Canadians To Get Unbundled Cable TV Channels

Jerry Rivers writes "The CRTC, Canada's communications regulator, has approved changes to the way cable companies bundle programming to allow the purchase of selected channels while dropping others they do not want. However, the customers won't necessarily be paying any less. 'The flipside is that the fewer channels that are subscribed to, the more expensive each will become, people familiar with the matter said, asking for anonymity because details of the decision are confidential. The decision is a small step toward an "à la carte" model long talked about by regulators — and longed for by consumers — but resisted by TV channel owners and distributors for fear of undermining the economics of cable television, which have come to rely on subscriber fees from those channels.'"

Comments

What I'll pay

[rtaylor]

I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.

If it comes with extra, that's fine, but I'm not going over that amount (adjust for inflation).

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't hold my breath on that. HBO can cost close to that on its own, already.

Re:What I'll pay

[Obfuscant]

I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.

Will that price cover the costs of fixed plant and personell? You know, those fixed costs that are irrespective of the number of channels you get? Will it cover the rental of converters and such?

Considering that HBO is a premium channel that is on the order of $10/month to start with, that leaves $5 to cover SyFy and FN and all the fixed costs. I doubt that you'll be paying such a small amount for any cable connection anytime soon.

Re:What I'll pay

[mark-t]

Realistically, it's unlikely that the monthly bill will be any less than at least the most rudimentary cable subscription, which tends to start at about $45 per month. *ANYTHING* that you get over and above the basic channels is going to cost you extra, whether you go a-la-carte or get additional ones in package deals.

Re:What I'll pay

[masternerdguy]

Sssh, this is slashdot where there's no such thing as "brick and mortar". The only thing that matters is the cost of sending the data down the wire, and there are no other costs that really exist (it's all regulator BS and fat CEOs trying to siphon your hard earned money). Who cares if it takes actual people to run an operation?

Re:What I'll pay

[Macrat]

I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.

Remember when the SyFy channel actually showed SciFi programming?

Re:What I'll pay

[Marc Desrochers]

With my provider, the 'movie' package which includes HBO and 8 other movie channels, as well as all the on demand stuff, is $16. The problem is that I have to take the 'basic' service which is 30 some odd channels of garbage just to have the option to choose the 'movie' package, and that is $40. If I can finally drop the crap and pick only what I want I'd be thrilled. I don't want 15 French channels, but I have no choice. This is amazing news and I can't wait, if it's true.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious model is to follow POTS: you pay a base fee for the physical line & equipment, then pay "per. use" and pay extra for additional features.

Re:What I'll pay

[Ichijo]

HBO costs a lot more than $10 per month. To get it, I have to subscribe to basic cable, plus digital cable, plus the cable box, and then finally I can pay $10 on top of that to get HBO.

I already have the 10Mbps Internet connection and a Roku box that supports HBOGo. All I want is to be able to subscribe to HBOGo for $10 per month without having to pay another $50 per month on top of that.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad subbing to "real" HBO, SyFy and "real" Food Network is illegal in Canada.

You can get Canadian edited versions of HBO and Food Network, though.

Re:What I'll pay

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I would be... surprised... if this new model is allowed to interfere with the oh-so-precious-and-fractious English/French dickering in Canadian regulatory affairs.

Re:What I'll pay

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Sssh, this is slashdot where there's no such thing as "brick and mortar". The only thing that matters is the cost of sending the data down the wire, and there are no other costs that really exist (it's all regulator BS and fat CEOs trying to siphon your hard earned money). Who cares if it takes actual people to run an operation?

While a strawman is always fun, I think that people(at least the slashdot crowd) would much prefer to see a 'this is the per-location cost of keeping the system up' base charge, with the option to purchase various sorts of services(channels, data, etc.) over the wire, rather than giant opaque bundles or 'a la carte' pricing that obfuscates the fixed costs by having some byzantine sliding price for each item based on how many items you are buying, that's just intended to be confusing.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't even need Comcast to get HBO if they didn't have HBO by the nards. HBOGo is great.

I presume the "fixed plant and personnel" costs will be paid by the subscriber to his ISP.

Re:What I'll pay

[Firehed]

Then he doesn't buy. Free market at work here. Good/service X is worth $y to me. Company offering said good/service is asking $z. If $z = $y, I buy it. If their costs are such that they can't offer the thing to me at a price at or below what I'm willing to pay, then I go without. If going without really bothers me, then $y is actually higher than I stated earlier (unless it's artificially capped by what I actually _can_ pay, i.e. I simply can't afford it, but would buy if I could)

Re:What I'll pay

[Hatta]

What's good on the Food Network anymore? It used to have good cooking shows with advice you could actually use (esp, Good Eats). Now any time I turn to it it's just that bleached spiky haired jackass or some really stressed out chefs bitching at each other.

