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Cable TV A La Carte Part 2

Posted by chrisd on from the happy-new-year-from-the-cable-company dept.

Ravi Swamy writes "Here's a followup article in Business Week to the Cable TV A La Carte story from last month. For those who actually read the story it was only A La Carte if you wanted to add HBO. Apparently cable companies don't know about the law or are going to reclassify HBO as a 'tier' instead of as a channel to get around the law."

28 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, HBO by HyperColor+Underware · · Score: 3, Funny

    But... Perhaps I would personally be interested in getting a CowboyNeal Channel.

  2. Our legal system by Huogo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is, IMO, one of the problems with our legal system. Ok, HBO is a channel. Well, we can't make someone buy more hardware and still call it a channel, so we'll just call it a tier. Same thing, different name. Whatever happened to spirit of the law?

    1. Re:Our legal system by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Informative

      The law is a good law. The problem is, the cable companies are dragging their feet a tech standard that once in place will end this racket.

      Here's the rule: The only tier everybody has to buy is the "basic" tier, and the local regulators get to set the price of that tier. By law, that tier must contain the local broadcasters and local access stations, and usually that's all it contains.

      Every other tier has to be sold one-by-one. Multi-tier discounts are illegal. They can't make you get the "digital basic" tier in order to get HBO... they can't even make you get the analog standard tier.

      But in order to get anything digital off the system, you need a digital decoder. And right now, the digital decoders are a closed spec, so the only place you can get it is to rent it from the cable company. This is why it seems like you have to buy a $10.99 "digital basic" package in order to keep your HBO subscription. Really, you're paying $10/mo to rent the reciever, and 99 cents for the useless channels. You can drop the useless channels and keep your 99 cents, but there's not much you can do about the equipment rental...

      However, the FCC is requiring the cable companies to come up with a standard for digital cable boxes, so that you can buy the hardware at your local electronics store, and then they hit it with the authorization codes telling it what it can and can't decode. This'll mean you can buy your way out of that decoder rental fee, and only pay for the content tiers you want.

      Of course, technical problems are very easy to find when you want to roadblock a project, so the cable companies have an interest in keeping the decoder setup the way it is now. Hopefully lawmakers will put an end to this feet dragging soon.

    2. Re:Our legal system by Loki_1929 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "I just want to get a few facts straight, and not have them misrepersented."

      Very well; let's have at it then.

      "Even if it was unconstitutional, it was vital to the survival of America."

      Ahh, so then our priciples and our laws must be cast aside whenever it suites our needs. This relies on the most basic animal instinct; survival. A truly civil society stands true to its convictions even in the face of total annihilation. Lest you forget that in the War of 1812, our forefathers stuck to their convictions even as Washington DC and even the White House itself was burned to the ground. During the War of 1812, we weren't just invaded; we were on the verge of being beaten back into submission by England and having all those who signed the US Constitution killed for treason. Those were true men, men who put everything they ever knew in life on the line because of what they believed in. Those were true men, and we need more like them today.

      "But this action was completely Constitutional."

      Aww, I'm afraid not. The US Supreme Court ruled in Ex Parte Milligan that the only time Habeas Corpus may be suspended is when the courts cease to function. At this point, one could argue that the civilian government has already been annihilated, and therefore civilian laws have no value. However, the courts remained open throughout Lincoln's little empire; thus making his suspension of Habeas Corpus illegal, unconstitutional, and unforgivable. Many see Lincoln as a hero, yet I see him as little more than a tyrannical emperor and a coward. Rather than lead the union on without the southern states as he ought have done, he took the easier way out; declaring war.

      "This makes it sound like the Confederacy was perfectly legal and just, and Lincoln himself ordered the pillaging of the south."

      Actually, this is exactly what happened. Each state within the union was supposedly just that; a sovereign state. The union was created to mediate disputes between the states and to allow all states to act as a single entity for such things as national defense, where it would benefit all to act as one (ie. strength in numbers). Ergo, when any one or more states had a major dispute with a ruling or policy of the federal government, they had three options. They could sit there and take it, they could continue fighting it within the union itself, or they could cecede from the union. If Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware decided in 1800 to cecede, do you honestly believe there would have been a massive war costing thousands and thousands of lives over it? Chances are, it would have been a peaceful transition after a bitter diplomatic struggle. In all of this, one fact remains: Each state is a seperate and whole entity entitled to act on its own accord. Any member state of the UN or the EU could cecede at will, and I seriously doubt we'd see that state attacked over it. Lincoln was a coward for not having the courage to lead his country through a difficult time without resorting to massacring farmers when they didn't lay down and roll over upon command.

