Slashdot Mirror
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. "
The TV broadcasters don't want a la carte programming. The reason they say, cost, is not the real reason. For years the broadcasters have been using extremely low wattage, spread spectrum messaging to program our minds via channel packages.
For example, if you have a "Family Package" consisting of a cartoon channel, Lifetime, etc, the broadcaster will send a weak Bogon-Lyston Mind Control signal of approximately
To date this has been undetectable by standard means, however donning a tinfoil hat will block the signal and you will feel the difference within a few weeks.
Now, if a la carte programming goes through the broadcasters and their masters (The Illuminati) will have to use a stronger signal on their most popular channels. A stronger signal may be detected which would reveal their nefarious plans.
History
Back in the mid 1960s, a brilliant electronic engineer had detected an odd signal embedded into television signal of The Ed Sullivan Show. Decoding the signal, he found messages saying "DRINK MORE SOFT DRINKS" and "SUPPORT THE VIETNAM WAR". The engineer sounded the warning bell, but to the media itself. Bad move. He was heavily drugged for over 3 years then was placed at the center of a CIA/NSA/Illuminati organised mass murder crime scene. That engineer, Charles Manson, is still in jail suffering the ravages of the drug therapy.
Don't believe me, search the net! The truth must be tol... wait a sec, there's someone at my door..
Trolling is a art,
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?
Candle burns its brightest in the dark
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...
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.
$tv_show? What are you talking about? Never heard of it. I don't have a tv, haven't owned one since $date. You should get rid of yours and spend more time on $activity[0], $activity[1], and $activity[2].
Even if I had to pay the same amount I am paying now, it would be worth it to get rid of MTV. I can't stand that channel, but then again, I never did like Britney Spears. I hate that I am forced to have that crap broadcast into my home (even if I don't ever tune into it, the feed is still there). Its a matter of principal.
"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!"
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
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.
.30 or so for it. Now THAT would be cool.
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
Ordering cable channels a la carter provides a tempting opportunity for the cable providers and their content-provider cohorts to bleed us to death with fees.
I can imagine it now.
"Yeah, I'd like the MTV 14 Channel"
"That will be $2, sir....in addition to the $10 activation fee"
"$10 activiation fee ?!? What the hell is that?"
"Sir, this is a fee we assess to cover the cost of processing your transaction, as we have to send the truck out to your house"
"Why can't you just flip a switch at the computer?"
"Sir, our systems don't work that way."
"Well forget my order. In fact, I want to drop MTV 2 that I'm currently getting"
"No problem sir. That will be a $10 deactiviation fee"
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
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.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Of course this would be a good thing for the consumers, up to a certain point. There are some nieche channels out there. The Golf Channel, The Catholic something or another channel, Hell, even TechTV. These types of channels would slowly start to fade away because of fewer and fewer viewers. I like the idea of a la carte, but I don't want some of the better, more nieche channels disappearing.
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
Okay, CATV was established as Community Antenna Television. An antenna on top of the mountain fed the people in the valley, or some such.
People bought cable mainly to rid themselves of the hassles of an antenna, you know, the Archer Space Command thing on every chimney, rusting away with TWINAX to the back of yo' Zenith.
Cable eliminate that, and gave you a few extra channels. But the prices kept going up, and up, and up. Premium channels like HBO offer movies, and appear to have no commercials. Actually, the 30 minute documentaries about movies and indeed commercials, but that is besides the point.
Along has come HDTV. HDTV is digital, and should deliver a picture that is exactly as good as the cable delivered station. So assuming more content providers show up in town providing channels, then the need for cable should be reduced.
In my market (Virginia Beach, VA) you can receive MTV2 on UHF broadcast, but can't get it on cable until your spending $60+ dollars for Cox TV + Cox Cable. MTV2 broadcast seems to be filled with DirecTV ads. I don't get it, DirecTV delivers the same digital cable quality programming for analog cable pricing.
I know people that routinely spend $80 a month for Cable, Digtial cable and premium channels. If you think about it, that is quite a bit of money considering the majority of the channels are getting paid for your viewership. Your subscription demands them higher dollars for advertising. Not to mention half the channels go infomercial at 10pm it seems.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
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.
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.
thats a great idea, cause always you will have the book you want on your hands, so it'll be perfectly a la carte.
Funny how is italic used to type french
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
... but mostly because of consumer stupidity. Basically, people pay the $50/month for basic cable for the 2 or 3 channels they're interested in. Over the past 25 years, enough channels have become available that almost everyone has their 2 or 3 favorite channels that they want to watch and are willing to pay $50 for.