Re:What I'll pay

[nametaken]

Consider yourself lucky. Providers can charge that much for HBO. Comcast quotes $10-$23/mo.

Re:What I'll pay

[cpu6502]

Yes this stuff doesn't come for free. I used to subscribe t the "limited" locals-only service and Comcast charged $7 a month. Since local TV is free, I figure 7 dollars is how much it actually costs to maintain the antenna, the cable, and associated equipment. Just like it costs ~7 dollars for basic phone service with no included calls.

As for the original poster, I've seen cities that have ala carte charge $2 per channel.

So HBO + Syfy + Food would be $10 + $2 + $2 plus the $7 hookup fee I discussed above. About $21 per month..... still a hell of a lot cheaper than the $70 Comcast normally charges for basic+HBO.

Re:What I'll pay

[geekoid]

The fact that you lump HBO with the other channel show you don't really know how it works. So good luck on getting that. Also, a unicorn that poops cheese burgers.

Re:What I'll pay

[rtaylor]

I don't buy the service at the moment. If they want me as a client those are my terms.

Re:What I'll pay

[Fjandr]

Really. They need to swap the names of SyFy and the Horror (I don't recall if this is actually the official name) channel, at least as of when I last watched either of them (been several years now, so things could have changed).

Re:What I'll pay

[Obfuscant]

HBO costs a lot more than $10 per month.

The cost for just HBO is about what I said. That's just for the HBO. I wasn't talking about any of the other costs that are covered by the service tier you are on.

and then finally I can pay $10 on top of that to get HBO.

So, like I said, the cost of HBO is $10, but the cost of the other equipment to get HBO is more. Someone who says they want "HBO and X and Y for $15/month" is ignoring those costs that you just went on about. $15 for HBO and two other channels? Ain't gonna happen.

All I want is to be able to subscribe to HBOGo for $10 per month without having to pay another $50 per month on top of that.

Wait a minute. You can't do that. You need the internet service and the cable/DSL modem and a computer and all the other things before you can get HBOGo, so you're going to pay the other $50 (if that's what that stuff costs you) too. Just like the guy who wants HBO plus 2 for $15 ... it really costs a lot more, and $15 isn't going to cover the fixed costs of the system, much less the programming he wants.

Re:What I'll pay

[Obfuscant]

Since local TV is free, I figure 7 dollars is how much it actually costs to maintain the antenna, the cable, and associated equipment.

Ok, then you add a satellite-fed service and the maintenance and costs of the satellite dish and decoders etc. Greater than $7 now.

So HBO + Syfy + Food would be $10 + $2 + $2 plus the $7 hookup fee I discussed above. About $21 per month.....

Except all three channels will cost more because fewer people will be paying for them. Changing the economics of the system and expecting the prices to stay the same is a bit naive. Kind of like saying that the fixed plant cost must be $7 even when adding all kinds of other things to it. Or expecting the low-income pricing that is heavily subsidized by everyone else to stay the same when nobody is subsidizing it...

Re:What I'll pay

[pepty]

I'd be up for metered cable: $1 per hour for all of the shows and movies I watch; the catch is that I'll need to be paid back $1 per hour for all of the commercials that come with that programming. These days that means a net of 40-80 cents per hour to them. But I'm willing to throw in product placement for free!

Re:What I'll pay

[bryan1945]

Didn't read to carefully, did you? He was talking about over the air channels he gets on an antenna. No satellite, etc.
The rest is OK.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like Warehouse 13 and Eureka?

Re:What I'll pay

[nabsltd]

So HBO + Syfy + Food would be $10 + $2 + $2 plus the $7 hookup fee I discussed above. About $21 per month.....

Except all three channels will cost more because fewer people will be paying for them.

In the long run HBO should cost less with a la carte, while the others may or may not go up. HBO would go down because there would only be the "pay for HBO" requirement, instead of the "pay for all the other channels first to be allowed to pay for HBO" model that currently exists.

On the old C-Band satellite (big dish), the uptake of premium channels was a lot higher than on current "first you pay for our basic service" providers because it was all a la carte (although you could find bundles of channels that saved you money, but you didn't have to buy them). Also, Dish Network used to have a really bare bones package that was something like $10/month, and it was enough of a "basic service" to allow you to pay for premiums. People would subscribe to that so that they could get sports packages and other premium channels without having to pay for all the other channels. I don't know if that package still exists.

Re:What I'll pay

[camperdave]

The obvious model is to follow POTS: you pay a base fee for the physical line & equipment, then pay "per. use" and pay extra for additional features.

POTS doesn't work like that, unless you have a payphone installed. For a base fee POTS gives you a physical line and basic services. You have to buy the equipment, and if you want long distance, you either pay their fees, or contract with another long distance provider.