      " Finally, when you say the spirit of the law is dead, you are obviously forgetting the Supreme Court, who has the job of interpreting the spirit of the law."

      This is the job of all courts; not just the Supreme Court. The problem is that laws are written poorly, the judicial system is completely overloaded, and we've become such a litigous society that common law is impossible to aptly interpret within the context of thousands of conflicting rulings on the same subject. As a Virginia school student, I was always taught that it was called the "War of Northern Agression". When I went to high school in another state, it was taught as the "Civil War". I thought little of it at the time, but since I've become more politically active and have become much more interested in the past of our great nation, I've come to the conclusion that "The War of Northern Agression" best describes the circumstances of what happened. Don't forget that the Union army was the first to attack, and never forget Sherman's march to the sea in which he went from town to town burning everything in sight to the ground and slaughtering unarmed civilians. To call it barbaric does not do it justice.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    3. Re:Our legal system by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Informative

      The crazy thing is, broadcasters can demand payment for being retransmitted by cable companies... their "free signal" isn't so free when you get it over cable even at the wholesale level. What's more, if a a cable company deems a station that pumps out religous programming that hardly anybody watches as having negative value, the broadcast can then demand that the cable company take the channel for free with no way to turn it down.

    4. Re:Our legal system by Reziac · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What about billing by the minute for whatever channels you watched last month? Could be variable on a per-channel basis.

      The concept is doubtless rife with problems (such as, the cable company can't bill you in advance and make money from the interest on your advance payment) but anyone here care to take a stab at making it a workable concept?

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  3. Big Fat DUH! by andyring · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's only common knowledge that people want choice. I would subscribe to cable myself if I didn't have to order a bunch of crap I don't want just to get one or two channels. It's certainly technologically feasable, but it's all about money and control. Cable companies obviously realize they have monopolies all over the place, and that opens the door wide to bending over and getting screwed by the cable companies (or any other monopoly). I don't give a damn about anything sports-related, but forcing me to order sports channels to see one non-sports one I want is outrageous.

    It would be like going to the store for a bag of Doritos and being forced to buy 1/3 of the entire aisle to get the bag of chips you want. Consumers would never stand for that, and I'm surprised they've put up with this for so long.

  4. As always... by jasno · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The solution lies in new technology, not new legislation. If there were more content delivery methods(yes, theres satellite, but we need more), the cable companies would lose their monopoly and would have to compete for our business.

    Wireless cable, telco delivered video on demand, cable blimps, and streaming video over IP come to mind. Better yet, lets come up with a system where we simply buy bandwidth from a carrier and use that as a 'universal content delivery mechanism' for cable, phone service, etc.

    I know this has been tried before (by cable co's and telcos at least), so why did it fail?

    Its always amazed me how the government can work for years trying to solve a problem and a new technological innovation will come along and make the entire debate irrelevant.

    --

    http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
    1. Re:As always... by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nope. Nope. Nope.

      The problem is not the distributors, but the content makers in the first place. In order to carry the popular broadcast stations and cable networks, you must bundle in that company's less popular cable networks, some of which are upstart no-names nobody would pay for if they didn't have to.

      There has to be a law unbundling networks at the wholesale layer before content distributors can have packages that reflect what you want to get and nothing more and nothing less.

    2. Re:As always... by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Wireless cable

      Uh... you mean like broadcast TV?

      telco delivered video on demand

      I predict that this won't happen until we come up with a DRM system that actually works. Content providers want to protect their media, and the law says they have that right. We as a society would be better off-- in the purely lazy, couch potato sense, of course-- with a good DRM infrastructure than without one. I will, of course, get senselessly flamed for this by people who wouldn't recognize a good DRM system if it bit them on the DVD player. Here's a hint: a good DRM system will protect consumers' rights just as much as it protects licensors' rights.

      streaming video over IP

      How do we fix the fact that this simply doesn't work very well? I've been of the opinion for some time that the best video-on-demand system would be a store-and-watch one. You request a movie or show and your STB/TV/player/whatever starts downloading it. Depending on your bandwidth, the program might take a minute to download or it might take a day. When it's downloaded, you can watch it.

      Those of us who own TiVos kind of have this system already. I look at the list of programming that's available over the next several days and decide what I'd like to see. When it comes along, my TiVo records and caches it for me. I can then watch it at my leisure, as many times as I like until I decide to delete it. Couple this mode of operation-- particularly the "season pass" feature that lets you specify repeating program events-- with IP-based content delivery and we might have a winner.

