Canadian Telcos Lobby Against Pick-and-Pay TV

silentbrad writes with an excerpt from the Financial Post: "BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., and Shaw Communications Inc. which together control two-thirds of the $8.3-billion broadcast distribution market, are lobbying against the so-called 'a la carte' model that would allow customers to pick and pay for individual networks, arguing the change would have disastrous consequences for programmers, such as Bell Media and Shaw Media. 'A regulation requiring that all programming services must be made available to consumers on a stand-alone basis would have far-reaching ramifications,' BCE, whose Bell owns 30 specialty networks, said in a submission to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. 'Undoubtedly, a market shake-out, causing many specialty services to exit, would ensue.' The three big players, led by BCE, have told the CRTC they support the status quo of 'tied selling,' or the practice of grouping weaker-performing networks in with a popular channels, versus a new approach to sell channels individually. ... In the race for subscription dollars, rates for TV services across providers have risen sharply over the last decade as the number of specialty channels, each commanding its own fee, has soared. Net costs to subscribers climbed another 2.6% in 2011, while average bills now hover around $60 a month."

Comments

Dur

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they lobby aginst it..

Nobody actually WANTS to pay for all those shopping, religious nut, cable access bullshit channels.

And yet someone has to pay for them. Because we can't just tell those channel execs 'your channel sucks and nobody wants it, we're dropping it'.

So they stay. And we all get to pay for crap we never wanted.

Re:Dur

[h4rr4r]

No, what would have a harder time surviving are narrow interest, boutique channels. Things like "The International Film Channel" and such. Even the SyFy network might tank, as people would have to ask themselves "do I really want to pay for stuff like Megacroc vs. Giantshark"?

Netflix easily replaces all of that for under $10/month. Amazon video gets even more of them. Channels are pointless in 2012. Why pay for stuff that is broadcast while you are at work? It should be ala carte for individual episodes/seasons/movies.

Re:Dur

[Penguinisto]

Damn - spent all the mod points yesterday. :)

I would add to that the prediction that most of the flagship Discovery Network channels would likely still rake in the monies (Discovery, Science, Travel, History, TLC, etc). TBS would hold out okay as well, but mostly because they're smart enough to capture and re-run the good sitcoms and dramas). Comedy Channel? It would probably do okay. Cartoon Network? Adult Swim (usually) makes it worth keeping. NatGeo? Likely would do okay, but that's only semi-certain.

I think channels like Univision and Telemundo would do pretty well also, but channels that cater to other ethnicities (Vietnamese, Korean, Persian, Russian, etc) would likely wither pretty quickly. Lifetime, Oxygen, and all the estrogen-laced channels? The channels in that niche would go all Highlander on each other (as in: there can be only one!). Others that would also see some hard intra-niche fighting would be Animal Planet vs. NatGeo Wild.

SyFy would die a well-deserved death, as would MTV (no, seriously - fuck 'em. Aside from Jackass, IMHO they've contributed little-to-nothing since 1995 or so that would justify its continued existence). Golf channel? Yeah, it'll die, but slowly (at the same rate its fan base does). The Weather Channel? Sadly, but yeah it'll die, or at least its TV component likely would.

The *really* niche stuff? Likely dead on arrival: Tennis channel, NASA channel, SOAP Network, etc.

All said though, I really don't mind a lot, with one caveat: The survivors would concentrate on either the lowest common denominator (booo!) or on producing the best damned content available. OTOH, from a parenting perspective, it returns power to Mom and Dad ("Dear teenage kid: if you want to watch that channel here, it'll cost you $n per month, so I suggest you go get a job.")

Re:what's broadcast?

[Anonymous Coward]

I also ducked out on satellite. It's streaming and over the air local channels with a UHF antenna for me now.

I use a Roku box (actually a couple of them), and have a Netflix and Amazon subscription.

I haven't ever looked back and certainly don't miss all the religious and shopping channels.

With streaming I can do a la carte subscriptions. Cable and satellite need to get with the program or wither and die on the vine.

Why bundle

[swm]

It isn't evil; it's just bundling, and there is a reason for it.
Simple example (from the newspaper days)

Alice values the fashion section at $0.20 and the sports section at $0.10.
Bob values the sports section at $0.20 and the fashion section at $0.10.

If the publisher prices both sections at $0.10, he sells 4 sections and makes $0.40.
If the publisher prices both sections at $0.20, he sells 2 sections and makes $0.40.
But if the publisher bundles the two sections together and prices the bundle at $0.30, he sells 2 bundles and makes $0.60.