I'd rather have things work like this: One company runs the cable and maintains the infrastructure. Another company puts a signal on the wire. Separation of content provider and infrastructure provider.

Re:What I'll pay

[sqrt(2)]

And I'm willing to pay exactly zero dollars for the handful of shows I want to see. I am more than satisfied with the BitTorrent model. It's over, the era of pay-content has ended for a huge chunk of en entire generation of potential customers. They're not going to start paying, ever.

Cable companies had a choice between taking a small hit to their profits or a large one and for some reason they chose the latter. Their shareholders should be outraged.

Re:What I'll pay

[DarwinSurvivor]

I don't think he was suggesting they provide the damn TV, just the equipment you hook it up to (exactly like your phone company does).

Re:What I'll pay

[DarwinSurvivor]

Actually, it will probably cost more because it won't be being subsidized by all the "basic" crap they force you to buy to get it.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, you'd PAY for SyFy? But all they have is wrestling and fantasy shows for women (that aren't even remotely sci-fi-ish).

Ala-cart is EXACTLY what I always wanted from the cable industry, but even if they offered it now (they won't), I'm no longer interested even in that. There are very few shows worth watching compared to the price they charge and I can wait and get those shows in another format and more affordable later on. For example, I'm not willing to pay $180/yr (that's how much HBO costs, even when bundled and, therefore, supposedly cheaper) just for thirteen episodes of Game of Thrones. I'm not willing to pay $180/mo for AMC to get 13 episodes of Mad Men per year, either.

Even if the cable companies started doing this in the states this year (they won't) it would be too little far *far* too late. I cut the cord *years* ago. The first time I had cable television was when I was 21 years old, in 1998. The last time I had cable television was when I was 26 years old, in 2003. There's good stuff on television. Hell, we have the best shows these days that have ever been on in this history of television. But they're not worth $100-$200/mo. Period.

Re:What I'll pay

[svick]

Yes and people (at least the Slashdot crowd) would much prefer to have their CPUs at their full performance, not intentionally crippled so that they can be sold at a lower price.

But that's just how economy sometimes works. For the CPU manufacturer, it's cheaper to produce just one kind of CPUs and then cripple them to different levels and sold at a price based on that crippling. And in this case, everyone wins.

Isn't it possible the situation with cable is similar? If you had large price just for cable without any channels, less people would pay for cable and so it would be less feasible to film those expensive shows like Game of Thrones.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me of how Windows 7 has the full OS but you pay to unlock more of it.

I sort of like the idea Comcast has. I don't use it, regardless of whether or not it is offered here. Look up MyTV Choice by Comcast.

I like the idea of paying per package with a base price. But I'd bring it one step further. I'd like to see them create channel grouping packages: a package aimed at what senior citizens most watch; a package at what twentysomethings most watch; and a top 50 most watched channels by Nielsen ratings.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm well aware of fixed costs. That's their problem. If they can't offer the service at reasonable prices, then I'm out of the market for cable, and off to the competition.

Re:What I'll pay

[Krokus]

Remember when the History channel showed history programs? And when you could actually learn something from The Learning Channel?

All these speciality channels eventually dumb down their programming to appeal to a broad audience of mouth-breathers until they're no different than any other channel, completely defeating the purpose of a speciality channel. I swear these channels are started with this long term goal specifically in mind.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you mean, like commercials paying for the costs of the "channel", but hey there is another strawman, like the consumer, to consider. because the cost difference, ota,wire, its a reception issue. No degredation of the signal, larger area to broadcast to, So really, the costs should be like a highway in america/canada. Was the highway built to satisfy the car, or the driver? It wasn't built by GM/Ford for darn sure. But by the taxpayers of the country involved. Now better, countrywide reception of the channels you want, paid by the commercial they want you to see.

Re:What I'll pay

[AmiMoJo]

Split over a few million customers $5 for the lot it is more than reasonable
Look at it another way, their customer base would double at the price.

Re:What I'll pay

[studog-slashdot]

Wait a minute. You can't do that. You need the internet service and the cable/DSL modem and a computer and all the other things before you can get HBOGo, so you're going to pay the other $50 (if that's what that stuff costs you) too. Just like the guy who wants HBO plus 2 for $15 ... it really costs a lot more, and $15 isn't going to cover the fixed costs of the system, much less the programming he wants.

The parent poster wants to get HBO somehow.

On one hand, they could pay a fee to get cable, which they don't already have and don't want and once subscribed can't use for any other purpose but to get HBO, then pay a fee to get HBO over cable.

On the other hand, they could pay a fee to get HBO over internet, which they already have and pay for and use to do many other fruitful activities.

So yes, comparing the full cost of cable+HBO vs the incremental cost of HBO over internet is in fact valid and the actual economic question that exists in real life for many people, myself included. Saying "You can't do that" is laughable at best, at worst makes you a cable company shill/troll.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

What I've learned from History and TLC recently is that if I can pitch a show that involves Alien Ghosts at Midget Weddings filming them in labour i'll be the richest man alive.