A la carte pricing would have the effect that people would simply buy the 2 or 3 channels they want, pay the same $50 they always did -- because that's what they were always willing to pay -- and any additional channels, which they now get for free, they'd have to pay extra for if they wanted to watch. This pricing scheme would have made send 15-20 years ago when there was still an untapped market for cable television, but in this day and age, cable TV subscribers are so ubiquitous that there's no untapped market that would be willing to subscribe to cable TV because it costs less. Everyone who would subscribe has subscribed and is already ready and willing to pay $50/month for television, and that is what they will continue to pay, even if government regulations change.
Cancel Cable. Save $50 a month and read a good book.
OK.
What's the ISBN number for The Daily Show?
The economic types may be exactly right when they say in an a la carte TV world we'd be paying about the same total per month. However, would we end up getting better value in exchange for that same money?
Unbundling channels would be a death blow to to the mega companies. Who-asked-for-that-anyway channels such as VH1 Classics and Nicktoons would simply die because nobody's going to part with pennies just to get that one channel. They wouldn't be able to say "We're giving you 10% more channels, now give us 10% more money!" anymore, which would knock their pricing back into shape.
Furthermore, new players who don't have the resources to launch dozens channels can now just launch one and be on the same competitive playing field. That'd open up the door for "indie" TV companies to come back into play. Right now, a one-network operation such as TechTV really has the deck stacked against it, which was part of the reason why they are being sold to Comcast.
Right now, it's the content makers forcing the "basic cable" model. They're the ones insisting that in order to get their popular networks, you have to take their unpopular ones too, and put them all into the same level of service as they're perscribed for. Wait a second... isn't that the kind of thing anti-trust laws usually stop?
I have a phone services package with SBC that includes a few things I need, and a few things I don't. I called about getting just the things I needed, and dropping the stuff I don't.
"That will be $10 more per month"
I'll stick with the package.
TowerDave
I can only see this as a way for Cable to profit:
...or something like that.
"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"
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.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
originally posted on Match 29th
right here
Chaos will always win out over order because chaos is more organized
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.
Even further back than that: December 2002 /. story
/. story
... Angry? Angry enough to pour concrete in your yard and plant a motorized 10-foot satellite dish [emphasis aded], like Cooper did more than 15 years ago?
AND
November 2002
But those really were about ala carte cable. This story is about ala carte SATELLITE: "His television bill is about $25 per month. Yours? Often twice that much,
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I'm a little ambivilent -- I'd have never watched HGTV if I didn't have a package. I used to have it programmed out of the bedroom TV. But one time TiVo recorded something, and now I find myself flipping to it every once in a while.
:-)
But here's why I'm ambivilent -- I have TiVo -- there's PLENTY to watch on the 10 or so channels that we "always" watch. The old promise of "500 channels!" isn't practical, and who needs it? I effectively pay $50 a month for HBOs, Telemundo, and Comedy Central. I (can) get the networks free. Of that $50, $10 is specifically for HBO, so let's see -- that $20 for Telemundo! I guess I should die of embarassment.
--Jim (me)
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.
The problem with this theory is that we don't know. Ala cart will have a few effects. Firstly, it will change the payment schemes that people use. Some people will drop out of their big plans. Others will start ordering TV when they currently only use over the air (myself included). So we need to see how that balances out in terms of revenue flow to the media giants.
Another thing to think about, though, is advertising. If you are ordering a la carte are you going to watch more advertising? If you don't have as many channels to flip through are you more likely to stick through the comercial breaks? Will this change advertising schemes?
I think this is a bigger change than most people have given credit to.
~~Guildencrantz
Penguin Trivia #46: Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were. -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
I want to pay only for SHOWS I want to watch. I don't want any more channels-- why should I pay for 24 hours a day of the Discovery channel? 8 of their daily hours are infomercials. And I only watch an hour or two of the remainder, anyway.
I want TV and movies released on DVD the SAME DAY they come out on TV or in the theatre. I'll just pick up what i want to watch at the store, or download it from iShows, or whatever Apple or somebody else comes up with to sell us video.
Shopping channels get a disproportionate share of cable and satellite bandwidth to the number of actual viewers because the carrier gets a cut of the sales. In an a la carte pricing model, this would be fixed because the revenue from providing a channel that many subscribers want would exceed the revenue they get from a shopping channel.
OK.
What's the ISBN number for The Daily Show?
It's 0836253256 .
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.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
It's http://suprnova.org
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
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.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
It's a working prototype of a new security measure: "topic knocking." Duping topics in the correct order causes the REAL articles to become available.
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
EchoStar is game but says Viacom and others are refusing to go along.
