Sezmi informed its subscribers late last week that it was dropping its 23-channel wireless cable package delivered via digital spectrum leased from TV stations.
The Sezmi Select Plus tier, which cost $19.95 per month, was available only in Los Angeles. The service cutback takes effect Dec. 28.
In a letter to subscribers, Sezmi says it would “focus all future service efforts” on Select, a $4.95-a-month offering that combines local broadcast signals with online access to VOD movies and TV shows online through a DVR featuring a “personalized” user interface.
In an e-mail to reporters, a Sezmi representative said that Sezmi plans to enhance the Select service “through new features and partnership” next year.
Sezmi also has ambitions overseas, the representative said. “Leveraging the combined content delivery capabilities of OTA broadcast and emerging wireless broadband networks around the world, much of Sezmi’s focus will be on new partnerships that will deliver on the promise of convergence in countries that do not have hardwire cable infrastructure already in place.”
In the U.S., Sezmi is now offering the Select service in 36 markets.
Those interested in subscribing must first buy the Sezmi high-capacity (1 TB) DVR with user interface and TV antenna. Best Buy is selling the set-up for $149.
As a private company, Sezmi has never announced how many subscribers it has.
The soon-to-disappear cable lineup included the most popular channels of Turner, NBCU, Discovery and Viacom.
To provide the Select service, Sezmi leased digital spectrum from several stations in Los Angeles, mostly notably Bert Ellis’ independent KDOC, which, according to an FCC filing, received more than $900,000 from Sezmi in the 12 months ending Nov. 30, 2010.
In an effort to hang on to its Select Plus subscribers, Sezmi is offering them six months of Select service for free and a $150 credit for VOD programming.
“With these changes, Sezmi will continue to remain focused on bringing you unprecedented value and personalization for your television experience,” the company founders Bruno Pati and Phil Wiser say in the subscriber letter. “We will remain the best TV service and platform that brings the world of live broadcast television together with DVR, Internet and on demand services in a simple and affordable package.
“And we’ll stay true to our vision of delivering a compelling alternative to traditional cable and satellite services.”
This story begs the question: What’s the back story here? Who muscled the cable nets to stop distributing their product via broadcast frequencies? This service is (was) a cable-killer; is that what’s behind its demise? Please use your resources to answer the very significant antitrust questions this article raises. Thanks.
It was just as likely that the OTA pay content was delivered in low quality MPEG-4. People were either happy with OTA only, or wanted the full quality feed from wired cable. I believe that broadband ultimately is a better delivery method for premium content.
actualy, you sound confused. There can be high quality and low quality MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. However, given bandwidth constraints, MPEG-4 video fits into about half the bits of MPEG-2 AT THE SAME LEVEL OF PERCIEVED QUALITY. Oh, and by the way, “broadband” is all MPEG-4.
I do know that MPEG-4 is able to do more with less, but Sezmi was running about 5 MPEG-4 channels on a station that was running 1080i for its main channel. The word on the street was that it was lower quality than SD cable. I don’t have anything against MPEG-4, but you can only compress so many channels into any ATSC stream.
Okay correction: 3 streams on KWHY which is 1080i and 10 streams on KDOC which has dual 480i for its primary free channels.
Agreed, but you can put about twice as many mpeg-4 streams into an ATSC pipe as mpeg-2. If the main service was 1080i, then there was less than 1/2 the bitstream available for sezmi. Lo quality might not have been a big seller in image-conscious LA
As a Sezmi user I noticed in September that a lot of new shows I wanted to watch were no longer findable on the interface. I found the letter from Sezmi to their customers to be like those announcements from corporations to their employees when the company is giving you an even worse benefits package but pretending that it is something new and exciting. Something killed this effort and I’d respect Sezmi more if they came out and told me the truth instead of selling me a line of marketing blah-de-blah. I guess I’ve got eight days right in the middle of the Christmas rush to figure out what I’m going to do next for television at home.