Note: the birth will take place in a pyramid attacked by CGI tanks.

Re:What I'll pay

[Kalriath]

I assure you, they don't.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think you didn't read too carefully. Either that, or one of us misunderstands how a cable company operates.

cpu6502 was saying that the cable company's costs of doing all that for local channels are likely $7.

Obfuscant was saying that cpu6502 forgot to factor in the cable company's costs for "a satellite-fed service and the maintenance and costs of the satellite dish and decoders etc", which as I understood it, is how the cable company receives those local channels in order to redistribute them to their subscribers.

Cable company's aren't pulling in the same over-the-air signal that you or I get at home.

Re:What I'll pay

[sandytaru]

Some of the personalities still run great daytime shows. I love 5 Ingredient Fix with Claire Robinson, and Cooking for Real with Sunny Anderson. Both of them like to experiment with their grandmothers' recipes, and I've learned a ton of tricks involving bacon grease as a flavoring agent (sounds nasty, tastes awesome.) I'd pay five bucks a month for access to those two shows alone.

Re:What I'll pay

[rtbraun]

I believe you have the nard situation backwards, or at least acknowledge there is mutual nard-ownage in that relationship.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me about the hidden costs of channels and they sure as heck do not get any cheaper. Canadian Satellite tv providers must increase their prices by 10% a year it seems. I used to be able to subscribe to 3 premium adult channels for $22.95CDN/MTH now the same package is something like $35.95. With only adding new channels as they became available my bill has went from $97.33 to $181.44 since 2008. I had a bird the other day. We really are getting nickle and dimed to death on this one.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to subscribe to HBOGo without a cable package and the nard situation will be clear to you.

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Discovery channel years ago. They have also been infected with programs about people bitching about doing something instead of people showing how.

Re:What I'll pay

[theshowmecanuck]

That's what this is about, the ruling says they are not allowed to force you to subscribe to all the other crap at the same time. As it is though, HBO only just came to Canada because of the censorship laws (generously called Canadian content laws). And it's only allowed one channel at that. As sad as it sounds, I do miss American cable channels. The Canadian ones are lame and way overpriced compared to the U.S.

Re:What I'll pay

[gordo3000]

you can see an example of a la carte pricing in Japan. I have it. What ends up happening is the premium channels that used to only be available after you bought a basic package (read star channel, wowwow in Japan, HBO in the US) go WAY up in price (I pay 2400 JPY/mo for the star channel package). you then pay some moderate fee (400 JPY in my case) for fixed costs and then get channels one at a time or as a package. I pay 750 JPY for the discovery channel and that's it, but it would cost me 3500 JPY for 42 channels, which include discovery along with some other movie channels.

All those premium channels and high demand channels spike in price because they are now unbundled and can milk you for 100% what you are willing to pay, especially since a significant chunk of your budget has been freed up by not having to pay for channels you don't want. now of course, I can add channels and subtract them any time I want, without any penalty, so I really like the system. But trust me, you don't save much money if you watch a few highly desired channels (think ESPN + HBO + WB or whatever other channel is hot on a standard cable package in the US now).

On the plus side, for 2 years in the US I didn't keep a cable subscription because after 3 months I realized it wasn't worth it to pay 80 bucks for 120 channels when i watched 3. So this a la carte made me a subscriber again, but that may be because I wanted english language entertainment in a country where it's hard to come by......

Re:What I'll pay

[Anonymous Coward]

History doesn't even really show good alien ghosts any more - those were the good ol' days. Now it's all loggers and truckers and pickers and pawn shops. Like some kind of occupational therapy.

Re:What I'll pay

[nabsltd]

It's not subsidized...that's why it's $10/month (or more) and isn't included in any "basic" package. The ESPN networks are the most expensive non-premium channel, and they are subsidized (by being included in more basic packages), so it's only $3 or so that it costs the cable company.

The reason cable companies generally force you to buy some "basic" package before they sell you HBO isn't because they can't afford to sell you just HBO...it's because they have to have a basic package that includes the local over-the-air channels. Of course, the cable company does want to sell you a big package, because they get more cash flow that way. Even if the percentage profit is the same for all packages, the bigger cash flow is desireable.

Last, they want you to have a cable box that easily allows you to get every add-on extra (PPV, etc.), so that those offerings are visible to you every day, and maybe you'll buy them.

~5 years late

[bigjarom]

This is great, but it has become a moot point for myself and others who have long since abandoned cable television.

Re:~5 years late

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story bro. This is big news for 95% of the country.

Re:~5 years late

[tom17]

I almost cancelled Rogers this year, but they managed to get my VIP package down to $60 so I am in for one more year.

This may just be what they need to do for me to cut that down to ~$40. Then I will be happy.