      Ultimately this loops back to DRM, though. I don't think content providers would be too excited about this idea unless they knew their rights would be protected, and obviously consumers won't be happy unless they know that their rights are also protected. Ergo, we require good DRM.

      --

      I write in my journal
  5. No thanks by kungfuBreaks · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I own both a VCR and a DVD player, but I don't have cable. It's just not worth it to me; all the global news coverage I could possibly want is available online (in fact, I rank many blogs far higher than most mainstream media outlets), and I can rent tapes and DVD's when I'm in the mood for a movie. If and when cable (or satellite) companies decide to offer true per-channel subscription, I might be interested in getting HBO or an independent movie channel say. Until then, I think I'll hold on to my money.

    1. Re:No thanks by Flounder · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I find the $30 a month I spend on Netflix to be a far better deal than anything I could ever watch on broadcast TV.

      Between Netflix and internet access, I've got on-demand 24 hour news. Coverage of any sporting event I could ever have interest in. No commercials (except banner ads and pop ups, and there's software to eliminate those). A much bigger variety of movies than I could ever hope to see on cable (especially in older movies).

      I do miss The Simpsons and Babylon 5 reruns. But now that both shows are coming out on DVD, I'm set. I do miss vegging out in front of the tube at 4am, but I do get alot more reading, writing and coding done now.

      --

      No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova

  6. It ain't so great anyway by FireBreathingDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't see what the big deal about a la carte is; every time I order sushi that way, I end up ordering too much, spending an assload of money and getting stuck with a bunch of uneaten raw fish.

    --
    Shame on Google.
    1. Re:It ain't so great anyway by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 4, Funny

      Extend the metaphore. Think of each channel as one sushi.. thing.. whatever the individual unit of sushi is (wrap? I dont know.. whatever)
      The way it's currently set up, the only way to get any sushi at all is if you order [this is based on my cable company] 69 sushi things. To me, that's too much sushi, and some of it I wouldnt even want by itself. The resteraunt won't even let me share what I get with others(as illogical as this sounds. Even if it seems unenforceable, there are federal laws stating that you CAN'T share your sushi with someone else. The resteraunt doesnt have to enforce it because they got the government to) Some of the sushi has weird spanish spices on it, some of it is prepared Kosher, some of it is prepared with alchohol and served on the same big plate even though I ordered with my family. The only way to get the house special is to get another 10 peices of shrimp. Well, not really. They serve the house special on the same big plate, but they'll only let you eat it with their special silverware, and if you try to get at it with the chopsticks you had to bring yourself, they arrest you. The silverware costs more money, and comes with an e-mail account, but also comes with a menu that will tell you which of the sushi has alchohol in it- something you can get to otherwise only by waiting for somebody to walk by with a menu, all the while talking about how to get cheap patents, and of course calling out information about other sushis which if you'd have been able to eat you wouldnt be paying attention to the menu guy anyway. ... did I have a point? :)

      --
      -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
  7. I hate cable companies by mrscorpio · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The area I live in is served by Mediacom. I get basic cable service for $14.95/month, and that's only because I would have to pay a "you're going to steal cable anyway" fee of $10.00 per month if I don't take it along with my cable internet (DSL is too slow, expensive, or both here). The only "extra" channel I get is the Food Network (which rules), but I would love to get The History Channel, Comedy Central, and MTV2, but can't unless I go for digital cable, which starts at like $60/month and gives me a bazillion channels I don't want. Sorry, but I'd rather do without than to overpay for things I'm not going to even use. I hope this legislation will bring about some positive change in the near future.

    Chris

  8. Showtime DVD and more! by secondsun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thankfully many stations (like showtime) are putting their more popular series out on DVD after each season (Queer as Folk season one has been out a year and season two is set to come out in a month or so just in time for season three to start up). This is competition to the cable industry, and it is only going to increase. DVD's are cheap to stamp, mpeg-2 is cheap to make (esp since 99% of all editing now is done digitally on nonllinear systems, mpeg-2 is just an option!). And the internet means that it is cheap to ship, sell only 10,000? Stamp 10k, ship and then forget about it. The only thing that I think would be better would be if I could download everything (say pay 50 for a season and download eps after they are aired). But the cable paradigm is beginning to fade in the wake of new and more diverse, more specific techs.

    Secondsun

    --
    There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
  9. Previous story by CoolQ · · Score: 3, Informative

    For those of you who are sick of using the search "feature", here is the previous story, "Cable TV A La Carte?":

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/07/138248

  10. Re:If i had the choice by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unfortately... those channels are actually keeping youy cable rates down.

    The shopping channels are paying the cable companies to be there by giving them a cut of the sales in exchange for the cable space. The cable companies could use the help. (Before you think they're making out like bandits, where'd all Adelphia and AT&T Broadband's money go... yep, the content owners.)

    Where this all colapses is where the shopping channels get their hands on a broadcast station. Then they cable company has to carry the "local broadcaster" for free, and gets no cut of the money. That's a loophole in the law that needs to be closed.

  11. Legislation isn't needed! by dada21 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What we need is COMPLETE de-regulation of a terribly over-regulated industry. It's regulated for the industry and it's regulated for the consumers -- regulations that often baffle the mind and battle each other!

    If we could completely deregulate the industry, including the LOCAL regulations that decree that a cable company shall be a monopoly ("common carrier") and that satellite dishes could be placed on anyone's private property without regulations, I think you'd see many more providers popping up. Why should a town only have ONE cable company?

    In a truly unregulated market, competition WOULD provide for what the MARKET wants. No, you can't just get HBO for $2.99 a month and EPSON for $1.99 a month because there are many fixed costs for cable. The premium packages are the best value because they subsidize the costs of smaller packages. Just like airplane companies make all their money off of first class full fare passengers, with coach passengers only giving them tiny incentives when the plane is full, cable carriers make their money off of the people who get the whole ball and chain.

    Honestly, all these regulations "for the consumer" only end up making government have to offer incentives "for the provider." They don't work. The Austrian School of Economics shows time and again that there are no consumers and no providers -- we're both just trading items of value for what we think is more valuable. If you completely deregulate the markets (COMPLETELY) you'll allow competition in, and competition will ALWAYS offer what will make both sides happy at the lowest level.

    If you think you can offer better service to people who want it, in a deregulated economy you can! But today, how can I offer cable to you a la carte, at a price you want, if the cable provider in your area is a government imposed monopoly?

    Study the realities of further legislation -- you'll only see that more government introduced "rights" for the consumer will hurt us in the end.

    dada

    1. Re:Legislation isn't needed! by arkanes · · Score: 4, Informative
      Except, of course, it wouldn't. As with any industry with a high barrier to entry, the current providers can lock out newcomers. The whole reason we decided to have local monopolies in the first place was so that there'd be some benefit in actually rolling out the wire - how many cable providers do you think there'll be when each and every one needs to run it's own cable network? A regulated monopoly is much better than an unregulated one.

      Sure, we could have a "regulated breakup", like with the baby bells, where people who own the cable are required to allow others to provide service over that wire. We saw how well that worked out with DSL, right?

  12. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  13. Default Service for Cable Modem Users by SecretAsianMan · · Score: 5, Interesting
    One interesting solution, and I've heard this before somewhere: I previously had 'digital' cable (which isn't all digital, but that's another story), cable modem service, and even 'digital' phone service (didn't notice any difference, but it was cheaper than [company2]) through [company]. Then I got unemployed for a while, and those things became tough to afford. The first thing to go was the phone service. I have a cell phone and use it almost exclusively, and my cell service is a good plan with free nights and weekends. Cable TV service was tougher to let go of, but I eventually realized that all I ever watched was the History Channel. Most of the shows there are okay but IMHO aren't nearly as enjoyable as an honest-to-[deity] academic text. So I got rid of the cable TV service. I still had cable modem service; its priority was somewhere around the food-and-water level.

    A few days ago a wage-monkey came out to uninstall my telephone interface. After he let himself into my backyard, I politely went out and asked him what the hell he was doing. He explained and then asked me which of the three cable jacks in the house my modem was plugged into. My first reaction was that I didn't have time to trace which line terminated at the appropriate wall jack. Then I realized that he aimed to disconnect two of my three jacks, since I 'obviously' didn't need them. I regarded this idea with disdain, since I wanted the freedom to move my cable modem to a different jack if I were to rearrange my house (and such an activity *is* planned). I told the monkey as much, and he finished his work without disconnecting any jacks.

    A few days after that, I accidentally turned on a TV that was still connected to a cable outlet. I saw a picture! I scanned through the channels, and behold, I now had more active channels than I did with the 'digital' service. I wasn't looking to break the law; I simply stepped on the damn remote control.

    My suggestion: lose the cable service, keep the cable modem service. Watch TV. Oh, and one more phrase: at your own risk.

    --

    Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.

    1. Re:Default Service for Cable Modem Users by CySurflex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My parents did this with Time Warner, until Time Warner got wise to the situation, and installed a filter of sorts at all the homes that had cable modes without cable TV service. This filter prevents viewing cable TV but leaves the cable modem operational.

