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FCC Head Supports Ala Carte Cable
MikeyTheK writes "PC Magazine Reports that Kevin Martin, chairman of the FCC, supports ala carte cable.
In a letter to several minority groups on Wednesday, Martin said "While I believe all consumers would benefit from channels being sold in a more a la carte manner, minority consumers, especially those living in Spanish speaking homes, might benefit most of all,". He goes on to argue "Cable companies act as gatekeepers into the programming allowed by the expanded basic cable package, preventing independent content producers from reaching viewers,", citing the example of Black Family Television, which was forced to go online-only because cable operators refused to carry it, even after it reached 16 million homes."
We think we can make a ton more cash by charging for each channel extra. Basically, what we're gonna do is reduce the nominal fee by a good 20 percent, cut channels in half and if you want anything but the propaganda, you'll pay extra.
We think that the average household will want about 80% of the channels they got today, generating about 120-130% of the revenue of today.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Spike TV and one 'o them 'God' channels. Just to keep some balance.
Why do I need to pay for others to have 50 sport channels? The SciFi (et al) channel works just fine for me, I don't want to have ESPN; which by talking to the cable companies is one of the most expenive "free" channels out there.
As a Slashdotter does that mean we like the FCC now?
WHy is the ridiculous?
If I get 1/20th the content, I should pay 1/20th the price.
The market would drive it there eventually.Assuming it applied to cable and sat satellite and fiber.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The problem with a-la-carte pricing is that it makes it impossible for new networks to get enough subscribers to start up. Think about it - how many of us would personally watch LOGO, the Gay/Lesbian Network? Some, but not enough for it to survive without charging an insane amount per subscriber. How about a network like the old TechTV, or even G4? Most of us would, but most consumers wouldn't. Even networks that would appeal to everyone would have a tough time gaining ground once it went into effect. Would you call in to purchase a new network? Not unless it had a show you really, really wanted. You can make an argument that it should be based on who wants each network, and that you shouldn't pay for networks you won't watch, but I'd argue that package programming keeps the price down for all networks.
Television is still mostly paid for by commercials. Any channel not generating much viewership isn't generating much sales. Either that, or the target audience doesn't buy things as much.
Either way, a la carte would end up looking exactly the same...except probably with less variety, since channels that are currently not competing would start.
Of course, I'm with the majority, so it'd be great for me. USA, Cartoon Network, Sci-Fi Channel, and Comedy Central are my channels, and I know that they're all pretty popular. Then again...I wonder what's more popular. It could lead to more of that reality-tv crap infesting my channels. There are already full channels that run nothing else.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Watch just how fast the cost would drop by eliminating channels you don't watch. As a Nerd ("Slashdot, News for Nerds...") you wouldn't watch ESPN; which is one of the most "expensive" free channels out there. If I didn't pay for it, others (Jocks) would; as it would then be a 'premium channel'.
There is more to this than just hooking up one line. True basic cable is only $15 / month. Why is my basic cable bill $50 / month; in which I'm required to support (pay for) channels that I don't want -- and won't use?
If there was a "White Family Channel", the ACLU, the government, and the public in general would demand its removal.
Just because you ran sed "s/White/Black/g" does not make it ok.
-- Will program for bandwidth
The programmers, like Viacom, force cable companies to carry channels they don't want and therefore forced into package deals of today. Remember the brewhaha a few years ago between a satellite provider and programmer, that resulted a crawl text to all subscribers that there faverate channels may be dropped before they came to a deal.
I actually believe the cable companies would like to offer ala cart pricing. The problem is that the sports networks dictate that if they aren't included with every customer, they won't offer service at all. All or nothing. They also charge a ridiculous percentage of the total cable bill per month. Extortionists, it seems.
Companies like BFT that can't get cable traction, should try deals with alternate routes like Live or ITMS. I don't even see why we really need streamed video much anymore, except for truly live stuff - which we can get from over the air broadcasts.
Even news programs I would be just as happy to subscribe to a feed for and get a download that I could watch when I had time.
Having a subscription model also allows for video to be distributed via BitTorrent, really the only model that makes much sense for HD video because otherwise if you ever get a large subscriber base ISP's or servers will start falling over.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've never ordered cable or satellite because there are only a half dozen channels I care about. I'll take the 6 channels I like and they can charge me 6 bucks a month. For an extra dollar I'll take the university channels. If they want to charge more, well I will continue to abstain from purchasing their product.
Since I've upgraded to Digital TV OTA, I now get a music video channel, and 8 PBS channels -- amongst the others. I could care less about cable unless they want to give me the product I want to buy. Still I think paying for COMMERCIAL television is retarded, but then I don't buy bottled water either.
Allowing people to subscribe to channels on an ala carte basis may actually improve programming. There are so many channels that are full of unmitigated trash, but get "sold" because they are bundled with channels that have a couple of good programs. Those channels would need to start doing some actual programming, or they will find themselves losing what advertisers they do have.
