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. "

Comments

An idea

[va3atc]

One time payment category
Cheap terrestrial antenna : $40
HDTV decoder to pull stuff off antenna : $130

Monthly stuff
Netflix for unlimited DVD rental: $20/month

Grab your local news off the antenna (in HDTV if available), watch your favorite TV shows with your Netflix account

FYI: There is some unlimited DVD rental folks that work exactly like Netflix here in Canada
Movies for me
Cinema Flow

I'm interested in trying one of them, anyone have previous experience with them?

Re:An idea

[-tji]

I have *almost* gotten to this level..

I've been addicted to Netflix for over 3 years now. That instantly cut my TV viewing to almost nothing. I always had a movie that I wanted to watch, rather than the junk that happened to be on TV.

After getting a widescreen TV to view DVD's in their native format, I tried out the HD capabilities of the TV with an HD tuner. I was very impressed with the quality, and my ability to get a perfect picture via antenna - even though using analog reception my picture always sucked. Now, I can get the big sporting events I want, as well as a couple TV shows (The West Wing & Fear Factor) with no monthly costs.

But, I didn't take the plunge and cancel DirecTV yet.. For most people, there will always be a small number of stations they must have. For me, it's ESPN-HD, HBO-HD, and HDNet Movies. For my grandfather, it's The Weather Channel and CNN. For my Dad, it's the Golf Channel.

So.. I think that the suggestions you gave make ala carte channel selection even more useful. If I can pay $15-$25 for the few channels I actually want, that's a big improvement over what I have today - paying for dozens of SDTV channels that I literally never watch.

Re:An idea

[timmyf2371]

Netflix or your local video store is a better deal than paying extra for movie channels, but there are few alternatives to the basic cable/satellite channels if you want to watch sports and cable only shows like South Park or The Shield. What else can you do? They're all pretty inconvenient compared to cable. - You can find some popular TV shows on BT. - Some official sports websites like motogp.com and mlb.com have live streaming video for pay. - You can go to a friend's house to watch a favorite show.

In theory, it's a perfect idea. However, watching a video stream on my 17" CRT just isn't the same as watching a soccer game on a widescreen TV.

The selling point of cable is that it's convenient.

I currently pay 38 per month which gives me the different sports channels, movie channels, and all the other channels. Yeah, you do pay for many channels you don't watch, but then how do you decide the value of the channel? Is it unreasonable to value one cable channel at 5 (the cost of a movie ticket) for a whole months programming? If you watch over 8 channels the value begins to sink in.

this would be good...

[utexaspunk]

a la carte would be a good thing, in the end, for the quality of programming- it might get us more commercial-free tv, too. look at the quality of the programming on HBO compared to the rest of TV. now, if we can get a la carte programs. I'd pay a few bucks to subscribe to a season of the Sopranos and not get Sex in The City...

Good luck writing this law

[Control Group]

That would have to be some pretty carefully-worded legislation. Just demanding that a la carte pricing exist doesn't mean it will be attractive.

"Well, Mr. Consumer, we recommend getting the 'all you can eat' package; for just $50/month, you'll have access to over 1,000 channels!"

"But I'll only watch ten of them, can I only pay for those?"

"Absolutely! We're pleased to offer a la carte pricing! And we can offer you each of those channels for...you said ten channels? Let me see...$6.00 a month per!"

Re:Good luck writing this law

[dasmegabyte]

Very insightful. In fact, you've drilled to the core of the problem with A La Carte pricing. It'll save negligible cash, because the channels you don't want to pay for aren't really costing you anything. They're just there to make what you have to pay seem like a better value.

If the COST of a delivering a single satelite feed -- channel licensing, cable, maintenance, customer service, etc -- for a single feed was $5, they'd need to charge you at least $5 per channel to cover costs. I think we can agree on that. However, on that same feed is a LOT more than just your channel. There may be a hundred channels, or there may be three or four. The cost BEYOND that $5 to deliver another channel would be pennies per.

So, assuming a 50% markup (which is pretty good), they can sell you one channel for $10. Or, they can sell you a dozen channels for $11. Most cable companies figure you'd prefer the latter. That's why channels are offered in such unusual tiers.

Let's say you want Comedy Central. Along with Comedy Central, on the same satelite feed, come 30 other channels. It costs very little above the recoupment cost to give you all 30. So that's what the do. Those 30 might include some strange bedfellows -- religious channels, channels of syndiated programming, shopping channels, nature channels -- but really, you're getting all of them for free, or close to it. You're just paying for Comedy Central. It's not like $35/70 channels = $.50/ channel. It's more like ($28/first channel) + ($.10/additional channel * 70).

