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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 I pay for 15 non-English channels?
Dude Xuxa, ilLvatello, those chicks are all so hot and slutty.
This
While I am completely against government regulation of things like cable, the Cable Companies have made their own bed on this one. They scammed themselves a legal monopoly, now they have to dance to the government's tune. Of course, they'll just pass the 'costs' of this on to the consumer. But they can't claim some kind of moral high ground against 'government interference', when they've been sucking off the government tit for the last 20 years.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
why can't I have access to ALL the tv channels in the world?
global village my arse.
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've been wanting this for so long. I hate paying for things I don't need.
"Besides adding to the cost, cable companies say, selling channels individually might make it difficult for lesser-watched, niche channels to survive."
This is bad how?
"...angry about cable bills that have risen at three times the rate of inflation..."
Don't forget that quality has also dropped noticeably. We're paying more for more channels, not more good programs.
G
My cable company (Comcast) which I hate, does offer me a variarity of packages. If the government would ever allow more than one cable company to serve an area I bet they would offer me even more choice and for less cost. This is a solution looking for a problem. Better would be to lift the current regulations on TV.
So when did a-la-carte mean cheaper? Go to a mexican restaurant and order a 3 enchilada meal, and order 1 crispy taco on side. Unless you are going to Taco Bell... that damn crispy taco is going to cost you just about as much as 1.5 enchilada!
The cable company is going lobby against this big time. If someone just wants TechTV only at their office, it's going to cost them big time. The cable company would at least like to make some profit off of everyone of their subscribers.
Thats my $0.02... oh yeah forget... since I'm only making one comment today, I'm charging more... that'll be $3.50.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)... oops
However, less-watched channels that serve distinct but smaller audiences, such as TechTV and BET, may not survive, because not enough viewers would pay for them.
Which is fine. TechTV and BET are both complete garbage. What better way to improve the quality of programming than to mandate it through public dollar votes?
(Just give me Sci-Fi, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, and the Playbo--er, Discovery, and I'll be good to go. Heck, maybe NBC as well, if for no other reason than this year's feisty presidential election.)
The coolest voice ever.
It's ridiculous for me to have to spend over $50/month for cable just to watch Comedy Central. I'd much rather pay just $5 a month for Comedy Central instead of the $30 extra or whatever I have to pay to get the "package" that includes it. Comcast sucks.
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 :)
... but are you sure you want big government interfering in private business like this? Sure, your bills will decrease, but once the government has latched onto this industry it'll never let go. We could soon see channels with an anti-war bias get censored off the air 'for our own good', and copy protection built right into the cable system (protected by the DMCA, naturally).
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
But cable companies don't work in free markets, they are given a monopoly over their customers.
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.
Uh, huh huh. It is a government-sanctioned monopoly. There is no free market, so the market is probably not going to be able to decide. I totally agree with the article - lets force them to innovate, or make them give up their monopoly!
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
How does not watching anything send the message that "we want unbundled channels"?
The problem is not the pricing, it is the concept that because they force you to pay for channels that have no appeal to you, you pay more.
The way to let the market decide is to force the service to exist first, and then let the market decide if it wants it.
This could be a bad thing. Analog cable is an open standard that lots of hardware can use. We might lose effective access to the signal if it is not used.
It is very hard for the cable company to do access control on Analog channels --- basically some person has to drive to your house and install a filter on the line. There are only so many filters that you can stack up there. Denying access to analog channels is so expensive, that often times they just forget to do it if you are downgrading from extended basic to basic service and the like.
Meanwhile, digital channels can be individually decoded and decryped. Sounds great, but the problem is that it is proprietary. No TV tuner cards support it and neither does TiVo and the like.
Be careful what you ask for....
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
I assume McCain's legislation will also include provisions rendering the contract provisions from content providers that require bundling of their offerings null and void. Otherwise, the point is somewhat moot. It's not just the cable/satellite service providers that are the problem.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.-Ecclesiastes 1:9
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,
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
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 ?
If companies sell shit you don't want -- don't buy it.
Yes, this means you have to give up the something you want, because it's bundled with a bunch of shit you don't want. Hang in there -- if enough consumers stop consuming the shit, companies will desperately try to save themselves from bankruptcy by selling you what you really wanted in the first place.
-kgj
-kgj
Why? Because if you want to get TV there is no other choice now the way the market operates right now. It's not a free market, it is the exact opposite: a monopoly. In my area we can only get cable from Time Warner Cable, for example if all I want are news channels plus some movie channels I also have to pay for sports channels and other channels I have absolutely no interest in.
Don't drop PAX! They play the censored version of Sopranos!