I'd be happy to pay $1 per month per channel. I'd probably end up getting half as many channels as I do now while paying the same amount, but they'd be the [i]correct[/i] channels. I'd drop 30 channels I never watch and add 2 that I would.
Or, if they want to price the channels competitively, I'd be willing to work with that, too. I'll pay $4 per month for ESPN if it's so expensive, but I'm going to pick it up each August and drop it each January so I can just get college football. At $1/month for ESPN I wouldn't bother.
This doesn't make it hard for new channels to break in, either. Dish Network is always having "free preview weekends" for higher-tier cable and premium content. If you want to launch a new cable channel and get people interested, you might have to (*gasp*) give it away for free and rely only on your advertisement income or your startup capital before you gather a critical mass of viewers. Then, you can add a low monthly fee, and scale it up as your popularity continues to climb. Sounds fair to me.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Not to mention that the public has paid for much of the infrastructure in the form of tax breaks and public infrastructure allotments. They use our public easements, too. You build on the easements you serve the people. Period. Want to fuck the people? Go find your own easements.
It's "a la carte," meaning "by the menu."
Except that's not how it would work. Right now you basically pay for the marquee channels in each package and get the rest of the channels free as a bonus. If channels were un-packaged you wouldn't get HBO for 1/20th the price of a premium package. Instead you'd get HBO for 1/2 the price of the premium package and all of the other channels for something more than 1/20th. The total cost of putting it back together would be higher than what you pay now.
Why? Simple economics.
Let's say there's a cable package that has 20 channels including G3, HBO, and ESPN. Slashdot readers are willing to pay $20 for G3 but only $1 for ESPN and $0 for any other channel. Sports nuts are willing to pay $20 for ESPN, but only $1 for G3 and $0 for any other channel. And families are willing to pay $20 for HBO, but $0 for any other channel.
Right now the cable company could charge $20 for that package and all 3 groups would buy it. Everybody pays $20 and gets 20 channels.
If forced to offer it a la carte the cable company wouldn't sell HBO for $1. They'd sell it for $20 in order to capture the family market, who is willing to pay that much for it. Same for ESPN -- they can sell it for $20 and capture the jock market. Same for G3 - they can sell it for $20 and capture the techie market. Now everyone is worse off. The families, techies, and jocks are still paying $20 for cable, but getting fewer channels for their troubles.
You can question the empirical assumptions -- maybe the pricing breakdown isn't that extreme -- but bundling of goods has long been a means to allow people who value different parts of a package differently to enjoy the package for one price.
This is all BS and anyone with half a brain knows it. Cable monopolies are not interested in providing consumer choice. If such an "A-La-Carte" system were ever put in place, you'd get 5 channels a month for $60 instead of 200. Sure, they'd be the 5 you want, but would YOU pay $60 for just those lousy 5 channels? They'll kill this idea just like CableCARD...Speaking of, how is that going these days?
Too bad there's no in-between option, where to get the first channel it costs half of your current cable bill, and then each channel costs 7%-10% of your total now. That would mean that if you watch more than half your channels, stick with your current service. If you're getting cable for only 5 of the channels, then you'll save money and the cable company doesn't have to pay the channel for the subscriber.
- An Anonymous Coward whose native language isn't even French or English
1. The content producers (TV networks) decide what they want to put on and tell the cable companies that it is a take it or leave it deal. If the cable companies puts up a fight they put a scroll in that says Your cable company does not want this channel call them to change their minds on the highest rated shows. They try to force high cost programming in to the lower tiers so everyone that has those tiers has to pay for it. The golf channel did this just before the US Open. It did not work. They are on a high tier package.
2. The cable provider will calculate what the cost to maintain the connection (and some profit and that will be broken out on your bill. Then each channel will be listed.
3. The number of channels will go down. Right now some networks run lower cost channels in the higher tier and subsidize it with a more popular channel. With out that subsidy there would never have been a History Channel for example.
4. The content providers will not let this go through, not the cable companies.
I don't see why it would have to be all or nothing pay-per-channel or pay-for-3-million-channels. Why not a base rate that everyone pays for their basic cable plus a per channel rate to add any number more channels? Right now I have the option of getting basic cable, which lacks ESPN and the NFL Network (yes, I'm one of those people who requires them, folks), Comedy Central, and the Sci Fi Channel, or paying an arm and a leg for a whole slew of channels I really don't care about.
While I realize that this means there's no chance for start-up channels to get a following, I'm pretty sure they can find a way around it if they try. Free/reduced rates for the first few months or starting out on the Net...
Yeah, you could be a complete dick and look at it that way, or you could price structure it like:
Cable will cost you $XX servicing fee, that includes YOU CHOICE of Y channels, whatever ones you like (I guess they could have different pricing based on 'premium' channels so maybe you get X premium and Y not so premium channels... whatever)... then any extra channels you pay per channel some small amount.