They will of course be crying of reduced profits, but they won't see it as $40 instead of $0, they will see it as $40 instead of $60...

Re:~5 years late

[Anonymous Coward]

I went a step beyond that and got rid of my tv. I have no movies, no Netflix and no downloaded videos.

Don't watch them on my '13 in laptop screen either.

Re:~5 years late

[RapmasterT]

This is great, but it has become a moot point for myself and others who have long since abandoned cable television.

I think I read an article about you: http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-tel,429/

Re:~5 years late

[Dan667]

streaming is replacing cable. They have waited to long to try and make their Customers happy.

Re:~5 years late

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad most sports don't stream live. Or they do except they charge more then cable.

Re:~5 years late

[HarrySquatter]

Sure for a couple percent of people. Most people still get cable. You need to expand your sampling size beyond Slashdot and other nerd circles.

Re:~5 years late

[Anonymous Coward]

They said the same thing about tablet PCs and smart phones 10 years back, too.

Re:~5 years late

[fustakrakich]

...streaming is replacing cable.

And for many people, the internet comes through cable.

Re:~5 years late

[Sponge Bath]

This is the real kicker. The transition to inexpensive and capable boxes like Roku is only starting, but now that I've had a taste for the convenience and interesting programming I can get on Roku but not from cable/sat, it is clear to me we are close to a rapid transition. Large content companies will see niche players making money on streaming and recognize they can make more without the cable/sat middle men.

RIM type companies that ignore this shift will be swept away.

Re:~5 years late

[danomac]

Ditto. I cancelled in September 2010 and put up a TV antenna. Couple with that my mythtv box I use to record with, don't miss Cable at all.

I may only have six channels, but there's really no difference to having six channels with nothing on or 150 channels with nothing on. There's still nothing on!

Re:~5 years late

[geekoid]

look at me, I don't use cable. This topic has nothing to do with me and won't impact me but I just wanted to tell you how hip I am that I already cut the cable.

See how you sound?

Re:~5 years late

[Fjandr]

They don't make fees for that content the carry if those people aren't subscribing to it though, so calling it a "cable subscription" just because you have internet via a cable line and fail to purchase content is almost exactly the same sort of dishonesty practiced by traditional marketers.

Re:~5 years late

[fustakrakich]

I don't give a damn about the content. You're still buying time on their wire.

Re:~5 years late

[MrLogic17]

Agree. Too little, too late.

Cable is on death row, and nothing will save it from the Internet.

I'm waiting for the networks to discover that they can stream their own channel on the Internet from their own servers - and thus have complete controll over commercials, based on the viewer's IP, time zone, and other demographics. Neilson can only dream of the ratings data they could gather. If Facebook can IPO for a gagillion dollars, why can's [your-favorite-channel] make a killing without the cable company as a middle man?

Re:~5 years late

[complete loony]

Unbundle the channels? Yeah, it's already too late for that. Unbundle the shows completely. Just give me a data connection and somewhere to get the show content, no matter where in the world I live.

Re:~5 years late

[Fjandr]

Then I assume your comment regarding streaming replacing cable was an objection to cable as a method of data transport, rather than cable as a medium which is transported as data. Or perhaps it was referring to the streaming nature of cable content, or something equally pedantic.

Re:~5 years late

[Fjandr]

Bleh, crossed wires in the brain.

That should read "as a medium on which data is transported."

Re:~5 years late

[Anonymous Coward]

If his comment bothers you so much why didn't you just ignore it and move on instead of taking the time to write-up a snarky reply?

Re:~5 years late

[pooh666]

I am not so sure. The choice provides some great clues for advertisers. Real money value.

Re:~5 years late

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he's a faggot. Just like you.

Re:~5 years late

[fustakrakich]

No, it just makes no sense to say you're 'replacing cable' while you're using cable. I'm sure the cable companies would be perfectly happy if everybody went from CTV to streaming videos. Then they wouldn't have to spend all that money on supplying that particular service. Consolidation only helps. Definitely saves on paperwork.

Re:~5 years late

[Fjandr]

It only makes no sense if you use the term to mean both the physical layer and the content layer everywhere you use it. As content becomes increasingly divorced from a specific physical transport medium, it makes less sense to combine the two definitions. It's no different than someone saying they've gotten rid of their phone service when they have a DSL line. They still have a subscription to what is traditionally considered a "telephone" company, even though they can't plug a telephone into the wall and use it for phone service. Likewise, you don't have "cable as in content" just because you have "cable as in data transport." The extra terminology should not be necessary to differentiate the two when the difference is already completely obvious from the context of the discussion. It's pedantry at its very worst.

I'm pretty sure the cable companies would, in fact, not be happy to eliminate their content delivery services, because the content delivery portion of their business is what provides the bulk of their net profits.