Tony, how in the *beep* did you think I *beep* *beep* *beep* the car *beep* *beep* and take his *beep* head *beep* over to Frankies *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* the end.
Josh
Bottom line is, cable companies have a government-authorized monopoly
monopoly = monopoly is a situation where for technical or social reasons there cannot be more than one efficient provider of a good
Unlike Microsoft, there is no alternative to the 2 or 3 services, one of them being the Cable Monopoly, because they ALL bundle their channels.
I have to buy 100 extra channels just to watch TechTV and Cartoon Network, and then spend an hour Removing all the shopping and religious channels, as well as Fox News and A&E.
Yeah! Let the market decide! If you don't like the price don't by it and force the price down, just like gasoline and electricity and natural gas....
Oh wait....
Dude, sometimes the market can't or won't decide. Then the government, who are supposed to have the interest of the electorate not the cable company executives and shareholders, will decide.
Sometimes governement interference is bad, sometimes its not.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
If there was only one supermarket, then they probably would demand you buy everything in chunks of standard sizes. The thing is, we have competition, so since the customers don't want it, they could go somewhere else that does offer what they want.
.
Cable companies don't have such competition. There's typically a choice between the local cable provider and a couple of satellite providers. They can get away with this sort of thing by a sort of unspoken agreement. If one of them offered a la carte, so would the others.
Essentially this is the prisoner's dilemma. They both know that they will both get the best results by cooperating
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?).
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.
I thought the theory was that unregulated markets drove down prices and were good for consumers...
You don't have the choice to buy channels a la carte because nobody, not even satellite offers it. This is a symptom of a breakdown of the market called an oligopoly, a cousin of the better known monopoly. Both the monopoly and the oligopoly are vulnerable to having the benefits of their position taken forcably by a govenment because they are not benefiting consumers as best as they could. Since only people (consumers) vote, they have all the power, so they can ( justly IMHO ) steal from mono/oligopolies of the world that would parasitise us all if left unchecked.
Eat at Joe's.
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
umm...the congress is in place for the good of the american people, but you say this, "Have we no bigger problems in the world..." What do the problems in the world have to do directly with america? Sure, we love to stick our nose in the doggy poo-poo, but we also have our own problems.
cable companies have a monopoly just like the phone companies used to. What happens when the cable companies start tacking on service fees for maintenance of their own network? They get regulated just like the phone companies did. If I buy cable, why do I also have to pay for 100 channels that I didn't want?
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
"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?"
As a Canadian, we're used to this sort of socialism (NB: Socialism != Fascism != Communism). Many french and other non-english channels cannot survive in the market without being subsidized. Take our music industry for example. If you want to run a radio station here, you must play a certain percentage of Canadian artists so that US artists do not swamp out our industryt altogether.
All in all, I think forcing people to pay for a small percentage is a good thing, but then again what do I know? I'm just a brain-washed Canadian.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
I just delete HSN style channels from my listing, but no doubt these channels pay the satellite company X dollars to carry them. If any of this is passed on to the consumers then I will lose the bite that I take from people that actually buy stuff from those channels in the form of jacked up prices. Will this mean more or less Ron Popiel in the morning? I could cancel a channel that feeds me too much Prolong-lets-you-drive-without-oil, but then price may come into play.
Eat at Joe's.
This is hardly leftist. Pissing off companies that hold a monopoly goes all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt, arguably the most liked republican behind President Lincoln and President Reagan. McCain is more of a centrist, but he's obviously republican...
Now, if the story had said that McCain wanted this and a pony... You might have something to your theory of the leftist bent... But of course, no silly obvious bias would be allowed to be put in story here... No.. Of course not!
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.
Finally, if Congress is going to require that the cable operators unbundle channels, then they better be sure that they require the media companies to unbundle as well. That is, if Comcast is required to sell ESPN without a dozen other Disney-owned channels, then Disney should also be required to make ESPN available to Comcast at a lower price than the bundle of ESPN plus other channels that they require Comcast to buy today. It would be interesting to see, should the cable and satellite providers sell those channels on a cost-plus-markup basis, how loud the end-users scream at ESPN's 20% annual price hikes :^)
The ILECs have stuck all kinds of charges and fees on our phone bills to cover the 'costs' of government compliance.
Low-end stations that are being subsidized right now already ARE losers. Economic darwinism is circling over them, ready to strike the minute that the government wind blows the other way. Their mandate for existence is tenuous at best.
Non mainstream programming will have to revert to unrestricted media, like radio or over-the-air TV, or the Internet. In the Warsaw ghetto it was underground newspapers. It will always survive. The problem is that you can't both claim a right to protection, and then demand a blank check on what you produce.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
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..."
