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Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans
unassimilatible writes "Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain seems to be leaning towards sponsoring legislation mandating something I have wanted for a long time: Forcing cable companies to offer "a la carte" programming packages. No U.S. cable or satellite currently offers such a plan. However, as the Washington Post reports, "That may change, if some lawmakers and consumer groups get their way, as the cable industry finds itself under increasing scrutiny. Lawmakers report that their constituents are angry about cable bills that have risen at three times the rate of inflation since the industry was largely deregulated in 1996." McCain money quote: "I go down to buy a loaf of bread. I don't have to buy broccoli and milk to go with it." Bottom line is, cable companies have a government-authorized monopoly, so maybe they need to recieve government-mandated "innovation." Why should I pay for 15 non-English channels?"
unbundle everything except the local channels now! McCain is right.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Why should the governemnt force this? Let the market decide. If you don't like how cable or satelite TV does its pricing then DON'T BUY THE SERVICE!
but raise cable prices for all.
Bundling is how the cable companies can get away with charging what they do for basic cable, but I'll bet that the cost per channel will be higher if this were to happen.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
I'd like to see it set up so I can pick and choose each and every channel, preferably via an onscreen check list at the set top box. And if there's something I want to see on a channel I don't normally have, I can order it just for that program right at the box.
--- Ban humanity.
In fact, mine just upped my limit on my cable modem. I went from 1Mbs/1Mbps to 5Mbps/1Mbps - without asking, or having to pay any more. Downladed some ISOs at combined speed of over 450K/sec :)
A big problem for cable companies is that they now have no real excuse to not have plans like this. Before digital cable they could at least claim some technological difficulties in setting up such a system. Now I would guess that it would involve minor changes to their infrastructure and users should easily be able to add or remove channels directly through their cable box.
Casual Games/Downloads
Don't get me wrong - I have NO problem with access to any of those channels, but what *I* have wanted for *years* is for cable (and satellite) companies to provide me with the content *I* want at a reasonable price. Not charge me for a 120 channels because that's the only way I can see the 20 that I actually *want*.
I wouldn't mind so much IF cable wasn't so expensive. I looked from switching back from Dish Network to my local cable co.. The price I pay for *everything* that's available on my line-up is US$89/mo. via Dish Network. I wanted to get the local channels in HDTV. But to do that I'd have to switch back to cable. To switch back to cable, and keep my current channel lineup would have been US$170/mo!!! And that's not including the HDTV support...! To add insult - my local cable co (Comcast) doesn't *have* as many channels as Dish Network does.
The Dish Network ads are right - cable cos. *are* pigs...
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
The point is, it's not a free market economy. One cable provider ahs a monopoly in your area, so its his cable service, or nothing. A free market economy would have multiple cable providers in an area.
But then the concrete on your roads would nver set for cable companies laying down cable. And the investment is too high for too many competitors. So the market has to be as free as possible. And freedom to choose what to buy is the best answer in the circumstances.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
nb: I cancelled my cable entirely but kept the cable modem access in 2003
This was one of my major complaints about television. I had to pay for sports/golf/etc channels to get
Pick up a book and read instead or download what you really want to see.
[/curmudgeon]
Trolling is a art,
I wish the Belgian government would regulate similar principles (we have a cable monopoly too here). There are about 10 dutch speaking channels available, only 1 of which is worth watching. But the only way to get that one is by taking the whole shebang of crap with it. And since we don't want our kids to grow up with commercials, we decided to dump the TV and rent a movie every other day.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
that's the way it COULD be (theoretically). over the way it SHOULD be can be argued.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
While we'd all like a la carte pricing of cable, it's a nightmare from a technical point of view. The only possible way to do it would be to require everyone to have a digital box - trying to do this in analog simply wouldn't be feasible (i.e. try filtering 100-106Mhz out, allowing 106-112Mhz, filtering out 112-124Mhz, allowing 124-130Mhz, etc. - each cable tap would have dozens of filters, and each would push the limits of what passive filters can actually do).
Therefore, we're talking requiring a digital box for each customer, and every single TV set - that alone will tack $5+ per TV onto everyone's monthly cable bill (digital boxes are ~$150-200 and up.
You'd probably also end up with a lot of marginal channels going off the air (outside of Slashdot, how many folks will actually _pay_ for TechTV on an a la carte basis?).
So, to solve this, we are to piss and moan to our benificent Congressweebles? They will swoop down and magically [poof] insure free-market principles?
