FCC Report Supports a la Carte TV Pricing

An anonymous reader writes "The FCC may soon allow cable/sat companies to sell individually customized TV channel packages. From the article: ' FCC chairman Kevin Martin spoke to a forum, sponsored by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee in Washington, which has been examining indecency on radio and television. Martin told the forum that the FCC will soon release a report that concludes that offering TV programming a la carte is economically feasible and in the best interest of consumers.'"

Comments

It's been possible for a while

[cblguy]

I used to work in the analog head end department at Scientific-Atlanta. We could configure channel groups, as many as we wanted (or at least, I saw no limit). I could see this extending all the way to the customer. However, the 'gotcha' is that it requires a cable box (or some other intelligent device) to do it. Customers that rely simply on cable ready TV's/VCRs would not be able to do it.

With the digital set top boxes, it'd be a piece of cake.

I don't see it being offered with the possibility to save you money on your cable bill, though. It requires individualized effort (unless they tie a web interface to the head end, and allow you to select your channels online, which would be cool). Even then, there would have to be added cost to do it. But I'd love to get rid of shopping channels, crazy religious channels, and other channels that I will never watch (spanish, BET, etc).

Wrong: A very good idea

[foolish_to_be_here]

I've heard in this thread lots of complaints that (little viewed) channels like, Discovery, History and PBS would be dropped using this approach. Wrong! These channels have huge followings as they get referred to, time and again in diverse public forums other than Slashdot. Think about it, both SciFi and Food channel were once part of the basic Direct TV satellite package years ago until the little phone cord attached to the back of every box tattled to the marketing guru's that they were getting lots of viewer time, so they got bumped up into premium packages.