TV will not be forced to innovate or die just because some people who probably don't watch tv much anyway cancel their tv subscriptions. Face it, not many people who actually watch are going to want to do that.
We can however force them to change and innovate by telling them what we want! Look at it this way... You think MTV has become a pile of trash, but you like what's on [random channel]? You tell your cable company you don't want it. Enough people do that and MTV realizes they have to innovate, yet you still get to watch your shows on [random channel]. Actually, not only do you get to watch them, but the owners of that network realize they have a good thing going and are less apt to change their shows.
As things are now, the networks don't give a care about what you think. They can pretty much put up whatever they want and still get paid. The ratings systems in place now don't cut it... What's wrong with giving the consumer more control over what's on?
You're right it is totally awesome. Now you'll get to pay the same price for 5 channels as you pay for 50. Super! In addition, you'll get the advantage of more complicated equipment, increased overhead, and (as a ultra-special bonus) burdensome government regulation. Outstanding!
If this is forced on the industry, we'll end up with "movie theater soda pricing".
15 oz coke: 2.75
90 oz coke: 3.00 (with a free refill)
You want 45 oz? Sure that'll be 8.25. Or you can have our package deal of 90 oz of 3.00, but it's up to you.
"Lawmakers report that their constituents are angry about cable bills that have risen at three times the rate of inflation..."
I get so sick of hearing complaints about the cost of X rising than more than the rate of inflation. Guess what, the inflation rate is an overall value, some things will grow at a higher rate, some lower. Given the fact that the value provided by cable has grown*, I really think people don't have much to complain about here. Think also of how much time people really spend watching cable - it is basically the main form of entertainment in most homes.
This is like the constant whining over the price of gas. If you actually consider the value that consumers get out of it, the price itself isn't so bad.
* While it is fashionable to constantly bemoan the lack of good content on TV, look at the diversity of offerings that cable provides, and the opportunity for shows to reach major success from small beginnings that never would have occured on network TV (like Trading Spaces or Queer Eye).
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
While I agree that all this is going to do is cost consumers more I'd like to see this happen, too, in the hopes that it won't cost us consumers more.
Until that time, I've learned how to program my TV to step-over the channels I don't like. Whereas my tuners goes from 2 through 98 or so, I only actually *see* 20 or so of them while I only actually watch 4 or 5 actively.
Newer TV's (within the last 10 years) have the ability to filter, by your command, which channels to actually show.
Here's to wishing the prices will drop on us though.
Think of it. Content providers charge based on total subscribers. This is why your satellite providers can offer cheaper service. they operate on a wholesale business model.
Cable companies are stuck with an exponentially smaller subscriber base, so prices will be higher than dish.
Now, if you begin to divy up on a per channel basis, where you had 300k of subscribers to charge equally for the Discovery channel, you now have to charge more for Discovery channel for the subs that want it. So ostensibly, you could be paying a ton more for your service.
plus, on the feasibility end of things, you would force 1 of 2 methods of channel blocking; either putting traps on the line outside, and attenuating the total signal getting into the house, or setting up an addressable cable converter for each set in the house, and scrambling all the cable channels on the service.
So, it sounds good, until you actually look into what you would have to do to get it. I wonder if the government would subsidize cable companies to convert to this new system. Oh, but if you get into gov't subsidies, then you're beholden to the government to transmit their party line.
from land that's owned by the taxpayers then I'll stop calling for my representatives to represent my interest when it comes to said equipment.
so you're assuming that they're not going to put a price cap on these channels? as if the government didn't know this was going to happen?
Get paid to code OSS
...and then spend an hour Removing all the shopping and religious channels, as well as Fox News and A&E.
Indeed, and don't forget Discovery Health! Nothing like flipping into footage of gastric bypass surgery during dinner...
For that matter, nothing's stopping the cable companies from providing a la carte selection at some outrageous price and package-deals at the prices they've been charging all along, on the grounds that if people want a service, they'll have to pay for it at a price the market will bear.
The lament that "oh, we'll be paying $45/month for 6 channels" makes sense only if a-la-carte-only is mandated.
Dance like nobody's watching. Sing like you're in the shower. Fuck like you're being filmed.
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..."
Dish Pix was $1.50/channel, $5.00 minimum.
The price was right in that if you purchased the channels a la carte, you would rack up a much higher bill than purchasing packages. This encouraged the purchase of packages.
For example, the the bottom package was the top 50 (now top 60 since they did away with Pix). 50 Channels at $1.50 apiece would be $75, but the top 50/60 package was, IIRC, about $20. If you could really pick out 13 specific channels you wanted, and only those 13, then you could make out better with Dish Pix, especially if some of those channels were in higher tiers.