Re:~5 years late

[Fjandr]

I should say, "provides the bulk of their net profits from residential services."

I remember when

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought of this idea when I was like 13 and thought I was going to become a millionaire.. then I realized there's no way in hell the industry is ever going to get behind it.

'50s Economics of cartoons and movies

[Anonymous Coward]

In the '50s movies were sold as "package deals" with cartoons and newsreels.

Newsreels outlived their usefulness but pre-movie cartoon shorts stopped being a staple because once theaters could get a movie by itself, there was no reason to pay for the bundle.

Too Little Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

I never understood why people who didn't want ESPN and other high priced channels had to subsidize pricing for those who do. But in reality, this is too little too late. I don't think anyone who's cut the cord will go back to cable.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[HarrySquatter]

Because you won't actually save money going a la carte? It will only mean that pretty much all channels will be more expensive since there will be smaller group of people purchasing them and the fees for carrying the channel for the cable operator won't go down.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Guspaz]

The only real upside is that, while you may get the same number of channels for the same price, you might be able to get more channels that you want by replacing the ones you don't want.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[brusk]

This. You are likely not too save much money if you like sports in general, and get all the sports channels, or movies in general, and get all the movie channels. But if you are croquet (and no other sports) and documentaries (and no other movies), and get the Croquet Network and the Documentary Channel, and nothing else, you might come out ahead.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[Fjandr]

Or if you like 6 channels which just so happen to each be in a different package. Then again, maybe the per-channel pricing will make buying 120 channels come out to the same cost as buying any 6. Wouldn't surprise me...

Re:Too Little Too Late

[rachit]

Be careful what you wish for. While I think its the right way to go to unbundle channels, watch out for the unintended consequences. Less popular channels will be removed because they are not profitable. Think about what makes up for popular TV (in America at least). You may end up the choice of watching the Kardashians or Jersey Shore.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[jvillain]

What ala cart should do, but I am not saying will do, is allow some channels to die. If some of the cruft is allowed to die then the content providers costs should drop allowing them to reduce their prices.

Unbundle this..

[SuperCharlie]

Unbundle the endless parade of commercials and then maybe I would be interested. We only do Netflix at home. Im vacationing/visiting for the month and wow.. the commercial to program ratio on cable is pretty abusive once you break loose from cable for a while.

Re:Unbundle this..

[Obfuscant]

Unbundle the endless parade of commercials and then maybe I would be interested.

The only commercials the cable company has control over are the local-avail spots, and if those aren't used by the local cable company they are filled by commercials from the programming provider. The cable company could do away with ALL of their commercials and you'd still see just as many commercials.

There's no way you are ever going to get the local broadcast channels to stop using ads, nor will you see any of the non-premium satellite services drop them. Cable companies will never have enough clout to get that to happen.

Re:Unbundle this..

[kenboldt]

If Netflix didn't completely suck in Canada, and I had some reliable way to watch the live sports that I wanted, then I would consider going that route over cable television.

My wife and I did the free trial of Netflix and thought, wow, this would be great if all you wanted to watch were movies from the 1980's and seasons 1 and 2 of television series that are in their 9th season. Even at $8.99 a month Netflix in Canada seems like a complete waste of money. If the content was the same as in the US, then that would be a whole different story.

Re:Unbundle this..

[Anonymous Coward]

The commercials *are* the program. The other stuff is just to keep you sitting there so you'll see the commercials.

Re:Unbundle this..

[realityimpaired]

It's $7.99/mo in Canada, and pretty much every series it has is complete. They're not all old series, either... just yesterday, I was watching Mad Men, where they have the current season. They've got the current Top Gear (UK), and they just added the current Torchwood and Breaking Bad series, too.

If you want to watch current seasons of stuff though, Netflix has never been the place to go. Just go to the website for the appropriate station, and stream it from there.

Re:Unbundle this..

[geekoid]

they could, but people would need to pay 5 times what they do now for the service. ALL the customers.

Re:Unbundle this..

[Fjandr]

Exactly. Neither the content producers nor the distributors are going to give up their revenue streams willingly, so those commercial spots leaving would be replaced by billing subscribers directly. The likelihood of that happening is pretty near zero, and as Hulu shows even people there will put up with increasing advertising despite paying for streaming.

Odd as it may sound, I actually would see Hulu increasing the breadth of their ad selection as a good thing, but only because being forced to display the same 4 ads several times during each show in a series gets tiresome very quickly.

Re:Unbundle this..

[Fjandr]

You must've tried it in its infancy. While it's not necessarily predictable exactly which movies will take a long time to hit NetFlix, it routinely gets movies within 6 months to a year of their theatrical release, and the only incomplete series are those which are actually still in production. This is because the content producers won't deviate from their release schedule. If it hasn't hit DVD, they won't license it to anyone else either. So yes, there is a lag of a couple years in the release of any current series, but that's the content producer's fault.

