Slashdot Mirror
Suit Seeks 'A La Carte' TV Channel Choices
An anonymous reader writes "A breathtaking lawsuit was filed this week against every major player in the 'for-pay' television industry. Every major broadband and cable company in the US was named in the federal suit, which seeks the right to obtain content piecemeal rather than in the large (and expensive) packages that cable companies offer as the only option right now. This follows closely on the heels of encouraging comments from the FCC chair that he supports this kind of service. 'The complex web of contractual arrangements among service providers and networks amounts to a monopoly or cartel that has "deprived consumers of choice, caused them to pay inflated prices for cable television and forced them to pay for cable channels they do not want and do not watch," [antitrust lawyer Maxwell M. Blecher] wrote in the complaint filed on behalf of cable subscribers in several states. The complaint, which alleges a conspiracy to monopolize as well as violations of federal antitrust laws, names nine plaintiffs, but Blecher wants the U.S. District Court to certify it as a class action.'"
Networks like Discovery DEMAND that the lesser channels of theirs also be carried and forced upon the viewers and subscribers. Lots of Content networks do this to ensure their lesser and crap channels get viewership.
They need to start there making it illegal for networks to demand that if you want to carry or subscribe to XYZ channel you do not have to get DEF and the crappy ZBZ channel as well.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
But even so, it's hard to see how anyone could possibly find it justified at this point in time. If it weren't for the DMCA, we could get it by show off of YouTube...Clearly there is no technical limitation.
It comes down to the fact that their business model is more and more dated by technology. No one is obligated to provide them a free ride.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
If this happens the providers will respond by separating popular shows on to their own channels. The top rated content will be padded with junk you don't want to watch. The only answer is to sell shows individually.
I only ride 20% of the rides at the local theme park, should I get an 80% discount?
We would love to offer a la carte programming, but there are two huge obstacles.
1) Many times, we are charged per cable subscriber for a network even if we don't offer it the subscriber. ESPN is this way, as well as some of the sports channels. You'll pay for it as a customer even if you don't want it, because we get charged for it. That charge is comming to you one way or another, either through a package price or a base price as a cost of business. If you don't want ESPN, we're still paying for you to have it.
2) Many networks like Discovery and Fine Living give us massive price breaks if we show their second and third tier channels to a certain percent of subscribers. If we ran an a la carte service, this would be a nightmare. It means that if in a given month, if 30% of our subscribers didn't want Fine Living, but wanted Food TV, your price would triple. Do you really want to have a monthly bill that fluctuates that badly from month-to-month based on the whim of a TV network?
This isn't meant to FUD you. God knows, we'd like to be able to offer you a la carte, we have the technology to do it. And honestly, even though cable and sat companies piss customers off, we don't really want to. You are our customers. But to the networks, YOU ARE NOT THE CUSTOMER, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. The advertisers are the customers, and they are selling your eyeballs. Until that situation changes, and the networks have less power over us in contact negotiations, you probably won't see a la carte. For all the malfeasance you can lay at the feet of cable companies, this is surprisingly not included.
you can go to a park with per ride admissions, or to a park with all day admissions.
and you have a choice.
I am juste olde enough to remember pinning myself at Disneyland CA with the cute pins and my ticket to indicate having an all day pass-- as opposed to paying per ride... but-- I don't have to go to disneyland... I can go to the local carnival....
furthermore, amusement parks don't have governmental granted monopolies over a certain geographical area.
Businesses with Gov granted exclusive privleges by god do need clamping down/regulations.. or they will certainly run rampant... and this goal has no real hurdles, other than the desires for a fat bottom line on the part of the corps.
nothing else... and if the 'people' grant them the exclusive privlege of serving the 'people' then the 'people' should be able to place limits on what they get..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
My local cable company did just this in the mid 1980s or so. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was something like $20 for all 30 channels. Or, you could pay $10/month for the first tier of channels, plus $2/ea to add more channels. If you wanted anything more than a small handful of a la carte channels, it was vastly more expensive to purchase them outside of the bundle. We may think we want a la carte, but the devil is in the details. As long as cable companies are monopolies, you can bet on any such "changes" remaining a better deal for the cable companies than anyone else.
See, that's why ala carte is stupid, while those channels might be popular with slashdot, they are massively unpopular with the public at large. What this means is that they will be expensive. Right now the reason there are some geek friendly channels on cable is because they are subsidized by the popular stuff. If ala carte pricing ever happens, the only affordable channels will be the popular ones, and all the niche channels will cease to exist, or be prohibitively expensive.
Look people, ala carte might sound good, until you realize that in order to remain revenue neutral the people who watch the popular channels will pay less, and those who watch the more obscure stuff will pay more. And who are we kidding the cable companies aren't going to roll out a new pricing scheme that is revenue neutral, so in reality only those who choose the only the most popular networks will pay the same (and get less), and anyone who wants anything out of the ordinary (read: slashdot) will pay more.
The apartment I just moved into REQUIRES all residents to have basic cable. (You can't have just Cable Internet, and because you don't have cable on your own account (it's built into the rent), you can't get a "package discount" by having Internet + Cable. Oh right, they also charge about $10/mo more for basic cable than the cable company directly would sell you, even without any discounts.
/they/ want. (after all, you can always just choose not the have cable, you whiny handout-wanting bastards). This "cable is required" thing was sprung on me after I'd given notice at my previous apartment.
Has anyone ever heard of this? This sounds like more of an abuse than a cable company setting prices however
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
But we can't do that. They wouldn't let us show Fine Living but NOT Food Network. We could potentially do a la carte for packages, but we kinda do that already. The only improvement would be to break the bigger packages along networks. But you'll still see lots of crap channels bundled with the likes of Viacom.
Remember, our relationship with networks isn't friendly. Comcast got sued, and we're under current litigation over the remote DVR "Start Over" service. It's copyright infringement to start the show over if you switch the channel, because we're the ones recording it, not you. Heck, we get threats all the time during negotiations over offering the DVR service. Networks are convinced that home recording is illegal and think we may be liable because we aren't forcing you to watch your show in 3 days without skipping commercials or delete it. They think shifting the commercial time as much as 30 minutes ruins the value of the commercial.
Sure, we may be incompetent from no weak competition. But we don't get get our jollies by screwing customers. Remember, if a network can keep your eyeballs, they'll run roughshod over you. Viacom knows there's no substitute for MTV, but God knows if we piss off enough customers, sat TV would destroy us.
In fact, it's slightly perplexing how channels get away with charging cable companies to carry them; they make money through advertising, and the more viewers they have, the more money they can make this way, yet they also charge cable companies to increase their potential viewership.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This is awesome. I have a 'digital plus' cable package with over 200 channels, which I had to buy because the 4-5 channels I regularly watch were on that list. I would love to get rid of the other 190 channels or so, (200-(5 I watch)-(5 or so others I occasionally use/check)) and if I could get a price cut at the same time, that'd be even better.
That won't happen. If anyone thinks they can take their current bill and divide by the fraction of channels they watch to get a new a la carte bill, they're deluding themselves.
I'm also not quite getting the basis of the lawsuit. Can I sue the grocery store for refusing to sell me one egg?