The part that became costly for Dish Network, though, and something that all of the supplemental TV services will have to address, is not the technology, but keeping customers from spending long lengths of time on the phone with customer service hemming and hawing about what channels they want. This is the reason why Dish discontinued this service, from what I understand.
The move to all-digital on cable would be a boost. This will free up some 420 MHz of bandwidth used for analogue channels from our local system, for example, which could then be turned around into one or more of: (a) better bitrate, ergo better picture, (b) more channels or (c) higher throughput for cable modem users. As I am a cable modem user, but not a cable TV viewer (I get my TV from Dish Network), option C would be my choice, but, as I said, these three are not mutually exclusive.
www.wavefront-av.com
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.
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
Uhmm.. No. Just that there should be no restriction to someone else opeining up a car service shop.
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.
You listed 12 shows, two of which are over, if memory serves. So, you've got 10 shows on I'm guessing well over 70 channels (but I'll stay conservative and say 50). That's one show for every 5 channels. I remember the days when most channels had more than one good show (and we're talking about a decade ago, when we had about 30 channels). 10 decent shows is nothing to toot your horn at.
G
Perhaps "Are local monopolies" would be better.
Amen,
McCain is actually comeing out with a law that I can back and get behind. There is no reason that I need the hispanic channel, since I don't speak spanish, or the plethera of other channels that don't do me any good. I am not being a bigot, I just don't think I should have to support a channel with my money that I cannot even understand. Why do I need to support a local Philly channel that broadcasts local news in spannish, this is a channel that wouldn't survive with out it being forced onto the public.
Anyways back to my original point, there is no need for a ton of the channels out there. I would rather have the ability to pick the channels I want. I want Sci-Fi, Commedy Central, History, TLC, Discovery, USA, TBS, TNN, and the local channels. I don't want two channels of NBC, Travel, Animal Planet, the 5 non-english channels, and the religious channel.
I think this is a great thing. It is about time this happened. This bill from McCain would start to make up for the limiting of Free speach that was passed by the McCain - Finegold Bill last year.
It really torques me to read these kinds of stories. The government LOVES to step in and play the hero when they solve a "problem" THEY created.
Hmm...
Authorizing a monopoly = Problem
Legislating a 'solution' != Praise
There is no other institution on this earth better at taking credit for fixing something it shouldn't have broken.
Citizen---"Ow! You just broke my leg"
US Govt.---"Here is a federally authorized and provided crutch"
Citizen---"Thanks for nothing!"
US Govt.---"You're welcome."
Populace---*Cheers for the benevolent government who is sensitive to the needs of its citizens*
Boooooooooo!
The greatest hindrance to success is a well-rationalized excuse
People aren't going to want to order a channel that they rarely watch, even if that channel occassionally has a show that they view.
Depends on the price. Besides, undoubtedly, cable companies would offer "bulk" discounts -- "Buy ten channels and get the eleventh free", or "Buy _all_ the channels for the low, low price..." If it costs five extra bucks to get some rarely watched channel, sure, people aren't going to do it a lot. If it costs fifty cents...that's much more likely.
This will also make it extremely difficult to start new channels. Since consumer won't just get a channel added to their lineup as now, a new channel will have to fight extremely hard to gain viewers.
And this'll be different from today...how? The new channel has to have enough startup cash in order to get shows, and to get the cable company to broadcast them -- which usually involves paying the cable company, not the other way around. And once that's happened, the new cable channel is now one of a few hundred channels available to the viewer. Even today, without some sort of new killer show, that channel's going to get buried in the noise.
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.
Instead of a pick-channels-one-by-one approach there just need to be smaller bundles, and you can pick 3 or 4 of these bundles with basic service and then maybe add an extra bundle for an added charge. Put sports channels together, put women's tv channels together, non-english channels, tech, entertainment, etc. Each bundle could be 10 or so related channels and, sure, you might not be getting 100% just what you want but now you've reduced the cost increases due to a la carte pricing, and buffered the loss of channels due to market demands. I would much rather pay $40/mo and only get 8 channels I don't want to see than (currently) pay $80/mo for something like 50 channels I don't want.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
I only want the HD channels but Brighthouse required me to subscribe to the full digital package at $99/mo so I can get their 6 HD channels(ABC, CBS, FOX, PBS, NBC, Disc). It's another $4/mo a la carte for HDNet (2) and INHD(2), which show sports and cool concerts. Plus for me to get HBO in HD (Sopranos), I have to subscribe to the whole HBO/Showtime package which is like 15 more channels for another $20, and I watch only one of them. Give me those 12 HD channels for $3 each per mo ($36)and I'll gladly pay it. It would save me $100/mo. If people could get only the HD channels a la carte, I think they would.