  14. Not possible for true a la carte programming. by Lord+Kano · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I used to think that it was a way for content providors to extort money out of their customers, until I worked at an unnamed Satellite TV company's call center.

    Now I see why there is no a la carte.

    It would raise rates all over the place. People who think that they'll get a better deal by only paying for one channel will quintuple call volume at call centers. By calling in several times per day to change programming.

    HBO in the morning, ABC in the afternoon, NBC at night, HBO again the next morning. Rinse, repeat.

    In order to keep the call center staffed, companies will need to increase the number of operators on the line at any given time. People don't work for free. And the effect of a la carte will be instant. Meaning overtime for countless employees. That is a higher cost. Higher operational costs equal higher consumer costs. Those cheap bastards who are trying to get over on the system will cause everyone else's prices to skyrocket.

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  15. Tivo will evolve into VOD by alexhmit01 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The notion of streaming VOD is retarded, which is why we've been promised it for 7 or 8 years... Tivo gets close. Right now, PPV movies tend to cycle so each movie is on four channels, starting every 30 minutes. If your STB recorded the first 30 minutes of each PPV movie (sent on a separate, hidden channel, so you would have it before the movies started showing), then you could VOD them for free. Think about it, at any point I am no more than 30 minutes away from the beginning.

    And, to make it proper VOD, it should grab from all 4 channels (feasible even on DBS, as long as they are on the right transponders so that it can all come off one LNB), so 4 minutes fill in each minute. You have the first 30 minutes queued up (so you can rewind fast foward, etc), and within 30 minutes, the entire 2 hours block is recorded.

    I would expect an HD Tivo (DirecTivo model, maybe an HD Tivo cable version when the open cable really happen) in about 6 months, gauging us early adopters. Once that happens, we start moving into Tivos w/ really big hard drives. The HD channels may always be limited, but the 480p spec allows streaming DVD quality films, which is probably "good enough" for PPV, etc.

    Give it 2 years, and DirecTV and Dish release a killer VOD system on top of their time-shifting PVR boxes.

    TV tech is finally getting good. :)

    But yeah, DRM is necessary. However, the studios need to realize that the stuff will get out, but they can keep it out of mainstream. Downloading TV/Movies won't occur unless convergence happened, and its a dying fad. People don't want interactive television, most people don't want PVRs. People watch TV to vege, and that's the reality that all us gadget freaks miss when we wonder why something isn't there yet.

    However, at least w/ the tech, hopefully they will make new and exciting toys for those of us willing to pay a premium. VHS took off, S-VHS and Laserdisc never hit mainstream, but DVD got HUGE fast. PVRs didn't take off, VOD isn't taking off, maybe whatever comes next will.

    Personally, I think that DTV + PVR could do it. I have the Sunday Ticket demo package (4 months w/ everything free), and I was planning to keep all the channels. Currently, I barely take advantage of them, because the ReplayTV doesn't have enough space to store movies. Give me an 80 hour PVR that will find movies for me, and I'm willing to pay for all the movie channels.

    If you could find movies for me and I could have 30 movies (plus all my weekly shows), constantly rotating, of which 5 could interest me... Good bye Blockbuster, and I'm happy to send ~$100 to DirecTV each month.

    Alex

  16. Re:Wait.......cable isn't FREE? by Rick_T · · Score: 3, Informative

    > Cable companies have audit teams who check the
    > taps for illegal hookups. There's no easy press
    > a button at the office solution, but they can
    > catch you.

    I'm not convinced that the threatening letters they send out aren't random mailings. I got a "we think you're stealing cable" letter addressed to "Occupant" once from a cable company in a town I used to live in. While it's true that I was at the time receiving Showtime and the "basic" channels, it was over a satellite dish. In fact, I'd been using the satellite dish for about FOUR YEARS at that point, and anyone who cared to look into the back yard could have seen it.

    I also had an attic-mounted antenna for the local channels. That, I'd only had about a year or two (as an upgrade over the rabbit ears) when the cable company's letter came.

    --
    -- Rick
  17. Re:If i had the choice by theMightyE · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Unfortately... those channels are actually keeping youy cable rates down.The shopping channels are paying the cable companies to be there by giving them a cut of the sales in exchange for the cable space.

    So why not make these channels optional too, but with a negative price, i.e. get QVC and take $0.50 a month off your bill? I expect most people would just program their TVs to skip over these channels anyway, just like we do now, but with a bit of a savings.

  18. Why watch TV? by Animats · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I've never had a television. I only see TV in the gym where I work out. It seems to be mostly commercials. What's the point?

    I have a DVD player, and don't mind buying movies. I have walls of books. But broadcast TV? Why?