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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?"
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.
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?).
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?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think you're right.
I also think that some channels that are less popular will simply get removed, regardless of the wishes of the fans of _those_ networks feel, which can be unfortunate if you happen to be a fan of that network. I may not care about HGTV but what if it were more popular than Boomerang? Which channel is going to get dropped first to make way for another channel?
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.
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.