How would that not work to everyone's advantage? I live in Australia and cable penetration is much, much lower than in the states... because we've got pretty a ok free to air really... but mostly because for the base cable package I get a couple of channels I like plus a WHOLE LOT I couldn't care less about, while missing out on others I would like, but I have to purchase a whole other package on top of the basic one to get them... also getting a whole slew of other crud channels that I don't want.
So, if I could instead pay the basic amount price and get the same number of channels, but the ones I actually WANT, I'd actually sign up to cable.
They'd get another customer
And there are many more like me.
Cable companies should say "fine". First channel costs what cable currently costs, the rest are free. The biggest cost to the cable cos isn't carrying all those channels, it's the infrastructure. Does this idiot think that people should be able to buy 1/20th of the channels they have and pay 1/20th the price? It's ridiculous.
Does this idiot think that people should be able to buy 1/8 of a gallon of milk for less than the price of a gallon? I'm cutting my wrists here, people!
If there was competition then someone selling 1/20 of the channels at *1/5* or the price would jump in, and make a profit. Or they'd bundle it with other services, eg - phone, broadband, and 8 channels of our choice; or for 10% extra - phone, broadband and 8 channels of your choice. Its certainly the case here (in the UK) that choice is largely fictional, for TV you get terrestrial, Virgin (cable) or Sky (Satellite) - since they don't compete via the same delivery system there is a cost to switching, which amounts to no choice at all - compared to telephony, where switching providers to switch your billing plan is much easier (to those with sob stories: I said easier, not easy)
It's pretty ludicrous anyway that most channels arent free. Flicking through the other day I found dozens of shopping and game channels that you had to upgrade to see (you *pay* to select the music; you *pay* to play the game. there is no difference between these and the basic channels of the same type, which I'd rather not have in my package anyway!)
The limitations in delivering a la carte can't be in bandwidth, since I can choose to have all the channels available if I want; and I can choose up to 500 PPV films individually. So, its just bad programming (a handful of bits for payment plans) or you just want me to pay for the depreciation costs of the network. Fine - lets do that. When you charge 1/20 of the basic, you're going to increase the number of people who will pay for it; these are now all potential PPV customers. Let them get the rest of the channels, a la carte, PPV for 1 month at a time, and charge them the cost of a PPV movie. At the prices I pay, getting 2 channels that way would cost *more* than a package upgrade - but of course its impossible to get a package upgrade to the set of channels I actually want. The downside for cable is only less regularity in the revenue stream, since it becomes easier for me to renew when Lost jumps the shark.
Yes, thank you, I'd like your High Speed Internet Access.
Ok, no problem, the half order or full size?
Full size; the one with 3mb/s down 712 up.
Do you need hardware or setup?
Nope.
Sure no problem, anything else?
Yes, I'd also like a few side orders?
Ok go ahead.
The local channel 17, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, History Channel, Military Channel and AMC.
Anything else?
How much is your ESPN package?
4.95 per month.
No thanks
Would you like to try our HBO package? It's free for the first 3 months.
No thanks
Okay that's a Full size order of high speed internet for 19.95, plus 6 sides at .95 cents a piece. Anything else?
Nope that will do it for now.
Including taxes, fees and internet monitor labor, your total is $76.65.
WTF?!?!
Namaste
à la not ala
it's french and roughly translated mean with.
ala does not mean anything.
Why? Because there's a lot of crap in there I don't want.
You can't take the sky from me...
Wouldn't it be fun if Verizon came along and got rights to offer channels a-la-carte over IP. You better believe cable would follow suit, and for less than $20/channel.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
The biggest cost to the cable cos isn't carrying all those channels
Because of course the cable company goes to Pirate Bay and just downloads all those movies and tv shows, right?
Does this idiot think that people should be able to buy 1/20th of the channels they have and pay 1/20th the price?
He might think that, but he's ignorant of the various contracts the cable companies have with the content producers that tell them how they're going to use their channels. Want to resell Disney content? Then everyone has to get the shopping network they just happen to own, along with the rest of their networks. The list goes on and on. Want to carry Nickelodeon? That's got a metric ton of baggage to go with it too.
I have like 200 channels.
:() and The History Channel. :P
I watch three.
The rest of you can pay for 197 channels of crap, as long as I get my discount rate for having CN, Spike (what? they play CSI and Trek
This sounds like the best idea the FCC ever had.
AKA pay lip service to the feds. "You can get just the Sci-Fi channel for 5 dollars a month! (plus 50 dollars operating expenses)!" "Or get our premium package for 60 dollars a month! Over 9000 channels!"
It is not clear to me that part of the FCC charter should be promoting non-English speaking households in the United States. Foreign language households create problems of assimilation, economic integration, application of law, public services... I have no problem with duel language households or the availability of native language television channels for them.
an ill wind that blows no good
When you get your Red Bushie Dictionary out, you will find that the translation for "A La Carte" is "Excuse To Raise Rates On Consumers While Providing Less Service".
It's in there before "Above The Law".
