on price for TV, it will be sure to seek its pound of flesh from your broadband bill.

Cord cutting continues unabated in the background of this tussle, like the drip, drip, drip of a leaking faucet nobody wants to fix. And while pay TV growth remains flat or in decline, it’s important to remember the overall population and the housing market continue to grow, without a corresponding uptick in cable subscribers. That’s a sign that younger people and many new homeowners simply don’t think traditional cable is all that important, and the slow drip of cord cutting will, over time, become something more resembling a torrent as, quite bluntly, legacy TV’s older audience dies. Cable can do something about this, but it’s going to require seriously competing on price above and beyond short-term, subscriber roll boosting promotions.

Filed Under: cable tv, cord cutting, denial, tv
Companies: comcast

NBC Exec: Netflix Poses No Threat To Us, God Wants You To Watch Expensive, Legacy TV

from the not-just-a-river-in-Egypt dept

Fri, Jan 15th 2016 11:42am - Karl Bode

The traditional cable and broadcast industry’s chief export is no longer quality programming, it’s denial. First the industry denied cord cutting even existed. Then it acknowledged it existed, but pretended it was only something losers living with mommy had any interest in. More recently the cable industry has acknowledged that yes, there is something that vaguely looks like a mammoth tsunami looming on the horizon, but people are totally overreacting because the cable industry is just so god damned innovative.

Historically, the cable industry has needed all the help it could get when it comes to laboring under the delusion that the legacy cable cash cow will live forever. And, as Nielsen’s failure to provide real data on cord cutting has shown, the industry employs plenty of people happy to take money in exchange for telling industry executives precisely what they want to hear. Lending a hand this week was NBC’s president of research and media development Andy Wurtzel, who proudly told attendees of the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour that neither Netflix nor YouTube pose a “consistent” threat to cable.

His only evidence? That Netflix’s top shows still only get a fraction of the viewership that traditional cable gets:

“Symphony measured the average audience in the 18-to-49 demographic for each episode within 35 days of a new Netflix series premiere between September and December. During that time, Marvel’s Jessica Jones averaged 4.8 million viewers in the demographic, comparable to the 18-to-49 ratings for How to Get Away with Murder and Modern Family. Master of None drew 3.9 million in the demo and Narcos was third with 3.2 million.”

Nobody denies that cable TV’s audience still towers over that of streaming video services. That’s never been in dispute. Nor has anyone really debated the fact that cord cutting is a slow but steady phenomenon (NBC’s parent company Comcast lost 48,000 video subscribers last quarter). But that doesn’t really change the fact that the threat obviously exists, or that cable needs to dramatically change to adapt to it. But Wurtzel for some reason seems convinced that because viewership for Netflix hit shows drops off after a few weeks of binge watching, this somehow means cable has nothing to worry about:

“Wurtzel said Symphony’s data also revealed that most viewers of those SVOD shows return to their old viewing habits by the third week. “[By then], people are watching TV the way that God intended”?that is, via traditional, linear viewing?said Wurtzel. “The impact goes away.”

That’s because Netflix has “a very different business model?their business model is to make you write a check the next month,” said Wurtzel. “I don’t believe there’s enough stuff on Netflix that is broad enough and consistent enough to affect us in a meaningful way on a consistent basis.”

But again, cord cutting isn’t about just Netflix. It’s about picking and choosing among a myriad of different options as an alternative to soaring cable rates. One fifth of pay TV customers are expected to cut the cord next year. Only 51% watch live TV (as “god intended”?). Consumers are tired of paying an arm and a leg to get 194 channels while only watching, on average, about 17 of them. And, to put it bluntly, cable’s biggest customers are dying, and being replaced by “cord nevers” that have absolutely no interest in paying too much for too little.

The threat is more than just consistent, it’s inevitable.

Fueled by the kind of bubbly optimism provided by Wurtzel, legacy cable honestly believes it’s doing a bang up job adapting to the Netflix threat. Except that’s not remotely true; the industry refuses to compete on price, consistently fights more flexible programming options tooth and nail, and still confuses proclamations of “Hey, we’re innovating!” with actual innovation. Were I Netflix, Amazon, Apple, or any of a million other companies eager to jump into the field, I’d be thrilled that guys like Wurtzel continue to provide a false sense of security across an industry so desperately in need of a disruptive kick in the ass.

Filed Under: andy wurtzel, broadcast tv, cord cutting, denial, internet, nbc, streaming video, tv
Companies: comcast, nbc universal, netflix

One Slightly Less Shitty Quarter For Cable Fuels Renewed Cord Cutting Denial

from the head-in-sand dept

Fri, Nov 6th 2015 06:16am - Karl Bode

First the cable and broadcast industry argued that cord cutting didn’t exist. It was, to hear execs tell it, simply a reflection of the sagging housing market, and the people who were cutting the TV cord were poor, 40 year old nobodies, living in their mom’s basement who didn’t matter. Of course data has since shown that cord cutting continued as housing markets recovered, with millions of new home owners not signing up for cable. Similarly, most data shows that cord cutters are young, educated, and just tired as hell of constant rate hikes for mammoth bundles of awful reality TV programming.

After a record-setting second quarter for cord cutting, the cable industry seemed prepared to accept cord cutting (and as a result embrace new, skinny bundles of channels and the reality that it may actually have to someday compete on price). But subscriber TV losses during the third quarter sucked slightly less than normal. That, in turn, fueled a new industry press meme about how Internet video’s threat to cable was “overblown,” cable has “struck back” and it’s time to “change the narrative,” because cable, like, has things totally under control now:

“It?s time to change the narrative about cord cutting,? Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC, said Thursday in a note titled ?Charter Q3 Earnings: Cable Strikes Back.? ?Yes, the pay-TV industry is slowly drip, drip, drip declining,? he said. ?That cable was actually holding its own was at best a secondary narrative.”…The third-quarter resurgence after a disastrous summer quarter of record subscriber losses was led by Comcast, the nation?s largest broadband Internet service provider.”

So what did Comcast do to encourage this suddenly rosy outlook among many stock jocks? Why the country’s least liked company lost just 48,000 subscribers last quarter. That’s still notably pathetic, but it excited Wall Street because it was Comcast’s best subscriber showing in nine years (which again, speaks volumes). Time Warner Cable saw similar “improvement,” losing just 7,000 subscribers last quarter. Other third quarter earnings results were all over the board, from AT&T’s loss of 92,000 U-Verse subscribers (great job!) to Charter managing to add a whopping 12,000 video subscribers (wow!).

And while this narrative of cable “striking back” and cord cutting being a hallucination of a few, mean ‘ole bloggers is a great one for firms pushing specific stock positions, news outlets and analysts nervously sucking at the teat of dwindling industry ad money, or executives with their heads buried deeply in the sand, it misses the forest for the trees.

One, many of these companies just finished new gee-whiz set top box GUI upgrades (notably Charter, Time Warner Cable and Comcast). And while some graphical upgrades for the aging cable box may have excited customers temporarily, they’re in no way going to be a substitute for the direction the cable industry absolutely needs to head: lower prices and more flexible channel packages. Netflix is now in half of all american homes and the impact on cable ratings has been abundantly obvious. And while several cable companies are finally experimenting with new “skinny” channel bundles, they’re still not seriously competing on price. As a result these offerings tend to lack value, features, and, in cable industry fashion, are jam packed with fees and caveats.

A slightly less shitty quarter also doesn’t change the fact that the housing market continues to grow without bringing new cable subscribers along for the ride. Nor do these numbers address the arguably bigger threat of “cord shavers,” an admittedly idiotic term that includes users who are trimming back on their cable TV and service bundles to counter absurd programming rate hikes. Flat cord cutting numbers are just one metric to look at. Looking at all of the data, including ratings, housing growth, and cord shaving paints a very clear picture that Internet video is a serious threat that’s not going away.

To be sure, much cord-cutting analysis and press coverage tends toward the apocalyptic, and over-states both the pace and scale of the problem. It’s also true that cable could likely swat cord cutting like a pesky fly were the industry interested in things like actual innovation, competing on price, and disruptive new, open viewing platforms and hardware. But it’s pretty abundantly clear looking at consumer bills and customer satisfaction surveys that the industry is interested in none of those things. Claims that one slightly-less-shitty quarter for a single statistic means the tide is turning sends the completely wrong message to an industry that needs to wake up and engage in aggressive adaptation before things get truly ugly.

Filed Under: cable, cord cutting, craig moffett, denial, tv
Companies: charter, comcast, time warner cable

Cable Industry Still Proudly Thinks Cord Cutting Is A Media-Manufactured Crisis

from the denial-is-not-just-a-river-in-Egypt dept

Thu, Jul 23rd 2015 06:21am - Karl Bode

A few years ago, if you asked cable and broadcast executives if cord cutting was real, most of them would proudly declare that it was a complete and total phantom (like Yeti). The few that could admit to the trend would usually try to argue that the only people engaged in this kind of behavior were losers not worthy of their consideration when contemplating their business models. Of course data has emerged since suggesting that not only is cord cutting very real (albeit slow), the people doing it are affluent, educated, and right in cable’s key future target demographic.

These days, most cable and broadcast executives, after slowly hemorrhaging basic cable subscribers for several years and watching broadcast TV ratings drop through the floor, will at least admit that cord cutting is real. But there’s still a strong contingent among them that desperately wants to believe that cord cutting is a media-manufactured phenomenon and that their beautiful legacy cash cow will somehow live forever. The latest case in point comes via a Fortune article that explains “Why Cord Cutting Is a Myth” without actually doing anything of the sort:

“The way content is consumed is changing,? said Amy Banse, managing director of Comcast Ventures. ?We?re all aware of that. But I personally believe, and also by looking at our own statistics, that the volume of press around cord cutting doesn?t quite match reality.”

Again though, Banse doesn’t offer any data to support the argument that cord cutting is a mass media hallucination. Factoring cable’s failure to scale with new housing growth as the housing market recovered, telecom analyst Craig Moffett (who used to deny cord cutting) notes the pay TV business lost 1.4 million subscribers in the last year. The pay TV industry saw its first net subscriber loss during the first quarter of this year, and the industry is contracting at a 0.5% annual rate. This is before you factor in that many people aren’t “cutting the cord” — they’re not signing up for traditional cable in the first place. And all of this is hitting cable and broadcast ratings hard. Comcast’s recent earnings say the company lost 69,000 basic video subscribers last quarter and 3 million over the last six years.

These are measurable metrics — some small, some not so small. All important, and none imagined.

Still, to hear the cable industry tell it, cord cutting is “over-reported”:

“George Kliavkoff, president of Hearst Ventures, agreed, and said the topic is low-hanging fruit for the media: ?Cord-cutting is a great ?story,?? he said. ?But I think it?s over-reported.? What?s more likely to gain sizable traction, he said, is cord ?shaving,? where consumers simply move away from all-encompassing multichannel packages. ?A la carte purchasing of channels?and not taking most of them?is a far more interesting area,? he said.

The second half of that argument could certainly be true. “Cord shaving” or “cord cheating” is also occurring at an increased rate as cable customers socked with bi-annual rate hikes look for any opportunity to cut their monthly bill. Eventually, these users will also likely be turning their gaze toward redundant cable voice services, forcing cable operators to replace that revenue in new and “creative” ways. This is all part of one conversation. And while yes, some media outlets do overhype cord cutting without nuance or context (as happens with all things), how the media explains what’s happening is a distraction. The focus should be on how the cable and broadband industry is failing to adapt to internet video through its refusal to offer truly evolutionary products and pricing.

Some of this is semantics. Some cable execs simply don’t like to call it “cord cutting,” given there’s still a cord — it just happens to be broadband only. But whatever you call it, the answer to all of these problems has a single unified answer. With 2015’s rise in new internet video options, cable’s going to have to do the one thing it has spent a generation refusing to do: compete on price.

Filed Under: broadband, cable, cord cutting, denial, tv
Companies: comcast

The Internet Never Ends: You Can Deny That Or Embrace It

from the embrace-it dept

Over at NiemanLab, there’s a good interview with Tom Standage who runs the Economist’s digital efforts, in which he reveals the Economist’s general view of how it approaches the internet — which could be summarized as “deny it exists.” Basically, the argument that Standage makes is that people want to feel like they’ve “completed” something and that they’re fully informed, and so the Economist likes to pretend that once you’ve read it, you’re completely informed and you don’t have to look elsewhere. This is also why the Economist refuses to link to anyone else, because it would disabuse you of the “illusion” that the Economist provided you everything you needed:

…what we actually sell is what I like to call the feeling of being informed when you get to the very end. So we sell the antidote to information overload ? we sell a finite, finishable, very tightly curated bundle of content. And we did that initially as a weekly print product. Then it turns out you can take that same content and deliver it through an app.

The ?you?ve got to the end and now you?ve got permission to go do something else? is something you never get. You can never finish the Internet, you can never finish Twitter, and you can never really finish The New York Times, to be honest. So at its heart is that we have this very high density of information, and the promise we make to the reader is that if you trust us to filter and distill the news, and if you give us an hour and a half of your time ? which is roughly how long people spend reading The Economist each week ? then we?ll tell you what matters in the world and what?s going on. And if you only read one thing, we want to be the desert-island magazine. And our readers, that?s what they say.

And as for links:

Another aspect of it is ? and I get all the morning briefings, Sentences, the FT one, and Quartz?s, and the rest of them ? is that we don?t do links. The reason that we don?t do links, again, if you want to get links you can get them from other people. You can go on Twitter and get as many as you like. But the idea was everything that you need to know is distilled into this thing that you can get to the end of, and you can get to the end of it without worrying that you should?ve clicked on those links in case there was something interesting. So we?ve clicked on the links already and we?ve decided what?s interesting, and we?ve put it in Espresso.

That?s the same that we do in the weekly as well ? we?re not big on linking out. And it?s not because we?re luddites, or not because we don?t want to send traffic to other people. It?s that we don?t want to undermine the reassuring impression that if you want to understand Subject X, here?s an Economist article on it ? read it and that?s what you need to know. And it?s not covered in links that invite you to go elsewhere.

Mathew Ingram rightly calls this view of things selling an illusion. He notes that such an illusion can be very powerful — and even very satisfying and appealing. But it’s still an illusion.

To me, it’s also a version of denial — a somewhat hubristic denial that actually says (loudly) that the Economist thinks it’s much, much smarter than its readers. That seems like a pretty big mistake in the internet age, where (quite frequently) your readers are much smarter. In many ways, we at Techdirt have always taken the opposite approach. We link aggressively outward to source material, knowing that it will help people explore the subject more deeply. We encourage discussion and conversation in our comments, knowing that many of our readers are more knowledgeable on these subjects than we are.

The Economist is obviously super successful, but as we’ve stated before, the way people consume the news these days is changing. The kind of people who want to just sit down, consume one thing and feel that they’re “informed” are going away. That’s just not how people consume news these days, and young people especially don’t want to consume news that way. They want to explore and dig and share and discuss. The ability to truly interact with the news, research things yourself, share your thoughts and actually be a part of the effort is what’s appealing to so many people.

Maybe the Economist’s view of things works for people who are scared of the internet and don’t like the endless firehose of information that’s available, but I’m betting that’s a population that will be progressively shrinking, rather than growing.

Filed Under: community, denial, internet, journalism, links, news, the economist, tom standage
Companies: the economist

Cord Cutting Denial Is Alive And Well

from the head-buried-firmly-in-the-sand dept

Tue, Mar 31st 2015 06:19am - Karl Bode

You might recall that former Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett made a bit of a career by mocking cord cutters as poor, irrelevant basement dwellers, when he wasn’t denying their existence entirely. Now at his own firm, Moffett has taken a complete 180 in recent years, unable to deny that cord cutting is a very real phenomenon that’s only growing as the pay TV industry refuses to offer more flexible pricing options. And, contrary to Moffett’s original analysis, most data shows that cord cutters tend to be young, gainfully employed, and well educated.

No worries though — someone at Sanford Bernstein appears to have picked up the cord cutting denial mantle. Bernstein research analyst Todd Juenger this week has been making headlines for a research note that not only claims all of the new cord cutting options arriving in 2015 will fail (whether it’s Sony’s Playstation Vue, SlingTV or looming services from Apple and Verizon), but that cord cutting quite simply isn’t happening. To prove it, he cites a non-specific “body of evidence” that he claims proves few people really want these services:

“A strong body of evidence is emerging that suggests to us that none of these services are likely to gain much traction,” he said. “Simply put, for existing pay-TV subscribers, the content is too limited (relative to the cost savings); and for cord-nevers, the price is too high (relative to the appeal of the content).”

There’s a bit of an ongoing media narrative afoot that new streaming options just aren’t any good because users have to subscribe to every one of them just to get the same volume of content they get from traditional cable. But these narratives usually ignore the fact that users want something notably different from traditional cable. They also ignore piracy entirely in their analysis for whatever reason, which seems absurd when you’re trying to take a bird’s eye view of where the TV market sits.

Still, Juenger proceeds to insist that meaningful cord cutting “isn’t likely to happen,” and so the cable TV industry should do its very best to protect the “status quo”:

“Cord-cutting, in large numbers, isn’t likely to happen,” Juenger said. “It’s one of those ideas that sounds great in the abstract but crumbles when faced with the reality. OTT services seem poised to garner few subscribers, which is more good news than bad. We believe it’s better for the pay-TV ecosystem to remain in the status quo than to add millions of OTT subscribers at the cost of blowing the whole system apart.”

One, cord cutting is already happening in meaningful volume. Craig Moffett, the guy that used to deny cord cutting like Juenger, recently noted that he believes the pay TV sector lost 1.4 million total subscribers last year, largely thanks to cord cutters or “cord nevers.” Two, most of the news outlets reporting on Juenger’s comments didn’t mention the fact that the “focus group” his statements were based on consisted of a whopping 18 people, nowhere near enough to actually make the kind of pronouncements he’s making (he cautions people from making too much of the findings for this reason — right before he himself apparently makes too much of the findings).

It’s not clear why Bernstein analysts always seem intent on being at the forefront of cord cutting denial — you’d hate to think they’re trying to somehow influence stock holdings or performance by intentionally giving bad advice. But cord cutting is very much real, it’s very much growing, and there’s finally a flood of over-the-top streaming options arriving later this year now that broadcasters have started easing up on licensing restrictions. Advising the industry to hold tight to the “status quo” in the face of Internet video in 2015 is akin to telling residents in the path of a tsunami to stop worrying and have a cocktail.

Filed Under: cable, cord cutting, craig moffett, denial, todd juenger, tv
Companies: sanford bernstein

NSA Denies Everything About Latest Intercept Leak, Including Denying Something That Was Never Claimed

from the let's-play-word-games-with-the-NSA dept

The recent leaks published at Glenn Greenwald’s new home, The Intercept, detailed the NSA’s spread of malware around the world, with a stated goal of sabotaging “millions” of computers. As was noted then, the NSA hadn’t issued a comment. The GCHQ, named as a co-conspirator, had already commented, delivering the usual spiel about legality, oversight and directives — a word salad that has pretty much replaced “no comment” in the intelligence world.

The NSA has now issued a formal statement on the leaks, denying everything — including something that wasn’t even alleged. In what has become the new “no comment” on the NSA side, the words “appropriate,” “lawful” and “legitimate” are trotted out, along with the now de rigueur accusations that everything printed (including, apparently, its own internal documents) is false.

Recent media reports that allege NSA has infected millions of computers around the world with malware, and that NSA is impersonating U.S. social media or other websites, are inaccurate. NSA uses its technical capabilities only to support lawful and appropriate foreign intelligence operations, all of which must be carried out in strict accordance with its authorities. Technical capability must be understood within the legal, policy, and operational context within which the capability must be employed.

NSA’s authorities require that its foreign intelligence operations support valid national security requirements, protect the legitimate privacy interests of all persons, and be as tailored as feasible. NSA does not use its technical capabilities to impersonate U.S. company websites. Nor does NSA target any user of global Internet services without appropriate legal authority. Reports of indiscriminate computer exploitation operations are simply false.

First off, for the NSA to claim that loading up “millions” of computers with malware is somehow targeted (and not “indiscriminate”) is laughable. As for its “national security directive,” it made a mockery of that when it proudly announced in its documents that “we hunt sys admins.” Targeting telco and ISP systems administrators goes well outside the bounds of “national security.” These people aren’t suspected terrorists. They’re just people inconveniently placed between the NSA and its goal of “collecting it all.”

Last, but not least, the NSA plays semantic games to deny an accusation that was never made, calling to mind Clapper’s denial of a conveniently horrendous translation of a French article on its spying efforts there.

NSA does not use its technical capabilities to impersonate U.S. company websites.

This “denial” refers to this portion of The Intercept’s article.

In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive…

In one man-on-the-side technique, codenamed QUANTUMHAND, the agency disguises itself as a fake Facebook server. When a target attempts to log in to the social media site, the NSA transmits malicious data packets that trick the target’s computer into thinking they are being sent from the real Facebook. By concealing its malware within what looks like an ordinary Facebook page, the NSA is able to hack into the targeted computer and covertly siphon out data from its hard drive.

The NSA’s own documents say that QUANTUMHAND “exploits the computer of a target that uses Facebook.” The man-on-the-side attack impersonates a server, not the site itself. The NSA denies impersonating sites, but that’s not what The Intercept said or what its own documents state. This animated explanation, using the NSA’s Powerpoint presentation, shows what the attack does — it tips the TURBINE servers, which then send the malware payload before the Facebook servers can respond. To the end user, it looks as though Facebook is just running slowly.

When the NSA says it doesn’t impersonate sites, it truly doesn’t. It injects malware by beating Facebook server response time. It doesn’t serve up faux Facebook pages; it simply grabs the files and data from compromised computers. The exploit is almost wholly divorced from Facebook itself. The social media site is an opportunity for malware deployment, and the NSA doesn’t need to impersonate a site to achieve its aims. This is the NSA maintaining deniability in the face of damning allegations — claiming something was said that actually wasn’t and resorting to (ultimately futile) attempts to portray journalists as somehow less trustworthy than the agency.

Filed Under: denial, injections, malware, man on the side, nsa, surveillance
Companies: facebook