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?
It seems that there are lots of smaller channels that I get as part of my package that I like quite a bit. It is possible that on group package you will receive unexpectedlty good material that you would not have know to select. The benefits to ala cart programing would assume that all the channels would cost the same amount and you would select the ones you want. In practive it would likely be that channels with high ratings (and therefore, hig ad revenue) would be cheaper. Channels with low ratings (ie. the good ones) like OLN would then cost a fortune. Personally I like the idea of large revenue channels carrying the load for the low ratings channels.
Aside from the number of channels used or carried, I believe there are other factors that should be taken into account to force rate REDUCTION.
1) Digital transmission allows carrying the content of many channels in the bandwidth of a single analog channel. These added channels cost less to carry and maintain since their addition does not tax the power output capacity of the distribution amplifiers. Also the demands for signal amplitude and freedom from cross-modulation (amplifier distortion causing noise and spill-over between channels) are lessened since the digital signal is less vulnerable than analog. Analog tv signals use vestigal-sideband amplitude modulation which is vulnerable to noise in the same way that A.M. radio brodcasts are. We've all seen the cost savings of digital transmission in long-distance telephone service. The same principles apply to some degree.
2) Cable companies actually get kickbacks from sales on shopping channels, and often give those more desirable channel placement than things we want. They should pay US for carrying these!
3) Cost of the systems are subsidized by locally inserted advertising in many cases. And while this competition for ad revenue is damaging to local radio and tv broadcasters, the cable company isn't faced with the high-cost of producing news programming, or the burden of complying with public inspection files.
4) The cost for basic service users should be lower now that digital technology has virtually eliminated piracy of premium services.
5) Although it should be fair use to watch and record cable programs on anything in a household (much like we're now free to have extension phones without added fees), digital transmission requires a decoder for each location, and we're stuck with added fees for this.
6) We're stuck with paying perhaps $1 a month per decoder box for electricity to power the decoder boxes which are party of the cable company infrastructure. These boxes use power even when we're not watching which is not only costly, but environmentally unfriendly.
7) In my area, there is an anti-competitive "cable access fee" of about $10/month tacked on for internet service of those that are not cable tv subscribers. This is unreasonable considering that the connection is simply a tap into an existing feed, NOT a dedicated cable all the way back to a central office (as it is with a phone company). To the extent that using the cable system for internet use covers a portion of the infrastructure costs, the cost for basic cable users should fall.
Cable rates are held artificially high because we're dealing with monopoly. With lack of competition relief must come through regulation.
Did anybody listen to the news a couple of weeks ago when channels dropped off Dish Network? The dispute centered around the bundling the content provider was demanding of Dish. It's the big media companies forcing the cable company to sell the bundle.
Cable is a sort-of monopoly. They do have competition from satellite, though it's a different delivery mechanism. Anyway, with these three (and other alternatives trying) fighting amongst themselves don't you think the market would have already driven a la carte if it was possible? Heck, I'll switch to WHOEVER can get me the Speed Channel for less than $50 / month. Nobody can.
I think congress needs to step in here, but they need to be beating the media companies, not cable.
Thanks for answering your own question. Makes life easier for me.
I think it would be cool if you paid for cable usage like you do for electricity...for how much you use. Give me access to every channel, and charge me by the minute. If I really like a certain show, I'll be willing to pay for it. If I go on vacation for a couple weeks, I pay nothing.
It might also cut down on the mindless hours people spend in front of their TVs.
I don't know if I would want to pay for C-SPAN, If watch it once a week, that's a lot. And probably more than most. Yet. I really like the idea that it's there shining a light on what goes on in congress. And I'm willing to pay for it as a part of my cable bill, If there's not enough like me, then it'll go away. That would be bad.
Also the cable companies need to make it easy and CHEAP to switch channels. Now you have to call them up, and it's a minimum of $5 for any changes. They should give me a package that I can choose 15 channels, and let me pick which, and change them at will.
I would be reasonable to have then force you to make only one or two changes a month. Otherwise you could effectively rig the system to let you watch all of it. Especially if there was a web interface to the selections.
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
Cable/Sattelite providers could then get a percentage of whatever is charged (say 20% of the channel fee). This would end up creating incentives all over the place.