Just don't buy cable. Last time I checked, you could just not watch TV. [shock and dismay!]
Or has cable TV become another right?
but you TV-addicts are the ones fueling the market
I am really sorry I enjoy watching movies, TLC, TechTV, etc. I wish I could be cool and liberated like you, Anonymous Coward. Sorry if I get a flamebait outa that. I just couldn't get through Sunday without my Simpsons/Sopranos fix.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Well, there's satellite. Which doesn't seem to be competition enough.
At about $2 a subscriber per month, its one of the most expensive channel groups. And it will only get more expensive as sports leagues have been upping license fees. The cost of sports programming on cable rose 59% between 1999 and 2002.
Now if I could only opt-out of those sales taxes and tourist taxes that are squandered on sports stadiums, I'd be a happy camper.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
No, they are not. In southeast michigan, most homes can choose between Comcast and Wide Open West. I realize this is rare, but it's great. We can pit them against each other on our bills. Instead of $35 for basic cable, you can haggle them down to $20. Another cool thing is that Wide Open West has speed tiers for their cable modems - $50 / month gets you a slow cablem modem and full basic cable. Not bad really.
However, it would be nice to get HD service from either of them with a cable modem at a decent speed for under $100 / month. Ugh - slave to electronics.
For me this is a funny sittuation. Here in saskatchewan our telephone company has been offering digital cable over dsl for about two years now. While the cable company still acts like all able companies with it's bundling, the telco offers bundles in 5-7 themed channels units. This solution seems to be a bit better than what the cable companies are doing while still supporting lower prices and the obscure channels.
How exactly is this going to solve the problem of companies like Viacom charging for their own package deals? You all realize of course that this is how it works for cablecos as well?
I'm all for choice, but this will in no way affect the PROVIDERS of the entertainment. The American public has already shown a willingness to basically pay whatever they have to for their entertainment (look at ticket prices to any event nowadays for proof!) The program providers know this and so no matter what the cablecos do to split up channel selections, THEY will still pay out the ass.
Now THAT'S 'reality television' for you...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
our current "Republican" government is quite leftist. The government is bigger now than it was under Clinton (and can you say 'deficit'?). Most modern repub's don't have the balls to return to their small government roots.
My parents were going to discontinue their cable service but are litterally in a 'rock in a hard place' as far as picking up any local stations on rabbit ears.
Nonetheless, my dad made the call and was informed that there was an unadvertised package for $15/month that would give them basic local and a few other channels. They called it the 'basic-basic' plan or some such garbage. I guess it was a way to keep people like my parents for leaving completely.
The cablecos know their pricing is out of hand, but the fact is, the PROVIDERS of the channels are equally blameworthy, if not more so.
Viacom: "Tell ya what. We'll give you VH2, MTV2 and 3, and the Munchkin Channel as part of our package deal!"
Comcast Exec: "Yeah, but all we really want is VH2 and MTV 2 and 3..."
Viacom: "Ah, so sorry. These channels only come as a package... Say! Would you like some Food Channel to go along with that?"
Frustrating indeed!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Of course, the problem with this is the cable companies' tendency to price gouge. However, maybe something as simple as mandating that the cable box always display an accurate real-time running count of the day's viewing charges might counteract this. Since most people are basically cheap, they'll shut off the service if they see the day's total go over a couple of bucks. This would put pressure on the cable providers to keep the charges reasonable.
Another approach might be to give billing control over the various channels directly to the upstream provider. The current cable company would only handle the physical infrastructure, with their costs covered by the base rate. The content providers would compete against each other on price for the individual channels that people watch. This could work kind of like the current arrangement for competition in long-distance phone service, where you choose among long-distance services that are brought to you via your local phone company.
If I paid $3/channel I actually watched my cable bill would be about 1/4 the amount it used to be for basic digital. Sounds great to me.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My local newspaper did some research. Cable subscription rates (percentage of population) is going down while DirecTV is going up at about 1% per year. Cable rates ARE higher than DirecTV. DirecTV is adding local channels in this area this spring. An informal poll showed that 30% of cable subscribers were switching when that happens.
To drive the nail in the coffin, a local telco is wiring the city with fiber over the next 4 years and offering Very high speed internet, digital cable, and phone service. We should FINALLY see some Real competition in all services (phone cable, and internet.)
