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The Cable Industry's a La Carte Bait and Switch

Posted by Unknown on from the television-is-so-90s dept.

jfruhlinger writes "For years, cable operators have insisted that a la carte pricing, in which users could chose the channels they want, would undermine the both their own business models and the existence of important but less-watched channels currently wrapped into bundles. That's why it was surprising to hear that major cable companies are privately working towards offering a la carte pricing. But when you look at the details, it seems more like a bait and switch: those lesser channels (which pay cable companies for their place on the dial) will still be bundled with the local stations cable companies are required to provide, whereas pricey sports channels (which cable companies have to pay for) will become HBO-like premium services."

4 of 447 comments (clear)

  1. Makes sense actually by bruce_the_loon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For those of us who don't like sport and don't like subsidizing those who do, this is a win. For a sport fan, it's a good way to part him from his money.

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  2. Re:At this point, only bandwidth matters to me by bemymonkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    +1

    It isn't a la carte until you can choose when, where and on what you want to watch your show.

  3. Re:Sounds like what most people would want by jpstanle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This may have been true for me a few years back, but Discovery Channel isn't compelling anymore. Most of it is scripted "reality" show drivel... Hardly any good documentaries like the good old days. MythBusters is good, and I still like Modern Marvels on the history channel, but most of that is available online through netflix or some other avenue. Nearly all new documentaries worth watching come from PBS or the BBC. These days the only 'documentaries' on the Discovery channel are pipedream speculation about absurd engineering projects that will never be built.

  4. Re:unintentional humor alert by sycorob · · Score: 3, Interesting
    That doesn't make sense to me. Let's assume the cable company won't outright gouge you (big assumption, sure). They'll want to keep overall revenues the same. The ESPN family is more expensive per user, so they can break that out into its own package. Every other channel that pays to be put on cable (to get ad revenues) will be cheaper. The people that absolutely must watch live sports will have to pay more, or ESPN will have to get cheaper. People not interested in sports will not have to subsidize ESPN any more just to get a couple of premium channels.

    Cable is getting real competition from Over the Air and streaming content. They know they have to offer something compelling to get me to stay. If they can get me the basic channels + all of the science channels that are hard to find on streaming for a reasonable cost, I'll stay. If they can't, then I might leave. OTA is free, and free almost always beats better.