First, cable/sattelite providers would have a vested interest in ensuring a readily available volume of channels. The more valuable the services they provide and the more people want them, the more money they make. Content providers would have the option of investing to create high-subscription rate programming, or to try for high-volume lower investment channels. Niche providers would have the barrier for entry lowered since cable/sattelite providers would want to offer the largest menu possible.
It's really hard for content providers to get quality data about how consumers value their programming right now. Nielsen is far from a great provider of information to the industry, but it's the only game out there now. If this actually became a marketplace, the consumer feedback would be undeniable and of absolutely perfect quality. With better information about what consumers want, the chance of actually having it provided increases dramatically.
And best of all, those crapola channels that you don't want would either have to lower their subscription price to the floor to keep you as a customer, or fold, thus uncluttering the lineup. We could use a few less home shopping channels, eh?
I am not a fan of regulation, and have seen far too much of it develop unintended consequences that poison the expected benefits. Looking at this though, all I see is a win everywhere, even for the cable companies. I can't see a downside if this is done properly.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We already know how willing they are to lie and fabricate numbers to get the legislation they want. In Tennessee, they've fabricated ridiculous statistics they claim are "losses from theft of service" in order to push through the MPAA's SDMCA bill. It's in the legislative committees right now and Tennessee Digital Freedom is working hard to stop them.
There's an e-mail campaign going on right now at Tennessee Digital Freedom to try to let legislators know that the SDMCA is wrong for Tennessee and that monopolies like the cable companies do not need additional protection from government. If anything, CONSUMERS need protection from the monopolists (and their lobbyists).
I encourage everyone to visit the TNDF website, check out the e-mail campaign and let politicians know what you think!!!
"I go down to buy a loaf of bread."
You just can't make stuff like that up. I say he has bigger problems than the cost of cable, but who's to say? Maybe if his cable bill was lower he could afford bread on the salary we provide for him.
Yes, but its not a true free market. Cable companies have physical advantages of use of a land-line system that they other systems are not physically capable of competing with. Its like saying that, if there was only one car company, that they did not have a monopoly because you can still buy a motorcycle or take the bus.
Lets say there was only MS (sick sad world) on PC. DOn't like it? Oh, just get a Palm. Or a tablet. Or something else that's not a PC. Wait, you want a PC, but not MS?
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.
This reminds me of the old saying: "Democracy is four wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner."
With our current system, less popular channels are subsidized. That makes it possible for channels like TechTV, The Biography Channel, and Discovery Wings to survive.
With a la carte cable plans, we run the risk of sinking to a least-common-denominator selection of cable programming, where the consumer is given viewing choices of pro wresting, Fear Factor, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?, and soap operas. Small, special-interest channels may go under due to a lack of people willing to pay for them individually. Sure, mom & dad my get the kids to watch a National Geographic Channel show once every month or two, but will they be willing to pay for the channel every month? I bet that most of them won't.
On the other hand, I don't like paying for non-English channels, either, nor do I have any great interest in women's channels like Oxygen. I don't really want the Home Shopping Club or QVC. But I recognize that people who do want those channels may not like paying for The Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, or Speed Channel, either, all of which I do watch.
I'd rather see us go back to the old system where cable rates were regulated. This would prevent content providers from raising the rates too high, because they would know that the cable companies could not pass the costs on to consumers. Now they raise rates and the cable companies pass the costs on to us.
My city councilors and mayor should be talking about this -- not US senators.
No?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
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.
It's only TV. And you can just get TV for free if you want.
Congress should be worrying about more important things, like the $1Tr deficit they created, or food safety, or.... TV is just TV.
If your are going to require cable companies to provide any channel ala carte then you need to require any competing company to do the same (Dish systems). It's the content providers that force the MSO's to bundle channels that 95% of the subscribers will never watch. On top of all this I would expect it to be pricey to get an indivdual channel, ~7$. The entire cable network would be forced to upgrade to digital which would cost millions, and all your tv's would require a digital box. And if your wondering, I'm a net admin for a major cable company.
...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 haven't watched cable TV in 7 years.
Area Man, is that you?
TODO: Insert witty sig
Use all the extra bandwidth to serve all programs on demand. The industry is heading this way anyway. Then, the cable provider is just an ISP.
Synergies are basically awesome, and they're even better when you leverage them. -PA
And the Federal Government is going to make it better?
Come on. That we have to pay more and more each year for this privilege sucks and all, but hey, at least your opinion means more on Slashdot! :-)))))))
I think it's interesting that rates have gone up astronomically SINCE deregulation. Why is it that companies go before Congress and say "If we didn't have all this government oversight and regulations to deal with, we would be able to make more money and charge the consumers less." Well, guess what? The airlines, the savings & loan crisis, the energy companies all started either going bankrupt or ripping everyone off. Then, of course, they go back before Congress and say "It's not our fault, you didn't regulate us!"