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I don't know or care how anyone else would use it but if I could buy only the channels I want I would have cable TV right now INSTEAD of using an antenna. The few cable channels that I want are worth paying for but I am not paying for every cable channel there is. It just isn't worth it. I wouldn't buy many channels because I don't want much but my bill would be some amount greater than the $0 it is right now.
I work in the billing department at a smaller cable company, so maybe this post is biased. At least it's biased in the direction of truth, rather than ranting consumer speculation. I also used to work as a field technician for the same company, so I am in a position to know this issue.
First, most cable and satellite companies would be contractually prohibited from complying with any such mandate from the FCC, if it were to be announced tomorrow. Viacom, HBO, Universal, Disney and the over-the-air corporations demand carriage of their lesser-known networks in exchange for a reduced rate on their main programming. For example, our customers demand - and we willingly pay - for ESPN and ESPN HD. The cost per subscriber per month is about $14. We also carry ESPN2, at a discount. If we dropped ESPN 2 from our expanded basic tier, the SD and HD ESPN channels would cost us $9/mo per sub. We are currently in month 4 of a 36 month contract at this rate. Thus, we cannot break this portion of the bundling in our lineup for the better part of 3 years.
Additionally, it is a simple fact that forced a la carte offerings would lead to higher customer cost, and reduced quality. Most cable companies continue to carry their basic tier in analog. A la carte analog results in a daisy chain of traps at the pole or pedestal, degrading the signal across the spectrum. A la carte digital requires equipment in customer's homes with remotely accessible security. You can achieve this with CableCards or Switched Digital. The two are not currently compatible, so it's an either-or situation. In all honesty, MY employer wants CableCards to work correctly. When they don't, it generates higher costs in the form of truck rolls, and lower customer satisfaction.
This is to say nothing of the increased cost due to the creation of rate codes in the billing software for each channel, and the corresponding training of 1700 CSSR's on how to use them. It also ignores the time/cost of converting 79,000 video subscribers to an a la carte plan, so on and so forth.
Kevin Martin has a lot of dreams, most of which seem to be based in fantasyland regarding cable companies. I would be happy to have him shadow me for a week to see how these companies actually operate, so he can realize the true costs of what he dreams up.
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.
Every year we have to watch as SlashDot continues to be ignored for being "too black".
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117970671.html?
Evolution: love it or leave it
Ye gads man, G3? That's SO last decade! Upgrade to G4!
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
I would support Ala Carte cable. It'd love it. That said, I figured I should provide a little perspective.
I was reading the previous issue of Forbes a day or to ago (not the current one the one before that) and they had a story about the guy behind High School Musical and how Disney has made their channel much more popular than it used to be (at the expense of quality and watchability, in my opinion).
The article mentioned that Disney is the 4th or 5th most expensive cable channel, and costs 89 cents per subscriber for a cable company to buy the rights to show. I'm not positive that's right, but it was in the 80s.
This would be fantastic. Look at the quality of programming that HBO and Showtime must produce to keep getting viewers. Now try to watch Spike TV for a few minutes. That's what competition does.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I remember when they passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and there was all this talk from Congress and the media about this sort of thing. The legislation was supposed to "free us" and let us choose from a wide array of competitive content providers, which would lower prices and generate higher quality content, etc;... What happened? Pricing goes up, while the competition goes down.
How many cable providers are there really? It's the same with Direct TV, et al.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I *need* FSN West... At least between April and October. That's where 90% of the Angels games are on.
Go Halos!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Let's say you like SciFi channel, and so you decide to subscribe to that channel, and only that channel. The countermove is to distribute SciFi's programming across 20 channels. So now Star Trek is on the Gay/Lesbian channel, Babylon 5 is on the White Christians With Short Hair channel, Battlestar Galactica is on the Fake Wrestling channel (as opposed to the other wrestling channel), etc. When you talk about cable, "channels" are an old-tech convenience for categorizing things before we had Tivos. If you make it unprofitable for the cable company to let you categorize things, then they'll stop doing it.
What you really want is ala cart programming, not channels.
I currently get internet access Time Warner Cable with no cable TV service. It is strictly the price that is keeping me from subscribing. If I could get the local channels, Comedy Central, one of the news channels, and the maybe Weather Channel for under $10 a month I'd seriously think about adding that onto my service. But with the current pricing structure, no way.
This would be great for customers, but I do not see this happening anytime soon.
What kind of crap-ass parents let their kids watch HBO?!?!?!?!?!?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
So if all I wanted was HBO I get it for half price? Sounds good.
If all I wanted was a couple of the other channels I'd get it 20% of the current price? Sounds good too.
Sure the people who want all the channels lose their current subsidy from everyone else, but there's probably about 3 such people.
Maybe it's different in your area, but around here HBO was available separate of any package, with two options which were essentially "just original HBO" and "all those other HBO channels, too". That might have changed - I haven't had cable for about 6 years. A similar option was available for Showtime, and of course they were also available as part of a tier package. The point is that these options didn't cost $20/month, they were much more reasonable, although still too expensive in my opinion.
