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A La Carte Cable TV Channels?
ryantate writes "I was reading TV Tattle and came across an interesting story in the Washington Post about people who spend less than $30 per month on cable buying a la carte. To do this you need a huge C-band dish, but Sen. John McCain wants to require a la carte pricing on digital cable. Content companies like Viacom are fighting it -- they don't want people to be able opt out of their less established channels. And at least one economist type, this guy in the Financial Times, seems to think we'll end up paying just as much under a la carte pricing. EchoStar is game but says Viacom and others are refusing to go along. "
You need the entire cable system on digital cable, to prevent cable theft. It's either that or install 60 traps on everyone's drop line!
Of course, many people will complain about digital terminal rental fees, cry extortion, blah blah; which is why it won't happen. That and people will complain about renting a terminal for every TV set. Right now cable can brag that it works without special equipment (analog, that is) on any modern TV.
Places like NYC which were using addressable terminals since the early 80s can do this, but for 99% of the cable-wired USA this will never happen. Too much infrastructure to change.
What you said was brilliant. I did exactly that and found so much more time in my life, lost weight, interaction with g.f., and other subtle effects. /.!
The dark side: I started spending way too much time on
originally posted on Match 29th
right here
Chaos will always win out over order because chaos is more organized
Also in Canada, I believe the community co-op cable supplier in Regina, SK has long offered channels a la carte. I think they also pay less per average, not more. They put in the infrastructure to do it years ago.
The difference between this sort of system and the more commonly seen kind seems to be that they're a co-op, hence not driven to bilk their customers out of as much money as possible for programming they don't watch.
"Bundling" in generaly is far too often about the scaling of a con than the economy of scale.
The sports packages are driving the whole package. It's estimated that ESPN alone amounts to a $2.50 to $3.00 monthly "tax" on the standard packages. It's a great deal for the compulsive sports fans, but a significant burden on those of us who couldn't care less. And we recently saw how a major content provider extorted an agreement to raise its rates to cover expanded sports coverage from a major cable signal delivery provider.
Why can't I buy a bag of just the blue M&M's?
You can. In the future, all foods will be user-customizable.
I totally want to move to a la carte pricing, even if it does end up costing more. However, I think companies like Comcast should be put under regulation. Why? Let me break it down:
A. Comcast was able to purchase AT&T Broadband last year with very little scrutiny imposed upon it from the FTC and the FCC. AOL Time Warner was not so lucky during the merger that created them.
B. Comcast raised rates again. They claim they are recuping on their investment to upgrade their system. They claim it had to do with spending a fortune on OnDemand programming. That's great, but I don't use OnDemand; I should not be punished for this capital expense just because I was smart enough to buy my own DVR (TiVo) so that I do not need such a feature.
C. In turn, Comcast is now trying to acquire the Walt Disney Company. Comcast will claim this is going to be a pure stock swap and thus increased subscriber rates have nothing to do with it but it most certainly does...if Comcast does not suffer a large amount of customer defection due to the pricing increases, Comcast's stock will be more valuable. This helps Comcast to acquire Disney and thus it is Joe Consumer that is paying for the acquisition.
Now let us look at how Comcast could save money/increase revenue without resorting to rate increases and prosper under a la carte:
1. Deploy set-top boxes with TiVo built in; not "Comcast DVR" from some other supplier. Comcast is a shareholder in TiVo - if Comcast supports TiVo, it enriches their own investment. TiVo is a popular brand now, and brand influence can be a deciding point if it comes down to Comcast w/TiVo versus Dish Network with Dish PVR. Furthermore, Comcast can share revenue based upon TiVo's viewer statistics so they'll know which channels are being watched and what commercials are the most popular. That would be profitable.
2. Comcast can offer cable telephony. Comcast has been paying lip-service to this for years. How come I cannot get local telephone service through Comcast itself yet I can sign up for Vonage which will run over their cable line? Here in Sacramento, the upstart SureWest (which is actually Roseville Telecom) offers bundled telephone service as standard. Granted, they are offering fibre directly to the home.
3. Dump analog, period. Analog is the piracy hole in the cable systems. Digital piracy is not a major problem compared to analog. Plus, since an analog SDTV channel takes up as much bandwidth as 4-6 digital SDTV channels, this becomes more economical for Comcast to move directly to digital. Digital cable should not be considered a premium when it is so profitable. Charge a premium for HDTV.
4. A la carte pricing will not cause a customer service issue. Any channel additions and subtractions could be made via the internet, and if someone wants to spend time on the phone with customer service to add or subtract channels, leverage a fee on them.
5. Allow DirecTV and Dish to offer their own ISPs to their customers over Comcast wires and share in the revenue. Those customers are no longer Comcast customers so you might as well make some money off them. This is money that would go directly to the company and not other company competitors like the regional Bell telephone companies offering DSL packages. If you look at the revenue share agreements between Time Warner Cable and Earthlink, Time Warner Cable makes 90% of the fees.
Finally, programming packages are ridiculous. To get TechTV, I had to move up to another $5 more per month just to get it. Trio was a bonus. However, I did not require BET Jazz to be included in that. Furthermore, I would like to voice my support at Comcast keeping both TechTV and G4 separate now that they are both owned by Comcast. They are similar yet serve different interests just as MTV1 and MTV2 do.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
We already have a la carte pricing in Canada. It's not as great as it sounds. Many providers have switched back to offering channels in groups. Why pay $2 a channel, when you can get 20 in a group at a cost of 50 cents each. When you buy them all individually, you begin to realise how expensive television channels are. This ends up making you spend less, which means more channels can't make a profit and we all end up with less programming.
What the US really needs to do is put more price controls on the existing setup.
>You just need some political backbone.
.
Backbone like this?
(2.1) Every person who contravenes paragraph 9(1)(c) or (d) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and is liable, in the case of an individual, to a fine not exceeding $25,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year , or to both, or, in the case of a corporation, to a fine not exceeding $200,000
For those of you wondering, section 9 outlaws DirecTV in Canada. Those will be the punishments for paying for DirecTV. Yes, paying for it gets you that punishment.
You'll also note that the government will control what satellite receivers you can and can't use with that bill. Of couse, as it already notes, the only companies that will be allowed to have them are ExpressVu and StarChoice.
There's a reason Canada has a la carte. And that's because Canadian TV blows huge chunks and, depending on the channel (I'm looking at you CBC & TV Ontario), is socially funded already. Not to mention the fact that Bell ExpressVu basically own our government.
Backbone indeed.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I agree with about 95% of what you have said, except for your per-channel costs.
Note that Echostar (Dish) is for this, but the cable companies aren't (or are indifferent). It costs Echostar virtually zero to split up their channels. They already have a 100% digital system, with all company-controlled boxes. Their distribution costs are fixed, until a satellite falls out of the sky. They are already providing all channels to all viewers, and the boxes limit what you can see. Since they already have an account management system you can access via their website or an on-TV menu, all they have to do is add checkboxes for what channels you want to watch, and change you some minimum fee plus a nominal fee per channel. Add, say 15% to make it a good deal to keep the packages, and everyone's happy. This is very much not the case with the cable companies, which is why they aren't interested.