Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
It would be useless for the FCC to simply allow a la carte pricing. They have to modify their existing rules on tiers and bundling.
Right now, unlike the FTC which ruled that Microsoft was out of line when they bundled software, the FCC rules specifically allow channel owners to sell bundles of channels to cable carriers, specifying in the contract which channels need to be in which tiers. On my local cable system, this results in having lots of channels in the broader digital tiers that no one ever watches. In order for my cable carrier to carry The Discovery Channel, they also need to carry Discovery Health, Discovery Military, etc...
If there's true a la carte pricing, with cable carriers charging whatever the channel provider wants to charge per customer plus a fee for carriage and bandwidth, there will be a major shakeout in the number of channels out there. Suddenly, the only cable channels out there will be the ones that customers are willing to pay for. (shudder)
The upshot of this would be an increase in HDTV offerings on cable. One of the major problems cable providers have right now is insufficient bandwidth for all the HDTV channels that they might otherwise want to offer, many of which HDTV owners would be willing to pay for. You'll see the dropped SDTV channels replaced by more HDTV channels and on demand services as the market sorts out what people are willing to pay for.
If this happens, it's long overdue. I'm not holding my breath.
-JMP
With PVR's now common and soon Video on Demand over broadband it seems to be the next logical step.
You only have to look at how popular recorded TV episodes have become on bittorent sites to see that people these days don't want to sit in front of the TV at prescribed times.
If they want to stop piracy they'll have to provide programming around other people schedules. People have a lot more things to do and are not prepared to fit their lives around their schedule.
Right now there's a TON of crap on TV, and I don't mean 'offensive' I just mean crap (every reality show ever created comes to mind). And if a la carte means that some of the crap will go away for lack of interest, that's fine by me.
But just because there's a minority of interest doesn't mean that a channel will necessarily disappear. It just means that the viewers of that channel will be called upon to donate to the content providers to help keep the channel alive (much like PBS' tele-thons). That's where the real interest will be shown by the viewers of the content.
I mean consider for a moment that not everything on TV should remain on TV. When a business starts up, it needs to be able to maintain some market share and operate within its revenue streams. When the revenue stream disappears for lack of customer interest or access, the business dies. In our current situation these "other channels", like the struggling businesses, would be dead or dying if it weren't for subsidization by the giant channel packages. I think that's not necessarily good because anytime someone wants to throw in a niche channel that will have 5 viewers, the cost of support for the whole thing necessarily increases to take on that additional burden. It's TV socialism.
I'm also not saying we shouldn't have any packages at all, just not 600 channels in one bundle (though that could certainly still be an option - as long as it's not the only option). For example, with most cable/sat providers, HBO and others come in packages of 3 to 5 or more channels of that type of content. You get all or nothing, but that's ok because you're paying for movie channels, not for some eclectic mix of different content much of which you're not interested in.
Only time will tell if the FCC tries to take this too far or just leaves well-enough alone by opening the door for a la carte.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
What's the difference between members of government expressing their religion through law and a state-sponsored religion?
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Just saw the probable pricing for some of these channels. ESPN currenty charges the cablecos about 2.50 per customer in a package deal from their owners. If they go separate they will be looking for 12-17.00 per month. I suggest be very careful what you ask for as you may get it. And it will cost a lot more not just a little. The popular channels know they are popular and will charge accordingly.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
a) It will mean higher prices.
b) It will mean fewer choices.
You forgot one..
c) It will suck
Think of this: there are channels out there that built their viewer-base through popularity. (FoodTV, Discovery) How did they get popular? People could tune in and check it out because they already had the channel. How will that work if people only get certain channels? Will there be a preview option? How do you know if any of the other channels are interesting? What if a channel kind of gets out of "focus" for you? I thought I would love having the Speed channel, but it is mostly crap now - NASCAR, American Chopper knockoffs, NASCAR. blech. I am glad I have it because I can catch something interesting every once in a while, but if I had to choose whether or not to pay for it, I probably wouldn't.
I have been channel-surfing or have seen something in the guide that made me stop and watch it, sometimes on a channel I would never watch. Sometimes I am in the mood to watch a dog show! But I don't think I'd pay for Animal Planet. But I guess I am not "normal". I don't have 30 different shows that I follow religiously. If I miss a show that I do like - oh well. One thing I wish they would do is if you buy a channel, they give you a free re-run channel so you can catch things you miss.
But the big point that some people are missing is that you probably will still be able to buy your tier channel packages, they will most likely just add on the ala carte channels as an option. And probably a relatively expensive one too. If the cable companies don't want you to use this option, they will make sure that you don't. I do think it is a great idea, in theory. But I think that the media companies will make sure that it isn't so attractive. They can then comply with the gov (who they are clearly in bed with) and still keep doing what they are doing.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.