It's cheap and higher quality than any digitally compressed service. It's a shame many of the services are going digital now..
How reactionary everyone in this country is, your hear a-la carte cable and right away you think then worst (watch less fox news please). No one is trying to take away the "Train Channel" from you. This will not eliminate cable packaging, it is meant to eliminate the "all or nothing" $150 cable package that we have no choice about. Imagine being able to get an "Educational Package", "Christian Package" or "Sports package" and only having to pay for that content. Or just ordering the channels from each of those packaages that you want to watch and creating your own personalized package. My guess, nothing on tv will change. And hella yea, I would pay for C-SPAN, more than I would pay for FOX, CNN or MSNBC. Maybe we could finally get a C-SPAN news channel with the same ideals of the parent channels (not a ratings whore like the rest of them).
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.
When the Yankees left MSG Network (owned by Cablevision) and created the YES Network, Cablevision did everything they could keep YES off its system. It attempted to sell YES as a "premium only" channel like HBO which YES refused to agree to, resulting in a whole season of not being able to watch the Yankees even though I live within 20 miles of NYC. Last year, they reached an interim agreement and went to binging arbitration. About 2 weeks ago the arbitrators ruled that YES should be carried (like MSG) on the basic tier.
Bush Lies On the Record.
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.
After the recent Viacom/Dish dust-up, we were reminded of the bundling forced on cable operators by content providers -- want ESPN? Then you need ESPN2, ESPN classic, ESPN gardening, ESPN chess, the Menstruation Network, and the Colonoscopy Channel *or* you don't get ESPN. Oh, and because we're providing so many channels, the cost is high, too.
Cable operators have said that forced bundling by the content providers forces them to bundle channels as well, since they could easily sell ESPN ala cart but the 27 shit channels they have to pay for as well to get ESPN wouldn't sell, making it a huge money loser.
I'm generally in favor of unbundled channels, but only if they're vertically unbundled and the cable company only pays the content providers based on the subscriptions they have for those channels. Anything else should be considered a restraint of trade.
I'll repeat myself: I should have added: When you cancel your account, be sure to write -- or better yet, write and call -- to let the company know why you are dropping their service: make clear what they must do to win back your business.
Better to do without, than to settle for second-best.
-kgj
-kgj
Cable does not have a monopoly on content delivery. Cable has about 70 million subscribers, compared to 20 million for the two major satellite providers. Nearly all consumers, even apartment dwellers, have a choice between cable and satellite television.
If you look at how the market has changed in the last five years, cable rates have gone up, but quality and quantity of channels have also improved. Cable improved their product to meet competition from the satellite guys, which traditionally have offered better quality and more channels - appearantly what most consumers want.
The satellite guys experimented with a la carte a few years ago, but it didn't sell. People wanted the 150 channel package. "Super size it. I want the best value."
The government should stay out of this particular fight. Market forces are working. The thing regulators need to watch is the mega-mergers between the content providers (News Corp, Time Warner, Disney, etc). It's these guys who have the power now. The cable and satellite guys are nearing a commodity status for delivery.
You can't legislate efficiency and innovation. The only way is to introduce competition. Sometimes, as we see with Linux, the best competition is a free offering. I think the US government should put up a Broadcast TV satellite and hand out transmission rights to it the way they do VHF and UHF channels (or maybe even a better, more democratic system.) Make it capable of delivering 500 channels (or 100 high quality and 300 regular quality channels) and make access to it free, forever.
A big problem with cable is that the content providers are wanting money simply to allow the cable companies to carry their content. The best (most watched) content is still on the networks that broadcast over the airwaves for free. This is the way TV has worked for years and this is the way it still should work. Let the cable companies scramble over Internet, Phone and Pay-per-view/premium services but make your standard basic cable free.
If widely adopted this could be a huge boost to the economy since many people's monthly bills would go down $30-$50.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
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.
Their are millions of people living in apartments that find it extremly difficult to acquire satelite.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
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.
So yeah, that'd be great.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Longer version of article is online here.
I used to want a choice in cable channels. I'm not a big sports fan, so I'd rather not have ESPN, nor QVC, etc. But after I thought about it for a while, it would probably be more expensive to have it ala carte, since the cable networks set the prices for their channels.
Think about it for a second. We have, what, 108 million cable subscribers in the US? Round that to 100 million for simplicity. If each cable channel (ESPN, CNN, Discovery, etc.) gets $0.25 per subscriber, they get $25 million to cover the costs of production. But if all of a sudden, we have all but 1 million of those people no longer paying, the channel only gets $250,000. So if it actually takes $25 million to produce the shows, then they're going to have raise their costs to $25.00 to make up the difference. Do you want to spend $25.00 a month to pay for SciFi?