Oh, and why did I drop cable? When we moved back into the cable company's covered area, it would have been $80/month (before taxes, fees, etc.) to get the worthwhile channels I used to have before moving out of the covered area, and not even all of those channels. They had changed which channels were in each tier package during the time we had lived outside their area. Of course some portion of that $80 would have gone toward ESPN1 through ESPN999, which I'd never watch. I suspect a la carte pricing might have retained me as a customer.
- T
There's more than two players when it comes to ala carte. You have the delivery guys (timewarner cable) and then then content guys(viacom). Content guys sell content to delivery guys, lets just say $0.50 a channel per user. Expanded cable gets you say 20 channels, thats $10 in direct cost that the delivery guys have to pay the content guys. Delivery guys sell the package for $20 and make $10 in profit. I just want one channel. Direct cost to the cable company is $0.50. They could charge me $10.50 and still make the same profit that they would get selling me the whole package for $20 and i would pay almost $10 less in fees.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Most of them.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Something about that makes a fiscally liberal social conservative like me very, very sad. Maybe Sayyid Qutb and his students were right about the United States of America.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Hey, I enjoy watching Deadwood with my 3 year old daughter, you insensitive clod!
As a bonus, it's fucking hilarious when she calls her friends at preschool "cocksucker!"
i forget
Funny how a certain Egyptian mystic predicted this, and in so predicting it, caused the creation of al Qaeda.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I wish more channels would offer their best ala carte programming online. Let them have their commercials there. Make a good experience for the viewer and they will go for it. Cut out the middle man altogether (unless of course, your cable company owns the internet access too... ;)
On a related note, there's an old story on PBS about a Canadian who became his own cable company. FTFA:
With the exception of local channels, which come from an antenna, all of Andrew's video content comes from a C-band (big dish) satellite receiver (receivers, actually), and is fully paid for. "I buy the channels just like a cable system does or a motel that wants to offer HBO, from the National Programming Service," says Andrew. "And as a result I pay wholesale prices. People don't realize how much of a markup there in is the cable business. The Discovery Networks, for example, cost me $0.26 per customer per month. The IP laws in both the U.S. and Canada say that if I have legal access to this content I can store and use it. And the over-the-air channels, of course, are free."Imagine of the FCC allowed people to be their own cable companies. At $.26 per channel per household, that's a hell of a steal. And that's also how you can see how much cable companies and DirectTV mark up their prices (don't forget, they also get advertising revenues.)
Because not everything is economically or technologically viable that way. If you don't believe me, then I suggest going to a grocery store, removing hot dog roll from the package, and asking them to ring it up. Or try buying a single nail from a hardware store.
ESPN accounts for approximately 1/3 of the entire cost of expanded basic cable programming. This is because ABC/Disney FORCES cable companies to cary every ABC channel, every ESPN channel, every disney variant or none at all. ABC/Disney can go F@!# themselves because I don't want to watch any of their content, yet because they are one big company offering content, they can force cable companies to carry channels very few people watch (like ABC News Now, a cable news channel that nobody wants and that cable companies are being forced to carry when they renew their ESPN content agreements)
There are basically just a few companies that own the vast majority of content on the cable channel lineup. They are:
GE--NBC, Telemundo, MSNBC, Bravo and the Sci Fi Channel.
Time Warner--The WB Television Network, CNN, HBO, Cinemax, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT
ABC/Disney--ABC Television Network, ESPN, The Disney Channel, SOAPnet, A&E and Lifetime
Viacom--Music Television, Nickelodeon, VH1, BET, Comedy Central, (and until spun off last year, CBS Television Network, UPN, Showtime)
Scripps--HGTV, Food Network
News Corp--Fox, National Geographic and FX,
There are very few channels these companies do not own. Forcing these companies to allow consumers to choose what they watch will give them less incentive to conglommerate and force feed mediocre content down our throats. You know, cable companies have to spend quite a bit of money on their plant to expand the number of channels they offer. By forcing cable companies to carry channels nobody wants, content companies are increasing cable bills by more than just the cost of the content.
I've been researching the cable industy looking into IPTV, and I have to say, there are more layers of evil than you would imagine in this industry. If you think cable companies suck--and for the most part, they do--the content companies suck even more.
Allowing consumers to purchase a la carte will do several things.
Finally, I wouldn't mind if they kept the shopping channels to lower the overall price. There is nothing really offensive on those channels... unless they start selling sex toys or if you consider ginsu knives offensive.
Next step, a la carte showpricing.