Free maket? In my area there is only one cable provider (Bright House Networks (formerly Time Warner),) and they are c*cky as hell. A few months ago, I switched to satellite for lower monthly costs, and a low cost TiVO. Right before I canceled my cable TV service, I received a letter stating that the rates were again going up. The justification? They were going to add some channels aboutr which I couldn't have cared less. I wonder if they will lower rates when they remove channels (e.g. when the TechTV/G4 merger is complete. I'm willing to bet that they won't. For the most part my cable modem service worked fine, but when it did, and I was a direct customer, they had no tech support outside of business hours. Near the end, I switched to Earthlink cable modem through the same cable company, $5 cheaper per month ($25 cheaper for the first 3 months,) and tech support was available 24/7 via Earthlink. When I made the switch, all of my hardware stayed the same but the cable company charged me $9 to switch the billing record. What a bunch of crap. The cable companies know they have people by the balls, and they take advantage of it.
-- Charles A. Plater
Before bundling, there were actually a lot more channels aiming at a limited audience. It isn't terribly expensive or difficult to create a cable TV channel. You need content of some kind (public domain movies, tapes of local pastors on their pulpits, interviews with local "celebrities"), an uplink disk, and enough money to rent satellite time (a few hundred an hour, I think). The hard part is getting cable companies to carry you. But that didn't used to be a problem, because local companies were all too happy to find cheap programming.
A few years ago, the cable company in Santa Cruz ditched all its independent channels in favor of "more popular" channels. Meaning new channels they'd been forced to carry after contract renegotiation. Many of these channels were just placeholders, showing old TV shows that nobody else wanted -- the providers' lawyers had been ahead of their programmers! There were complaints from people who missed the Eternal Word channel, but the cable company didn't really have a choice.
With the exception of paid movie channels (HBO) and C-SPAN, most cable channels run an advertising based business.
And for the price of $3.00 per channel/month that you mentioned, I'd be likely to try a new channel for a month to see if it's something I like. How much are Blockbuster rentals these days?
The only way to solve this battle is to change the system such that people pay for what they want and if there's not sufficient demand for something, it gets dropped. Which is exactly what this model will do.
If you want proof that quality of television programming has fallen, check out the lineups of the three major networks, compare them to a decade ago, and get back to me.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But then the concrete on your roads would nver set for cable companies laying down cable. And the investment is too high for too many competitors.
Surely this could be solved easily enough by forcing the cable company to allow other people - including rival cable providers - to buy some bandwidth on the cables.
I better make this quick before the Mod-sharks bork my opinions again.
You bring up a valid issue, one that most of the leftists here are incapable of listening to. It is possible, however difficult, to keep things on the local level. Cable companies deal with the local goverments, and this is how they keep their monopolies. Take the fight to the city council, and you can see real change.
Take the fight to Washington, and you get Federalization, more hegemony, more collusion. Do you actually think that John McCain gives a flying crap about your cable bills? The man probably hasn't paid a cable bill in 20 years (if ever). He's interested in maintaining the relationship he has with the Time-Warners and Comcasts of the world. Do you really think he'd knowingly sabotage that relationship, just so you can watch Dick Van Dyke re-runs for $10 less a month?
Please. You want Uncle Sam to stop playing with the Big Boys of Wall Street? Then, YOU stop playing with them. I haven't watched cable TV in 7 years. I find my news and entertainment elsewhere. What would happen if most Americans did that, hmm? The Big Boys wouldn't be quite so Big, would they?
Cable companies have little say on how channels are bundled. The Viacoms, HBOs, etc. of the world determine the packages. This was no small part of the recent Viacom / Dish battle - Viacom insisted Dish carry a new POS cartoon channel in its basic package in order to get the rights to CBS. Cable companies would LOVE to sell you a-la-carte - they'd make a ton more money that way.
People decry the loss of marginal/niche channels if cable co's go to a la carte pricing. My retort: who cares? This is the beauty of the markets. If people really want Animal Planet, they'll pay for it. Otherwise, the market will vote with its collective wallet and give a thumbs-down. Why should I subsidise some beer-swilling redneck's desire to watch Speedvision when I could care less about this? If he cares so much, he should be willing to pay $10/mo for Speedvision a la carte. Plus, a la carte pricing opens up all kinds of innovations. You could have a pay-per-view option. Let's say you don't feel like paying $10/mo for Univision month in and month out, but there's one movie with some hot busty Latina that you want to view. No problem -- you pay $2-3 for that one movie and then have no further commitments beyond that.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
C-SPAN!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Charging $1 per channel for the big guys: comedy central, spike tv, mtv, etc and then have the smaller channels in packages? History, Discovery, Nickelodeon, BET, for like 3-4 a package. Make em big packages too. Group unwatched channels with unwatched channels. And group semi watched channels with more of the same i.e. Techtv with cartoon network. I dunno. I have 100 channels and i watch maybe 4. Not counting the movie channels.