I used to work for Echostar, they HAD a la carte programming once, it was called Dish Picks. They discontinued the service because of cheapskates who'd call in several times per day to add/remove channels as the shows that they liked came on.
I suspect that they are now getting in line with the idea knowing full well that it won't ever happen. I believe that they're trying to get some congressmen to think that they're good guys so there will be less opposition to them buying DirecTV. The last time they tried, the sale was blocked.
There was a rumor floating around the call center when I was there, it was a rumor and I can't vouch for the veracity of the claim so take this with a HUGE grain of salt; but the rumor was that before the last time they tried to buy DirecTV Charlie Ergan (the president of the company) had John McCain over to his house to "watch a football game", the game was blacked out in the area due to NFL restrictions, but Charlie had them override the NFL blackout and SHVIA restrictions and put the game on at his house. If this really happened and they got caught the company would have been subject to a $10k fine, I'm sure that Charlie would have paid it out of pocket but that's not the point. Once again, if this really happened, I think I have a good idea of what they talked about.
Finally as a CMA, I'd like to say again that this was just an office rumor and I can't personally vouch for its veracity. The fact that there was a rumor is 100% fact, but the contents of that rumor are not known to me as being factual.
I never looked, so I couldn't tell you if Charlie Ergan actually had a DishNetwork system at his house. If I did know about it, I would be prohibited from discussing it with anyone outside of EchoStar.
But, you'd be surprised at what porno certain celebrities order.(I can't be any more specific than that)
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
They got rid of their regular digital cable line up and split it in "themes" and they call it "a la carte" and it sounds good at first. You choose the themes or packages that you want and only pay for those. In theory it could be cheaper, but if you want to get the channels you like, you'll end up paying more.
For example, I wanted "TechTV" but it was only in one of the "Entertainment" packages. It was all sports channels (every ESPN channel you can think of) and then TechTV. I don't watch sports, yet they wanted me to pay for all of those. The same thing with A&E, it was bundled with other horrible channels.
It made no sense. I would have had to end up paying more than I was originally paying. I canceled my digital cable subscription and went back to good old analog.
There are libraries your tax dollars fund to solve this dilemna.
My wife and I make heavy use of our local library. Not only for books, but for DVD movies and audio.
With all the time you save by not watching TV, you could spend some going to the library and picking up your items. I don't know about the library system in your area, but I can put holds on items online, and then just show up to check them out. Talk about convenient.
Because he was locked into a cable plan, he couldn't easily "vote" for the channels that he liked with his dollars . . . so he was stuck paying the extra for four lousy (in his opinion) channels that he would never watch.
I agree with the economists that say that we will pay the same for TV, but if can vote with our dollars, we establish more competitition and a more efficient marketplace. If no one likes the channel, it will be dropped in favor of something else . . .
When I move to Richmond VA in 1995, they didn't have comedy central and didn't get it for another 2 years or so . . . if people could pick and choose . . . we might have gotten it a lot sooner through an efficient marketplace that reflects true customer demand.
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.
The geek in me says that complexity is very, very, very bad. The words "ala cart channels", "de facto public utility", and "billing system" conjure visions of exponents whose exponents have exponents.
Finally, the fiscal conservative in me says that it will raise costs for the cable companies, which will raise costs for consumers, which will in the end probably price some people out of cable.
And then as an added bonus, we get to pay the government to take cable away from poor people. That way everybody wins.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
I was about to whip out 'what is the ISBN for the man show', but Playboy probably covers that.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Record industry: So, you don't want to buy the whole CD because 85% of the album is shit? Fine, we will sell you songs at $1 each online. You can get your 15% of good songs off the album for maybe $2.50. A year later, they want to jack the price to around $2.50 a song. Your $2.50 of good songs per album is now $8 or $9. Might as well buy the whole album at wal-mart and get the physical, non-DRM goods.
Sattelite guys: So, you don't want 500 channels of crap when you only watch 30 of them regularly? Fine we will sell you them at $1 each. A year later, though, maybe they want $1.50. Your cheap $30/month roll-your-own package is now $45, yikes!
It will happen. Big media companies are greedy hoarding bastards.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
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.
As per the article, a-la-carte is already working for C-Band dish owners, and it has been for the last 20 years. Before the advent of the mini-dish and the digital signal, all dish owners had BUDs (Big Ugly Dish - C-Band analog signal). It's not like you call up every month and completely change your order. You know what you want and what you don't, and you tend to stick with those choices year round, only occassionally making adjustments. One other advantage of C-Band analog signals, it is relatively easy to descramble the video (much more difficult with the audio). Thus if there is any visually oriented programming where picture is more important to you than sound (use your imagination) it isn't too hard to pirate channels. Of course, HBO led the drive to digital signals on C-Band, and those are not so easy to pirate. I haven't had access to a BUD for a few years now, so I don't know if there are many channels still using the analog signal.
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*
For specialty digital channels. $2/channel (some are more expensive). They provide package discounts (buy 5 for $1.50/channel) too. You just need some political backbone.
<Insert political joke here>
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
Assuming (big) that your average slashdotter is watching some of the more esoteric programming on cable (techtv, a&e, National Geographic, etc) this plan will be a disaster. Once an ala-carte system goes into place, the less subscribed channels will get less and less advertising dollars, and therefore , will either have less and less programing or cost more and more to subscribe to.
Wouldn't you also have to say though that the QUALITY of programming on the Disney Channel has declined dramatically since the days when it was a premium channel? They used to roll a lot of their movies out of the vaults, and they included old Disney Shows. They showed this content largely commercial free. Now it's all new programming (Lilo and Stitch, Kim Possible, Lizzie McGuire). Maybe it appeals to kids (obviously the target demographic, so I'll gladly shut up), but I think it sucks! Whenever I tune in they seem to have a strong message for young girls - try to dress and look like a Barbie Doll, and you will be cool!
Yes, I agree that with a la carte pricing very likely the individual cost of channels will increase, for a number of reasons including re-pricing, industry-imposed "technology fees" to implement the change (which are mostly bullshit anyway, just like the $0.85 fee for number portability I'll be charged for the rest of my cellular-using life), etc. However, the only way you will end up paying more is if you elect to retain most of the channels you have now. The central idea to this a la carte movement is that people don't want, need, or use all of the channels they get now and would pay less by using less, even with an average higher per-channel cost.
As to Mr. Hazlett's wonderful analogy of two subscribers both getting half the channels for the same price as before after the new pricing scheme - it's based on the unscalable assumption that new pricing will be based on the idea that each subscriber will choose a subset of channels not chosen by any other subscriber.
In other words, yes, when you have less than 10 ppl holding up a hypothetical market, the economies of that market will dictate rediculous price hikes, but we're not talking about 2 or 10 or 1000 customers here, we're talking hundreds of millions. If a la carte goes into effect my prices are not going to go from roughly $1 per channel now to $85 per channel, more likely something on the order of 150% to 400% inflation, depending on what the market will bear.
And his rhetoric about viewing those extra channels you don't really care for as "freebies" to surf through just pisses me off. Let's face it, no matter how broad your viewing tastes there are going to be some channels that each household will never view, "freebie" or no. I'm not into sports, so the 12 sports channels I get are totally wasted on me. All sports, all day you say? Well then I press Menu, Channel, Delete - problem solved, I won't even have to waste an extra thumb press as I surf to what I do want to watch.
And the final thing in his article, at the very end, that pisses me off to no end is this bit right here: The political reaction to the illusion of higher prices. I understand that from an economics professor point of view where we talk about product value not just price, that yes, the higher prices are illusory. But this ain't no lecture hall, this is the real fucking world. Bottom line is that my cable bill went up 5 real dollars per month as of March. So whether your tattered Econ 1 book says this is all in my head or not is irrelevant, I'm still out $5 for the tennis channel and two Lifetime channels, $5 that could go towards something way more important, like my gas tank.
But gas prices are a rant for another day.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
I have a la carte programming right now. It's called bittorrent. It works like a charm and it's included in the cost of my high speed Internet.
Not to be too off-topic but... My last experience buying cable (not even TV, just roadrunner) will probably be my last. It took SIX VISITS from different techs to get the damn thing to work. Script for visits 1-5 follows:
...the house was too big and there was no way this could work. Oh wait, actually the *real* problem turned out to be that the feed to our house was behind a bunch of splitters INSIDE THE BOX ON THE POLE!!!
Me: So you're here to hook up our roadrunner?
Tech: Yes. I've just got to go out to the box and do some stuff...
[thirty minutes pass]
Me: So, is our roadrunner working yet?
Tech: No. Your house is too big and has too many Digital Cable Receivers on too many splitters. There's no way this will work.
Me: can't you just bring another feed into the attic, since I'm a renter and that's where I live?
Tech: No, we can only have one feed per house.
Me: But the person on the phone said many people on our block have the same service. They're charging us right now for the service you are saying your company can't provide.
Tech: This won't work and I'm leaving now.