The cable companies would have to mark up the per channel cost -- or set a "channel mimimum" -- to the point where getting three or four channels was less money, but it wouldn't be that much less. And why should we legislate that? What's next, legislating that K-mart has to sell me only pair of boxer shorts out of the three pack if I want it?

I have never used the valet key that came with my car. But I did not have the option of getting the car without said key. I could have made a fuss about this, but look: the cost of the key was probably close to zilch -- figure it took a few weeks to engineer, a few minutes for a robot to install. Split that over the production run of a several hundred thousand cars, it's still less than a dollar a car. Would I bitch and moan about a dollar when I'm already shelling out 15,000 of them?

I sort of agree with Viacom

[esac17]

A lot of times small cable channels get their business or make their money by late night channel surfers who have nothing better to do. Or the mom who is at home watching days of our lives and decides that during commercials she is going to flip through channels. The show that they are watching will very often catch the eye of the 'surfer' and next thing you know, you have a customer.

If it was cheaper to go a la carte, I can't imagine anybody wanting to pay for anymore than what they already know, so you are are sort of screwing out the little guys who want to get recognized. They can't afford to buy commercial spots on other television stations (plus why would they let them), so this is their only form of advertisement. I remember a television channel that started up a couple years ago, and I was just flipping through and they had a show on the history of sex. I was interested so I started watching it.

But hopefully this will all be gone with OnDemand starting to become more common. The little guy can create a show and have it on OnDemand, and then you pay .30 or so for it. Now THAT would be cool.

Similar to buying whole CD's of music?

[Not_Wiggins]

Seems to me that the cable companies/media companies want you to purchase bundled products so they can justify higher prices.

To my subject, I'd equate it to record companies making you buy a whole CD of some artists songs when there's really only 1 or 2 hits on there that people want (I say "make" with respect to not offering just the one or two songs individually).

Sheesh... it *really* ticks me off that Disney is forcing cable companies to buy ESPN for big bucks if they want to carry the "kids" channels, especially since I have no interest in the sports channels (not a fan).

I don't know about you, but I'm sick of paying for channels I never watch.

The way it should be

[Outosync]

With my current Dish Service I'm on their minimum plan that gets me the channels I wish to watch. I only watch about 10% of the channels provided yet I'm paying for all of them. I recently decided that I wanted Showtime so I can watch a couple of the shows on there (Penn & Teller's BS, Dead Like Me) but to get it I have to upgrade my entire plan and pay for more channels that I wont watch.

And they wonder why people are just downloading shows off the Internet.

Pre packaged isn't that bad

[Anonymous Coward]

If we were able to get TV channels a la Carte, our choices would simply be driven down to what the majority of people want to watch. As slashdot readers, most of the channels you watch (Tech TV, the Discovery channels, and others like that would simply not have enough subscribers to continue operation. We would eventually be stuck with two channels: The FRIENDS channel and ESPN. Sure we'd be able to pick what channels we want for a while until the voice of the masses is heard via their cable bills.

Profitable, a la restaurant a la carte.

[blcamp]

I can only see this as a way for Cable to profit:

"Buy Package A (25 channels) for $29.95"
"Buy Package B (35 channels) for $34.95"
"Buy Package C (50 channels) for $39.95"

(The cable company picks the channels)

or:

"Pick any 25 channels for $35.95"
"Pick any 35 channels for $42.95"
"Pick any 50 channels for $49.95" ...or something like that.

Just like in a Mickey D's, you can either get a combo meal for $3.99, or mix and match yourself for $7.00+.

My preference, frankly, is one channel: the one connected to my broadband router.

Re:Another Idea

[LostCluster]

Unfortunately, books are starting to get behind the times. To be fully current now, you need to be getting your information from a realtime delivery system like the Internet or TV.

Sure, the book industry is far from dead, but as a provider of news they certainly are. They're more a provider of opinions.

Application of a la carte

[D.A. Zollinger]

Imagine, if you will, that you are starting out with a small family, and you want to protect them by not allowing channels with questionable content into your home. This way you can get HBO Family without worry about your children flipping the channel and seeing an execution, Sopranos style, on regular HBO.

Hell, its a lot easier then programming your V-chip.

You can select, add, and remove channels from month to month depending on your wishes or desires, while allowing you to only pay for what you want to watch!

Like most people who have posted here, most current television shows do not interest me, but every once in a while something comes on that I do want to watch. As well, most movie channels still show content that I enjoy to watch. So to be able to only pay for what I want to watch, and not have to pay for crap that I will never watch, is a big win for the consumer.

Be careful what you wish for

[tverbeek]

As enticing as it would be to be able to pick any number of channels for $x/month each, a la carte pricing wouldn't work that way. Prices for each channel would vary dramatically, to the point that you may prefer buying a bundle to save money.

One of the things that makes the multitude of channels on cable possible is the fact that they're packaged together. Few people would ever subscribe to the Avocado Channel by itself, but they'll take it as part of a package... and once in a while they might watch something on it, like the Miss Avocado pageant. And over time they might find they like some of the other Avacado programming and become regular watchers. That would never happen with a la carte pricing.

So we could end up with a dozen or so least-common-denominator channels that a strong plurality subscribes to (ESPN, EmptyV, Cartoon, Spike, HBO) being successful, and the more specialised niche channels (some of which would be some people's personal favorites)unable to get a large enough casual subscriber base and withering on the vine.

Re:Goodbye

[Little Brother]

I find it intresting that you (and big business) think that the ability to buy "A La Carte" would be bad for the less wanted stations. I do not have several "niche" channels offered in my area because the majority of the people around me couldn't care less about them. Therefore, the producers of these channels get NO money from my area until enough Cable customers are intrested in the channel to make the cable company want to include it. Under "A La Carte" pricing, however, these niche channels would be receiving my money and the money of many people like me who like their special content.

Saying that cable TV A La Carte pricing would hurt the little stations is like saying breaking up ClearChannel would hurt the small bands and record producers, because they couldn't get national coverage. The problem is, the small people would be able to get more access to markets if the content provider didn't require something to be popular (or at least WANT it to become popular) to allow the content to reach the public.

Come on folks, the big cable companies' claim that they act as they do to protect the smaller channels is codswollop. The smaller companies would benifit from A La Carte Programming and the popular channels that are already on everybody's standard package (but could be eliminated under A La Carte programming) would loose out. THINK ABOUT IT!

A La Carte == Bad Idea

[Dolohov]

First off, the economic argument, which has been made a million times. If people can get their popular channels alone, then most of the homes in America will get ESPN, Fox News and the Bass Fishing channel. Channels like Cartoon Network, Sci-Fi, etc. will just crash and burn.

It's a basic positive feedback loop. 100 people are given a la carte cable. Only 12 of them pick channel X, while 60 of them pick channel Y. Channel X is going to be more expensive. Of those 12, certain of them are going to decide that it's just not worth the extra expense -- after all, channels like Y are good enough, and less expensive. X gets more expensive. In fact, it gets too expensive for some people, who decide to forgo it in favor of watching it at a friend's house, or just renting the DVDs of their favorite shows. Furthermore, as X gets more expensive, fewer and fewer people will be willing to pick it up just to try it out, and parents aren't going to be willing to pick it up for their kids. It might spread by word of mouth, but with very few eyeballs watching, there will be very few mouths talking...

Which leads to the social point, which is more compelling with news channels, but applies elsewhere. There is something wrong with telling people that they can elect to not have the option of seeing information they don't think they'll be interested in, and save money in the deal. Right now, if my parents got this a la carte deal, they'd get Fox News and drop CNN. The trouble is, while they don't admit it, they do occasionally flip to CNN just out of idle curiosity, to see if maybe Fox isn't being so straight about things.

If you reward people for reducing their information diet, you're going to wind up with a whole lot of people who just don't understand why anyone thinks differently than they do. You'll wind up with a whole lot of people who never satiate a vague interest in history or science or cooking that might otherwise grow. You'll wind up with a bunch of people who think it's really odd that adults watch cartoons...

I'd prefer to stay with the bundling, thanks. People may not take advantage of the opportunity to broaden their horizons, but we sure as hell shouldn't be rewarding those who choose to keep theirs narrow.

Re:This will never happen

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an electrical engineer now, but I worked for the cable company 14 years ago. I've never heard of an addressable trap, and I don't think it's practical. To paraphrase the grandparent post, we DON'T have the technology -- not outside the lab, anyway.

Consider a system with 100 channels. You want to offer the customers total a la carte programming: any combination of any channels they want.

Can you make a digital filter (your programmable trap) that operates at VHF frequencies? Possibly, but I doubt you could put 100 of them into a modest-sized box, and have reasonable power consumption, reliability, low cost, etc.

Digital is all that's left, as the original post in this thread pointed out. But if you want your TV to do the tuning -- and if you want to use your TV's remote, hook up extra sets, etc. -- then you need 100 separate decoder circuits in the box, 100 separate RF modulators, etc. It's horribly impractical.

Having said all that, the cable companies should be made to use a standardized digital box, with a la carte programming, decent encryption to prevent theft-of-service, etc. You should be able to buy such a box if you want, and it should work with any cable provider. (Maybe this already exists -- as I said, it's been 14 years...)

Oh yeah -- if the decoder's in the home, the customer pays for the electricity it uses, rather than the cable company.