Can't imagine what each channel will be if this goes through.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Sure if you got the same number of channels it would be the same price, but if you only picked up the channels you want, it may make the cost go down for the consumer. I'm sure someone else really wants all of the religious/CSPAN/Oxygen network choices, but I don't. It might also force some networks to reevaluate. MTV, for instance, might take note if 50% of their viewers dropped MTV and MTV2 picked up.
Honestly, out of the 100 channels you get, how many do you spend more than a fraction of a second surfing past? I probably only watch 20% of the channels I get. If the rates were to double for all of basic cable, but I only paid for the 20% I wanted, I'm still saving.
One downside I see is that networks could become like TV shows. If it doesn't perform well in the first year, it'll get pulled for something else.
The correct term is "regional monopoly". It applies to phone companies, Department stores (i.e., target/Wal-Mart & home depot/Lowe's) and cable companies.
Look at a map. Companies know that 95% of people live and die within 10 miles of their home so it's easy to carve out territories.
Buyers like competition but sellers do not. If everyone agrees to keep their distance, everybody makes money. In the South where development is basically new (~30 years) this is a rock solid law of nature. Major corporations stay close enough to carry the banner of free markets but far enough away to make money.
Laws are for people with no friends.
This will just change the way that the low end station make money. Most regular station do not make there money off the small fee they chage cable compnaies, they make it off advertising. Those niche channel that are in danger of being dropped will have to give up that small fee and rely on solely advertising revenue. Because there no cost for the channel the cable compnaies will offer it for free. However channels like CNN, USA, will cost a fee because there content is good enough that consumers will pay for it. Once a small stations builds and audience and is worth paying for they can then start charging fees to the cable providers and the providers will change the free channel to a pay channel.
My city has been taking it to the city council about our cable company for TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS. They were fighting Cox before I was born - hell, back when having cable was a social status symbol and most people around here didn't even know what the local cable company was, the city council was listening to people fighting the cable companies almost every week.
What's it gotten us? Not damn shit. Bresnan bought Cox, Charater bought Bresnan, and each one proceedes to screw us harder than the last one, and more people went to the city council to complain.
So, we ran a referrendum. It passed overwhelmingly, and we kicked Bresnan out in favor of Nova (who, at the time, offered 50 channels for $25 a month, compared to Bresnan's 30 channels for $35)
Guess what happened? Bresnan bought Nova, and we got fucked again - as did everybody up in Gladwin county who already had Nova for their cable. We got our 20 extra channels, but we also got another fifteen bucks a month on our bill instead of ten off.
Last year, Charter cut seven channels and increased the price by $8. This year, they're planning to cut two channels and add one that will soon be merging with a channel we already get anyway, and they've already tacked $5 on the bill, with $10 more comming this summer.
...until I can get real a la carte selection of what I want (i.e., the shows themselves) then we haven't really gotten where we need to be.
Why should I pay for TechTV when all I want is Screen Savers? Why should I pay for SciFi when all I want is ST:DS9? You get the idea.
This is a great move, but the whole industry needs to change to support subscription to individual shows if we are to see real a la carte selection of what we want.
-Tom
I have a couple of ideas on how this could be handled.
1. Have the government pass regulation that cable providers, can't own the lines. Then have all the lines operated by the government. The cable companies could then lease line time. This seems a little bit Communistic, but it would solve the problems of cable startups not being able to afford running their own lines. Although it is not very technically feasible either.
2. Screw the Cable TV industry, have all cable companies just offer internet access, then let the networks stream all of their stuff over the web. Then the consumer can decide what to subscribe to and the network can screw us directly.
Wow. I might get Fox, because they tend to go out there and show something interesting (this year, Wonderfalls. Last year, Firefly)...but kill it mid season. But that's more than the other 3 are doing.
I suspect _that_ would really shake things up. And if a large percentage didn't get the big three, the advertising consequences would probably bump up the viability of some of the smaller networks.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
MTV, for instance, might take note if 50% of their viewers dropped MTV and MTV2 picked up.