Torrents: TV a la cart

[Anonymous Coward]

Works for me, I pay the cable company alot for highspeed internet and "overage" charges.

ala carte

[Darinbob]

Pure ala-carte would indeed seem to raise cost. People won't want to subscribe to just one more channel that they watch only rarely. However what I think they need is a finer grained model. Instead of a typical "only the bare necessities" vs "basic" vs "premium" that they have now there need to be small bundles. Ie, 5 kids channels in one bundle, or discovery+science+history+natgeo in a second bundle, things like that.

Re:ala carte

[Anonymous Coward]

I know with Bell Satellite here in Canada, they have smaller bundles like this, but rather than one bundle that has discovery, and, natgeo, they have 2 differnet bundles, each one containing 1, plus a bunch of crap that I don't care for. Its all build around a model that forces users to pay for things they don't want, and won't watch. That is what is so infuriating.

Re:ala carte

[PPH]

or discovery+science+history+natgeo in a second bundle

Dream on. It will be Discovery plus 4 Barney the Dinosaur channels in one bundle.

Re:ala carte

[geekoid]

reallt is shouldbe:
natgeo+history+syfy+ghost network.

History and natgeo no longer care about actual science.

Re:ala carte

[Darinbob]

True. But I like living in a make believe world where things are logical.

Re:ala carte

[jvillain]

Or they will do like they do with Formula 1. You get the practice on Speed, some of the races on TSN, some of the races on TSN 2, and some of the races on the CTV network. 4 channels to watch Formula1 at say $15 a pop.

SIde effect

[jmorris42]

One side effect of picking what channels you want instead of a bundle is the cable companies would know for sure what channels customers actually liked at what price point. Right now they get data from the digital boxes on what you are watching and that helps in their bargaining with the content providers, but real sales data would bring real market forces to bear.

You just know they would experiment with varying prices to see what the revnue maximizing price is for each channel. And I wouldn't have a problem with that.

Content bundling

[goombah99]

I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.

If it comes with extra, that's fine, but I'm not going over that amount (adjust for inflation).

But suppose Viacom won't sell dishnetwork Nickelodian but wants to bundle Nick their AMC channel. The cable and dish networks are not the only bundlers. If the cable folks stop bundling shows, the content producers may start bundling their channels, leading us right back to where we started.

The difference is that it's been proven that the content producers are much more powerful than the cable and sattelite providers in dictating terms.

Re:Content bundling

[realityimpaired]

The difference is that it's been proven that the content producers are much more powerful than the cable and sattelite providers in dictating terms.

Except that this is Canada we're talking about, where with the exception of a couple of independent stations, the content providers are all part of the Shaw, Bell, Videotron, or Rogers media empires, and where the cable/satellite providers are Shaw Direct, Bell TV, Videotron, or Rogers.

Re:Content bundling

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that it's been proven that the content producers are much more powerful than the cable and sattelite providers in dictating terms.

Except that this is Canada we're talking about, where with the exception of a couple of independent stations, the content providers are all part of the Shaw, Bell, Videotron, or Rogers media empires, and where the cable/satellite providers are Shaw Direct, Bell TV, Videotron, or Rogers.

other than the igloo channel and Red/Green is any content still produced in canada? Don't you all watch USA and British shows? Good luck telling the US content producers to unbundle.

Re:Content bundling

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, The Red Green Show aired their series finale some time in 2006. And with it went 33% of the reason I watched PBS.

Re:Content bundling

[EdIII]

the igloo channel

Oh Canada, why do we continue to let you be a country?

-- Barney Stinson

Re:Content bundling

[Guspaz]

Amusingly, most of the channels mentioned (HBO, SyFy, Food Network, Nickelodeon) are not available directly in Canada. AMC is, assuming it's not a watered down Canadian version, but most Viacom channels (like Comedy Central) are not available.

The CRTC has "cancon" (Canadian Content) regulations that require:

1) Canadian channels to show Canadian productions for a certain percentage of their airtime
2) Cable providers to have Canadian channels as a certain percentage of channels offered
3) Consumers to subscribe to a certain percentage of Canadian channels

For cable companies in Canada that already have a-la-carte offerings (my provider, Videotron, will sell you basic cable and you can a-la-carte the rest) require that your a-la-carte selections adhere to the cancon restrictions.

Re:Content bundling

[Stormthirst]

Actually loads of shows are still produced in Canada.

LMGTFY

Re:Content bundling

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they're produced in Canada as Works for Hire to American production companies making them American shows.

Canadian content has to include at least one cooking show using Moose or Maple Syrup and someone singing "Squid Jigging Ground" or the "Log Driver's Waltz".

Re:Content bundling

[garyoa1]

? Likely depends on your provider. I've been getting all those channels for years in Ontario.