As you can imagine, the people on the phone were in a different country than the techs were (guess which one! go on, guess!) and apparently didn't read from the same script... I had a seven day weekend and spend six of those days waiting for time warner's bitch asses... After complaining to the point where they gave us free stuff on top of free stuff, they finally sent a team out to rewire the entire house for free, at which point they found that the problem was...
Never, ever, again... They can put ten million commercials on TV advertising roadrnuner and ondemand and all these high-speed services that they simply don't have the infrastructure to provide, and have no intention of having the infrastructure to provide. You know, I can remember a time when shit like this was fucking illegal. Let's hear it for deregulation, friend of the consumer!
Bastards.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
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.
1. Newspapers. Duh. (Granted, from an environmental standpoint I much prefer the idea of electronic news sources, which can be superior to either one depending on your attention span.)
2. A lot of news is completely useless if you don't have an understanding of what it means. TV generally fails on this - there's only so much information you can provide when you have to cram each story into a minute or two time slot. Some magazine programs on TV and radio do a better job, but books are really the only forum that allows enough space to really explore all of the subtleties that are involved in current events.
Granted, whether or not that matters really depends on if you're interested in being current for the sake of voyeurism or if you're trying to keep up in the world for the sake of making informed political decisions.
If it's for the former, Fox News, The Register, etc. are fine and dandy. If it's for the latter, you darn well better have a basic understanding of, say, modern economic theory (and hopefully some alternative economic ideas) before you start trying to make opinions on anything pertaining to economic policy.
A few years ago Roadway the trucking company had a store here in Akron where they are based it was called Rex salvage, Roadway was self insured so if something got damaged lost etc it ended up for sale there. I bought a whole K band dish (about 6 ft accross) tuner and all that jazz. Wow was it cool I had cable too but at the time K Band was used mostly for live feeds etc generally high quality and unencrypted. I am a news junkie so I loved I I saw stuff way before the general public and generally unedited. show were sparse and feed on them were wild but I could never helo feeling like a redneck with the dish in the backyard.
Sounds like something a dictatorial nation might do...
Required programming...
1. Hail to our leader.
2. The Pro of Terrorists.
3. Long Live our Leader.
4. The Good Life in *What ever country this is*.
Hm... I won't want that...
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
for years I have been willing to pay more for telev ision where I don't have to watch commercials or even the golf channel. BET has to be a bad one also. I am even willing to pay for basic cable plus 1$ per channel that I want, just to not recieve the channels I don't want. I hope this trend continues.
Case in point: the recent slapfight between Viacom and Dish. The problem wasn't that Viacom was charging too much, or Dish was trying to pay too little. The problem was, Viacom got to look like the injured party, and Dish got to look the ogre, taking goodies from subscribers but raising their rates when programming costs went up. With ala carte programming, if Viacom wants to raise rates for its channels, Dish can pass along those costs on those channels only, with perhaps a note to subscribers that this was a decision by Viacom and there are other channels on the Dish lineup for subscribers who wish to move their dollars.
I would think over the long haul that this would provide an incentive for programming providers to price their products more competitively.
...perhaps, is the fact that MANY of these bundled stations run "paid programming" for 4 to 8 hours a day. So we're all paying for air time that has already been paid for. I'd be more inclined to give the cable companies a pass if they made an honest effort to utilize all of the monopoly power they've been given. But when 25% of my stations are showing infomercials at any given time, I get pretty pissed about my cable bill. Why bother with 200 stations when all the real programming could fit in 100 or so?
You bring up something that got some wheels turning in my head. Ala carte internet access. Some point in the future you can choose certain internet access "packages" or choose which major sites you would like to have access to for a flat monthly fee. Say you wanted the news package. You'd pay 9.95 a month for access to 50 or so major news websites. Or you could just go through a catalog of websites and choose which ones you want for like 50 cents each a month. Part of the payment would go to the website, most to the ISPs. Kind of like ordering a subscription.
Just thinking out loud. I like my internet access just the way it is (but could be much faster).
-my other sig is your mom
If I say art will you leave me alone?
OK I guess not, but consider this: The most popular TV shows are all sitcoms and reality shows. Are you going to pay for any cable if the only thing that gets shown on any network is a sitcom or a reality show? What is your 5 favorite movies, or 5 favorite tv shows? Would you be ok if they got the axe because most people didn't like them?
Majority Rules is not a good way to produce much of anything least of all television, film or music. I am not defending the crap that is on TV, nor am I saying that only having to pay for the half dozen or so channels that I like is a bad idea, I am just saying that when you let the majority decide what you are going to watch, you better like midget dating and new episodes of survivor and friends because that is all you are going to be getting anytime soon.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?