Eventually, what's available today on iTunes (or illegally on YouTube or via bittorrent) will be the only way business is done. It's only a question of how long it'll take, and how much it'll cost.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
In Richard Florida's work we learn that investment in sports is worthless in terms of economic development. By contrast, investment in arts is worth quite a bit downstream. Now, Florida's focus is on comparing cities. But the lessons may extend to cable/satellite too. So if our cable/satellite is effectively investing $14/month/subscriber in ESPN (figure given by others in this discussion), that's equivalent to a city putting most of its civic budget into the new arena for the sports teams rather than into, say, a new playhouse and museum. This means that over time the virtual metropolis comprised of the subscribers to cable/satellite are economically less well off than if the investment had been weighted less to sports, more to the arts. And that means that an alternative without so much investment in sports in the mix would over time have wealthier subscribers, to whom it - and the advertisers using it - could potentially sell much more.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I always think ala carte is a great idea until I think about which channels will fail because of losing subsidization. I want more SciFi/History/Documentaries, not more reality TV and crap for "the masses" (or as my wife affectionately calls them, "yellow mustard" folk). Yes, I am an elitist bastard.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
What did this imposter do with the REAL FCC chairman? I can't believe a representative from today's FCC would support something so pro-consumer and anti-corporation. In all seriousness - an ala carte "plan of plans", where you can choose your own set of channels, or a conventional package like today, or a combination of both, is LONG overdue...
As a parent, I know almost every channel has crap on it if you watch enough, and good parenting and education are the best "censorship" tools out there. However, this could be a useful tool for blocking certain channels that I don't want my kids to watch. MTV - gone. Shopping networks - gone. (dirty bastards...)
Just remember, your "mediocre content" is someone else's prime entertainment. Like it or not, no one person (and certainly no one person on Slashdot) has a handle on everyone's taste. To construct an argument around such a premise is frighteningly arrogant.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Unfortunately it will never happen. Its not the cable companies its the networks. Most networks own several different stations and they are bundled together. It's either that or they wont allow the cable companies to carry the channels. The cable companies don't want this because they are afraid of more people going over to satellite so they get the entire package even stations that no one ever watches. The cable company just carries the channels the networks are the ones who really control which ones you get.
On the face it is ridiculous because all content is not the same value. A channel that shows re-runs all the time like tv-land and such don't cost as much to produce. Not only that, it doesn't really matter how much a channel cost to produce, it matter what people are willing to pay. I'd pay $5 buck a month for say the Sci-fi channel or the science channel, but I'd only be willing to pay $1/month for F/X or TNT. I'm not willing to pay anything for ESPN. These are my values, and I bet they represent a minority of cable subscribers. Just because you only want to watch 1 out of 20 channels doesn't mean that that channel is only 1/20th as valuable.
I'm all for an a la carte system, but I just realize that the channels won't be all priced the same.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
About 2 years ago I cancelled my cable. I buy seasons of TV shows on DVD or I just download them via bittorrent. To me, cable is dead.
Meh.
True, but your arguement also means my "prime entertainment" might be mediocre content to other viewers. Why should someone else have to pay for what I want to watch? That's how the current system works. I do not ever watch sports programming, but because everyone has to pay for it in order to get any cable service at all, half the people who do not watch those shows are subsidizing their cost. I don't want to pay for something I don't want to buy. I'm never going to watch WE, Oxygen, or Lifetime nomatter how fine their programming may be yet I pay for them. Some sports fanatic not interested in all the news programming I watch may prefer not to pay for all the news channels on expaned basic.
You may have noticed that I picked "ABC News Now" as my example of content being crammed down the throats of consumers. Perhaps calling that channel mediocre programming is "frighteningly arrogant", however based on the numbers of viewers who actually watch it I think I can objectively say that my assertion is true. Another example channel that is force fed on expanded basic is Toon Disney. 1/10th the viewers of that for Nickelodeon according to recent viewer ratings, yet forced to be caried by any cable company who wants to carry ESPN when their ESPN contract comes up for renewal. That's crap--mediocre crap as judged by the fact that the viewership of those two force fed channels is a few tens of thousand of people in a country of 300 million. Using round numbers: 100 million cable households, 25 cents from the cable company per subscriber to carry toon disney, and 50,000 viewers gives Disney around $500 for every viewer who actually watches their crappy channel. If not for their lock on other content, ABC/Disney's toon disney would be a financial flop. They would have to charge $500 per subscriber per month to break even if a la carte programming were allowed.
Other examples of force fed content include Spanish language channels paid for by non Spanish speaking viewers. Why the heck is ESPN en Espanol required to be carried on expanded basic? Though before getting on your high horse, the other side of the arguement is true as well; why shouldn't native Spanish speakers be allowed to choose a majority of Spanish language programming ?
Same for ESPN -- they can sell it for $20 and capture the jock market.
Beer bellied Al Bundy's who were jocks 20+ years ago are the ones watching ESPN. Most jocks don't make enough money to influence the programming decisions at their parents' house.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What kind of crap-ass parents let their kids watch HBO?!?!?!?!?!?