Except, MTV is mostly viewed by the people in a household who are not the ones paying the cable bill. A sudden drop in subscribers could just as easily be explained by parents angrily dropping the channel, giving MTV back its "rebel" status and making it even more appealing to the younger crowd... you know, the ones with the disposable income.
If you don't believe me, look at VH1, a channel that plays much more music, appeals to an older crowd, lives under the same umbrella... and doesn't come close in ratings or revenue.
All kinds of industries use these types of packaging plans to make consumers pay for things they don't want. When you buy a car, you can't just get leather seats. You have to buy the "luxury package" to get leather seats, which also includes expensive upgraded rims, etc.
The recording industry works this way too, "encouraging" the consumer to buy an entire album to get one song that they want.
It happens on the web too. Some sites put ads all through their content, and if you want to consume the content, you are forced to accept the whole package they are offering and consume the ads too. At least on the web and with any digital product, techology can be used as a tool to break these packages apart, so that the consumer can be free to make his own choices.
Earthlink and simular isp's are basicaly rebranding timewarners roadrunner in my area and i was able to get a business account for the same price as a user/private acount for broad band from them.
The exact same tech that installed my home internet thru road runner came to install the Earthlink cable hook up.
Some items to note though. In the middle of a town with buildings all the way arond having digital cable access and some even with internet, time warner still claimed the needed to waist what ended up becoming 1.5 months doing a site compatability survey before they would commit to an instalation date that came another 2 months later. Around 9 months after the instalation happend we had some problems when Earthlink sent time warner out to fix it, time warner started having a fit about using residential service in a comercial building and threatend to turn the service off of charge us the $300 for access instead of the $43 we have been paying. It took a $500 letter from my attorny explaining our survice was purchased from earthlink and not time warner so they had no right and a threat to file complaints to the ohio public utilities and the state atourney genrals office before they let iit drop.
i would welcome such law only if it had a stipulation that they had to do it without raising cost to the consumer durring the process.
A method to allow how much fans care about a program or channel to determine programming would be a good thing as well. Some of the grass roots campaigns to save shows would have a more legitimate way to help support a channel and by extention, a program they want to see. I guess this might be slighly beyond the reach of ala carte, but clearly possible soon if not now the idea that by choosing to pay more a "quality" show, a lesser number of viewers can keep their show/channel on the air.
Another interesting possibility is that with an ala carte type system, the pressure would be on the content providers to hook new subscribers--ie new channels or programming means that they would have to give the content away for awhile for people to try out to see if they want to pay for it. Not that that's an original concept, premium channels have been doing it for years but on a wider scale, it would mean they're competing harder to get viewers which is a good thing.
Vote Quimby.
The only thing I miss is Bravo, a couple movie channels (AMC and TCM) and an occasional C-Span interview.
I'm much happier overall.
As a fellow michigander, I have a few words for you:
Dish Network
DirecTV
(either, just take your pick. I'm on Dish myself but they're basically equivalent).
We have Charter at our house, for the broadband only. The cable quality (even digital cable) doesn't meet the quality of Dish, so we had it disconnected the day after they put it in and never cancelled our Dish subscription.
Dish and DirecTV are also way cheaper than cable. DirecTV right now has a guaranteed infinite price lockin. That's what they told me on the phone yesterday, anyway; they guarantee no price increases, ever.
I'm not sure why people are still subscribing to cable. The systems and the install are free, it's not legal (per the FCC, fed trumps local) for ordinances to disallow your mounting the antenna, the picture is better and the packages are cheaper.
OK, a few people have no clear view of the satellite due to buildings or trees. But not that many.
Here is my idea for a better model for Cable TV. If Congress is going to mandate things, this is what they should mandate.
Make Cable TV simply be a high speed internet where every program provider can make themselves available without having to contract with every individual Cable TV company. The program providers then choose whether to make their programming available free and unencrypted, or encrypted with different payment schemes such as pay per program or pay per month.
The whole idea is to separate the infrastructure provider from the content provider (or as in the case of electricity and gas, the energy provider). With the exception of requirements to carry the basic market over-the air TV stations, Cable TV service should be entirely ala-carte. With digital transmission and encryption like we have now, and computers to interface directly with users and control the access to programming, it should be a very cheap and easy thing to do in the long run.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars