I’m pretty busy these days and it takes a lot for an email to gain my “immediate” attention, but I was filled with boyish glee when I read “IceTV is giving back”.
We [IceTV] realise we couldn’t have won without the continued support from all our customers, so as a token of our appreciation… we’re now giving back!
Hooray! Maybe IceTV don’t have to worry about court costs anymore and are going to cut costs after many, many months of over-charging? Wrong! Read on …
IceTV are offering $30 off new subscriptions, making their yearly subscriptions now $69/year, but it expires on the 22/5/2009. Huh? Shouldn’t this cut be permanent seeing IceTV now have a monopoly on the EPG market, unburdened by threats from TV network Nine?
“IceTV is giving back” … Not really! Unfortunately this looks like another short-term subscription money grab. I would have thought that “giving back” to all their loyal subscribers would have meant a rebate on existing subscriptions! Finding a $30 cheque in your letterbox from IceTV would be giving back, but instead subscribers are forced to buy an additional year’s subscription to take advantage of their appreciation.
*SIGH*, back to using free EPG data for now …
(2 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5) 
Loading ...
#1 by Andrew on May 13th, 2009 - 9:23 am
Banegr,
i received the same e-mail and had the sam thought as you until I saw the price. There is no way in hell I would pay $70 a year for a guide, especially when it is not 100% acurate 100% of the time.
ps. Hopefully it has riled you up enough to get Free EPG’s win 7 guide up and running,
#2 by Mike on May 13th, 2009 - 11:35 am
banegr:
Given that all Ice’s main fund raising attempts were undermined when their stock market listing was cancelled by the Nein legal tomfoolery and that they’ve been living on loans from one of their COE’s (IIRC) since then, plus the limited subscription revenue, I think that they’ve been pretty good to offer a 30% reduction for the year.
“over-charging”?!? Even at $99 a year, the guide is still cheaper than any paper alternatives and, unless you’re unemployed, probably still cheaper than you own time searching the on-line guides week after week rather than using Ice’s on-line tools to search, set and forget.
Andrew:
As a subscriber for about three years, I think that Ice have done a bloody good job in very difficult circumstances. The method by which they gather the data (as explained at leangth in the court cases) shows it to be a time intensive, highly manual process which is, by its nature, prone to error – ironically the method is what won them the case!
“100% acurate (sic) 100% of the time”?!? Erm… HELLO! The ‘official’ printed guides are out of date and inaccurate by the time they’re off the presses and, from my own experience, the syndicated on-line guides are not always accurate either, unless you want to check and correct 15 minutes before each scheduled recording! All of which is moot, given the wildly inaccurate broadcast times of the shows on all the commercial channels.
So stop being a pair of tight-arses!
Ice still has to repay its loans and achieve a profitable status, while continuing to move forward, with limited budget, limited resources and in difficult economic times. Be grateful to them that you have the opportunity to continue to access unencrypted EPG data, to program your device from the on-line widgets and guides and for giving Channel Nein the kicking it deserved.
#3 by banger@epgstream on May 14th, 2009 - 2:28 am
@Mike,
In my opinion, $99/year for TV guide listings is over-priced when considering what is actually delivered. The EPG schedule is modelled on existing network data and TV show descriptions are just revisions of online web sources such as “tv.com” or “imdb.com” and printed sources such as “Total Television” or “5000 Episodes”. Also, as far as data distribution goes, costs should drop as subscriptions grow due to base running costs effectively being covered by a static, base subscriber population.
I’m not disputing the fact that they are fundementally doing something worthwhile, I’m just suggesting that the product delivered is not value for money. IceTV are a business, and as such are in it to make money, but I believe they are charging well over that actual worth of the delivered product and I’d like to see a more reasonable price of around ~$50/year set as a baseline, not just an occasional “special” offer.
The worrying thing, as I see it, is that a generation of subscribers come to see $99/year as a “normal” price for a subscription and have no real cost comparison other than the one that IceTV, the monopoly, has set. You hear “$30-off” and think you are getting a good deal, but IceTV are still making money (think “Goldmark 50% off sales”). IceTV could make money with permanent ~$50 subscription and without a doubt get more subscribers …
It’s good that you feel empathic towards IceTV and if your intellectual side says it’s ok to pay $99/year then you pay it. Don’t forget that a newspaper subscription might come in at about $150/year but as well as getting your TV guide you also get news, reviews, lifestyle, competitions, cartoons and even CD’s … much, much, much more content and effort than a 7-day tv schedule.
#4 by banger@epgstream on May 14th, 2009 - 2:36 am
@Andrew,
Unfortunately, it’s more a case of being too busy at the moment! Actually I’ve had Windows 7 running in the lounge room for the past few weeks and the TV guide EIT data isn’t too bad … How are you finding it so far?
#5 by Andrew on May 14th, 2009 - 4:23 pm
Banger, i am using Nialls BSEtool with Shepherd epg data. must say very impressed, and with the extra bling of cast info is impressive when guests come over. Win 7 RC is probably the most stable I have had my media centre in 10 years(perhaps I should stop fiddling). Don’t mean to harp on you, I just would prefer what you bring out when it comes.
Mike,
They may do a good job with the data, but if I am paying 100 bucks a year I want the program description to be about the program not some twits sarcastic opinion as is often the case(you can tell what shows they do not like). Also I buy the paper daily, for the News and Sport. I do not even look at the guide. My opinion is a quality guide should be provided free by the networks, but if ice want to charge that is good but $100 to see what is on TV is not worth it in my opinion.