HBO doesn't make as high of a percentage of children's programming as they used to but when I was a kid they had Fraggle Rock, that was clearly for kids, Encyclopedia Brown, and they still have their "Happily Ever After" minority fairy tales. Or maybe that's what you're talking about, you don't want your kids to see minorities in a positive light because of the fairy tales.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Yes, I left out the accent aigeu. No, I don't care how that's really spelled. Like it or not (I don't like it, but accept it), English is the Lingue Franca now... and it does not include an accent aigeu. Whine. Also, "a la" roughly translated means nothing close to "with". The best translation is "at the".
You'll have to get used to the lingue franca... English. It includes such "features" as missing the space and accent marks in "ala". Sorry. It's incorrect, I acknowledge, but it is the lingue franca and it's best just accepted.
Don't get me wrong - French is a beautiful language. If I saw its punctuation and grammar disregarded (unintentionally) in poetry or literature I would be pissed. But this is just simple discussion that happens to use a cliche (oops, forgot my accent aigeu again...) from French and does so inaccurately. It's nothing to get worked up about.
It is à la carte
Obligatory link to Wikipedia to inform you ignorant slobs of this transgression is included. You can thank me later. Hrmph.
My apologies. I meant to mod you Insightful.
Please mod parent up.
Why in the name of everything good and true are the parent and the two other previous posts like it (addressing the issue of competition) modded troll? WHY?! SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHY? Seriously. Why? Please. Please. PLEASE.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
HBO doesn't make as high of a percentage of children's programming as they used to but when I was a kid they had Fraggle Rock, that was clearly for kids, Encyclopedia Brown, and they still have their "Happily Ever After" minority fairy tales.
Fraggle Rock was also on NBC, Encyclopedia Brown has been on PBS, and Happily Ever After also plays on BET. Why pay extra for such a family-values unfriendly channel?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Three words. "a la carte" It is French.
What's wrong with HBO? I thought that was the channel that makes all those expensive glossy dramas.
My wife wants: NBC, WB, TBS, TNT, ABC, Food Network, Comedy Central, VH1, Fox, FX [and more not listed]
/.er.
/.ers saying they don't want ESPN is like the "Linux rules and Windows blows" flag waving. Each OS has merits (and drawbacks), kids. And almost every single channel listed above is the same story. Get your collective heads out of your billion light-year wide hole, guys. Basic and first tier cable is what most normal people want, just as most normal people want a cheap Windows boxen with free crapware that they remove or ignore. "Most bang for the buck? Sign me up." End of story.
The three kids want: NBC, Sci Fi, WB, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, ABC, ESPN, The Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, VH1, Comedy Central, Fox, FX [and more not listed]
I want: NBC, MSNBC, Bravo, WB, CNN, TBS, TNT, ABC, ESPN, A&E, VH1, Comedy Central, Fox, National Geographic, FX [and more not listed]
Bottom line: our family wants almost all the channels these "evil doers" offer, and could care about the ones we never watch. Remotes can be programmed to skip channels, and fingers do it automatically over time.
Are slashdotters for real? Do you all really not want sports channels? I have ESPN on in the living room first thing in the morning because other than Bonds/Vick scandals they show each day what it is possible for humans to achieve -- you know, "the thrill of victory" -- and the scandals show kids that if they cheat, they get caught. This beats the snot out of watching fantasy/SciFi crap. It also beats the average Brit comedy -- Monty Python was/is funny precisely because it makes fun of the average Brit's total lack of a sense of humor [I'm a Brit on both sides, if you go back one or two gens]. I've played tennis, table tennis, badminton, soccer, football, rugby, lacrosse, ice hockey, car racing (unofficially that is), roller skating & blading, swimming, rowing, fishing and kite flying -- and I want my kids to be exposed to some or all of those and more so that they will give some of them a try and adopt one or more of them as a way to keep healthy for pete's sake.
As to "evil" channels like ABC, what about Extreme Makeover Home Edition? Isn't there something good about this? Also, can any of you really watch an hour of AFV and not laugh at least once? Oh, I get it, it has to be a little more gross and uncensored (i.e. Jackass) to be funny to a
NBC is not owned by nice corporate citizens in my books, but The Biggest Loser is something that a majority of (overweight and obese) Americans can relate to.
CNN, likes most news sites, is sleazy and sucks on its default settings...but when that big story breaks, what channel do you want working for sure?
Fox sitcoms are an oxymoron, but Hell's Kitchen is great entertainment, with another constructive message -- work hard and get ahead.
I come here for the love
..Being British and living in the USA is being a TV niche or minority watcher.
I have often been torn with having to buy a cable package of 300+ digital channels just to get BBC America to see the BBC world news feed once a day (no I don't care about a local TV station covering a local cat stuck up a local tree).
I am also annoyed that I need to get expanded analogue to get the only other 2 channel that I want from cable : SciFi and Comedy Central.
There are many fine series I like to watch on some of the major networks (e.g. FOX) and it pleases me I can get them in HD for free off-air with a $100 set-top box or $50 HD tuner card for my PC.
So I just took the plunge - Major networks for Free over-air in HD, listen to BBC world service while reading Slashdot in the morning (the video feed is too low bit rate to stomach) and waiting on the series DVD's of south park and battlestar to make it to netflix.....
So far I feel good about saving $100 a month - that is until someone tells me a plot spoiler...
The cost of a product has nothing to do with the cost of production. A product's priced is primarily based on what the market will bear. And even more so in a monopoly. Your cable bills will not change because you are willing to pay X each month for cable and the cable company knows that. They don't really care if they sell you one or one hundred channels since you don't watch 1/100th of what you currently receive, they just want as large a revenue stream as they can get and based on your socio economic status they will pick a number that you will object to but pay all the same. The current premium channel don't really cost more than the basic ones, they are just a way for the cable company to appear to give you added value. So at the end of they day you will pay about as much and they cable company will be only too glad to sell you less. BTW, the current practice of bundling was done due to limited technology and simplified billing.
Recently i was in Toronto. I live in Savannah Georgia and have comcast. I have about 500 channels, maybe 3-4 are good. In Canada, there were only about 30 channels, BUT almost all of them were actaually GOOD. Even the Comedy Network (not comedy central) plays funny stuff like Daily Show, Colbert, South Park etc. Then when those STUPID comedy central movies comes on, it cuts too Family Guy , The Simpsons etc would come one. We don't need MORE channels just BETTER ones!! There are too many it takes forever to find anything good on! Jeff
Yeah, but you'll drive up the quality of that 1/20th of the content, making it worth it. Do you really have time to watch the other 19/20th of content anyway?
What's wrong with HBO? I thought that was the channel that makes all those expensive glossy dramas.
Dramas that encourage mortal sins like Lust and Greed. My child can do without such input. He'll get plenty from the morally bankrupt capitalist state advertising to him throughout his life.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/parenting/10/28/tv. kids/index.html
According to the study discussed in that article:
* More than a third of kids under 6 have a TV in their bedroom.
* About one in four have a VCR or DVD [player] where they sleep.
If a third of kids under 6 have a TV in their bedroom, it isn't inconceivable that more than half of the chilren under 12 have a TV in their bedroom. It also isn't inconceivable to believe that they're watching HBO. My "Most of them" remark was somewhat snarky but the truth of the situation probably isn't far from my assertion.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
ESPN charges us I believe it's $3.25 a subscriber. The movie channels are even worse. I know this because one of the business that my company is in is cable TV and this is a frequent topic of conversation with our RF guy. We need some form of legislation to cap the price of over-priced channels before ala carte will ever work. One might argue that the free market will drive the price of broadcast content down. I argue that it hasn't managed to do so yet. The content producers have gotten a leg up on the broadcasters as well as the subscribers. We can't charge the subscriber more because they'll pitch a fit. We can't get a cheaper price from the content producers. We basically break even on our cable TV offering. We don't yet have PPV on on-demand. There's more margin in that. We make most of our $$ in Internet and long distance (we're also an ISP and telco).
Be careful what you as for. Ala carte isn't all it's cracked up to be. A critical component is missing.
>> citing the example of Black Family Television, which was forced to go online-only because cable operators refused to carry it,
This reads like an accusation of racism in the article, but maybe cable companies are trying to eliminate racism or at least not reinforce it by not having programming only for certain racial group stereotypes.
I guess spanish-language TV is different because it is (primarily) breaking a language barrier, not a stereotype barrier.
Failing that, so where is my White Family Channel? (Before anyone says it... I don't go along with the notion that every channel except BFT is for whites)
Up next: A-la-carte cable won't work with CableCard! Let's just skirt the issue and push for 'Net Neutrality and commodity internet.
No, I will not work for your startup
Fraggle Rock was also on NBC, Encyclopedia Brown has been on PBS, and Happily Ever After also plays on BET. Why pay extra for such a family-values unfriendly channel?
Because without HBO and its paying subscribers those shows would have never been produced to be aired on NBC, PBS or BET.
BTW, I was trying to bait you. I salute you for being able to resist the temptation.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Don't you ever get tired of trolling, after all these years?
BTW, I was trying to bait you. I salute you for being able to resist the temptation.
Now that this discussion is in the realm of "last week's news"- I have to ask, because often times my autistic stupidity makes me appear smart when I'm really not. The only thing I could think of might be racism with the Happily Ever After reference....but I've got nothing against black people (I'm a culturalist, not a racist, which is why I'm also pro-legal-immigrant to the extent that I want the non-enforcement arm of ICE completely automated, but I'm so anti-illegal-immigrant that I wouldn't mind a Stalin-like purge of 12 to 20 million residents that seem to need deportation).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
And notice, I didn't disagree- I just found it very sad.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm not trolling. I actually do believe that a democratic government should be responsive to the majority of the voters and that the United States has the natural resources to be 100% self-sufficient and that conservative social values are the best way to be human (tried, evolved, and tested over the last million years).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You got it right.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano