Jack- Ten reasonable reasons.
There was a question last night on the fool thread about why lower the sub fee and I quickly thought of a few. What do you think?
AOL was mentioned in Barron's today and, as always, they steal the thunder about AOLTV coming before year end! No mention of ATHM, or its cable footprint, or its ITV coming this summer with set top boxes and that the reviewer already thought it was top shelf in organization and presentation...and one hell of a potential money maker from marketing. Only that AOL will have AOLTV first on ALL its DSL lines...BFdeal...and issues with DSL bandwith vs. cable, but who at large knows this??? And also that AOL has TWX's HUGE cable franchise. Tell me the media's and hence john q. public's perception isn't skewed about 180 degrees off mark and onto AOL.
That is one reason I believe it is a good thing, stick it right in AOL's EYE and get subs signed on. Once on and once they like it and once it is cheap in comparison not many will be willing to change.
Here you go...
1-To preemptively strike any AOL cable plan a blow.
2-Access fees will trend lower anyway, carrage fees, ad revs. will fill in the hole. [ITV, etc]
3-More competition for DSL, lower price for cable will add more push and sub numbers toward cable, faster.
4-Must know that easier and self instals WILL be coming and working soon to accomodate volume.
5-To hook the users who sit upon the edge for $20, better than zero, while still gettting higher revs from those who want the fuller featured service.
6-They are not dummies and probably figure many who start for 20 will trend higher with time as it hooks the heart and soul of the masses
7-Attention to Excite@home BB
8-Attention to Excite@home BB [Worth repeating for Branding..."Who? Oh yea, I know Excite@home...The BB guys...WOW!"]
9-Must know they can still turn excellent profits with other services, ie ITV, soon to be released and just want the warm bodies hooked up.
10-To get share and hook potential customers for the many services that will become 'must have' in tomorrow land and to make money as fast as possible.
Etc-
More?...
Common sense does not often appear common on the first encounter. |