Whether or not it costs $25 million to run the channel is open for debate.
This bill would mark the beginning of a new age in entertainment. They'll have to start focusing on filming stuff people are willing to pay for, not just willing to tolerate.
When Ma Bell got broken up and several operators were allowed to sell long distance services prices plummetted. I think they have low price calling plans now that include not only the US but Western Europe. It's only a matter of time before you can call anywhere in the world without having to sell your firstborn to pay for it.
The problem with cable in most areas is that there is one cable operator and satellite, and that's it. What if you bought your basic cable service from an Regional Cable Operator (like a RBOC) and then purchased your cable package separately from one of several competing content providers? They could then compete on price and selection.
The cable companies may complain about the loss of less popular channels, but that's a smokescreen. Some people will want huge packages like we have today. And some media conglomerates will buy multiple niche channels and sell them as a package to content providers. Most of the premium channels work this way anyway; when you buy HBO you get multiple channels that can serve different niches.
The cable operators would hate this, and now that they are parts of huge media conglomerates they have lots of resources to fight it. that's why we need government intervention to make it happen.
Give up television totally. - You will not have any cable bill. - If you have kids you will not spend money on junk advertisements aimed at children programmed your kids to nag you into buying. - You will gain several hours a week to devote to other things. - Many studies have shown that people who watch less TV weigh less
Either less channels will be available under the a la carte model, or the price per channel will be increased. Cable companies or companies creating content will need to take in the same amount of revenue, so if less people buy it they will just have to charge more per person or go out of business. In the long run this will either lead to higher per channel prices or less channels. You could also just cancel your cable entirely and do more useful things with your time than watch TV.
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
First, there is no cookie cutter definition for "Republican" or "Democrat". I was only speaking about the history of the republican party. Second, you fail to define what a republican even is, and I doubt you really know. In any case, the fact is TR was a popular republican, and these sorts of actions ARE in the history of conservatives/republicans so please stop trying to take away their good politicians ;) Sorry democrats... You can't change history to favor your party.
Anyway, I don't believe cable tv is necessary, but considering how many million homes have cable and use it for their primary news/entertainment/advertisement source... I'd say it's a pretty damn important part of our lives. In the end, they're just trying to give the consumer more power over what they buy/watch. This is not government control (which would conflict with the republican party's message), but rather it is more consumer control... Which is great. The government isn't taking over cable, they're just telling them they have to serve the desires of the consumer, just like any other business has to. I tend to like the analogy given about grocery shopping.
Jackson's republicans were "democrat republicans" and the plain "democrats" were on his side. The whigs and the national republicans were against him. Just a random fact that I think should be pointed out. I understand what you're saying, but anyway inviduals have to make certain decisions on their own. The fact that they weren't exactly as they are now doesn't change the history of the political party. The parties generally don't get together at the beginning of an election year and completely change their message. There is an evolution over time based on the changing conditions we face, but the history and core values are still there. Presidents especially are sometimes caught in the middle as they face various issues, and many conservative republicans have various problems with say... our current republican president, but in the end, he is still a republican and many of his plans and ideas will become part of the future republican "ways" and history. I get tired of people who try to act like republicans are evil EXCEPT this guy and that guy "oh, but they weren't really republicans." It's a joke.
Your comment about McCain and "the Democratic candidate" made little sense. Who calls "the Democratic candidate" too "conservative"? Sounds like an idiot to me. Unless "the Democratic candidate" isn't John Kerry, the most leftist voter of anyone in the senate. Maybe the "many" you speak of are just diehard Kucinich fans or something like that. This argument is useless, some imaginary conservative democrat makes John McCain look like a leftist? Better write him a letter, I bet he didn't know he should change his political affiliation.
Anyway, I don't see what MLB teams have to do with this. Does the league force you to pay them money whenever they play games or something? Do you have to buy tickets to games you don't want to see? I don't get it... Cable makes me buy stations I don't want... MLB doesn't charge me anything... They even generally let me see the games I want because all the channels pick up the various games... and I can go to the games I want without having to pay for all the others...
Though, you know I'd rather watch more NHL games, something that could become a possibility if I could pick my channels instead of having to shell out another $50 to get 500 more channels I don't want to get 1 I do...
I'm glad you survive without cable, most of that crap will rot your brain. I however, do not think I should have to pay for all the crap just to get the few stations I enjoy watching from time to time.