Re:Content bundling

[louden obscure]

The best damn tv show ever was 100% Canadian. Trailer Park Boys.

Re:Content bundling

[Sandman1971]

HBO, Nick and Food Network are Canadian versions of those channels. They're not the US feeds. HBO is broadcasted by TMN with some canadian content. I believe Food Network Canada is owned by Rogers. I'm not sure who owns Nick. There's also no Canadian provider that carry SyFy. There is Space (Canadian channel, owned by Bell) which has a lot of the same programming, but again, it's not the US feed you're seeing.
 

Re:Content bundling

[swalve]

That IS how it works. If DishNetwork wants FX and FoxTV, they have to take Fox News, Speed TV and whatever other tripe they put out, for $6 a month per subscriber. They won't just sell FX alone. (Well, they might, but then it's $8 a month.) Viacom and ABC and the rest are the same way. That's why you hear about this set of channels or that one not being available for a time on Dish or Comcast- they are negotiating the price for all those channels as a bundle.

Re:Content bundling

[Guspaz]

HBO Canada: watered down by cancon requirements and unavailable without paying for TMN's whole lineup, which is bloody expensive ($16.22/mth to get one channel). Food Network: watered down by cancon requirements, not available in HD on all providers (like mine). Nickelodeon: Watered down by cancon requirements, not available in HD in Canada. SyFy: As you said, not available in Canada, although ironically they shoot all their stuff in Canada. Space: Only JUST became available in HD to non-Bell customers, watered down by cancon requirements, although most US scifi shows are produced in Canada, so it actually works out.

Re:Content bundling

[Hamsterdan]

Loved that show. (Sarah Dunsworth was yummy too)...

Re:Content bundling

[AssholeMcGee]

at that point it is time to gather groups and dump providers completely.. While this article is a good idea, it will show the owners of certain channels what people think of there channels when they decide not to have this-or-that channel as part of there subscription. This is going to lead to the demise of TV, I like this Idea of choosing channels, but with the recent Viacom vs. Direct TV, BS, the channels that are/become popular are going to demand increases, based off of ratings for them. This demand will lead to people losing interest in wanted those channels.. The funny part of Viacom was there complete downward spiral of ratings, and yet they demanded a unrealistic increase for there channels, imagine the ones that have increased ratings...

Re:Content bundling

[Anonymous Coward]

Food Network Canada is owned by Shaw.

But sometimes CRTC forces you to bundle non-Canadian channels with Canadian channels. For instance, to get any International Chinese channels, you must bundle one of the Canadian-operated Chinese channels (e.g. Fairchild, Talentvision, Wow TV).

your digits are "flipped"

[RobertLTux]

most likely not going to happen but i wanna see the maths on how many setups will save you money if you grab Your Channels and also grab say "The Fae TeaGarden Channel" or some other channels that they just can't get viewers for (now of course you get them because they are bundled with the Ultimate Platinum Package (with the other 300 channels)

Re:your digits are "flipped"

[whoever57]

but i wanna see the maths on how many setups will save you money if you grab Your Channels and also grab say "The Fae TeaGarden Channel" or some other channels that they just can't get viewers for

I think that your example is exactly why the cable companies don't wnat to eliminate bundling. The cable companies don't pay for "The Fae TeaGarden Channel", but how to explain that if the customer doesn't want that channel, there will not be a reduction in the monthly charge?

Just wait

[goombah99]

Unbundle the endless parade of commercials and then maybe I would be interested. We only do Netflix at home. Im vacationing/visiting for the month and wow.. the commercial to program ratio on cable is pretty abusive once you break loose from cable for a while.

When Cable TV started the big selling point was no commericals cause you were paying to the shows. Now it's pay for the shows and get commercials too. Do you think this won't happen with streaming? Go watch Hulu. It will happen just like it did with Cable.

Re:Just wait

[geekoid]

"When Cable TV started the big selling point was no commericals cause you were paying to the shows"
No, it was not. The only cable that ever said that was ON TV, and that wasn't for 'shows', that was for shows on their channel. Like if HBO has it's own box on your TV.
No other cable company every promised that because it makes no damn sense.

People who sold satellite, the big ones, would say things like that because the feeds weren't scrambles, so you could get shows before commercials were inserted.

Re:Just wait

[Obfuscant]

People who sold satellite, the big ones, would say things like that because the feeds weren't scrambles, so you could get shows before commercials were inserted.

They were saying that about the pay channels like HBO because there are no ads (were, I don't know if you shouldn't count the ads for HBO programs) in the programming already.

Every advertising-supported satellite service came from the uplink with the ads already there. They had to. There was no easy or cheap way for the cable companies to break the programming up so they could insert ads themselves, they could only replace ads in the program stream with their own -- called "local avails".

Or, they would have been talking about the satellite-to-tape feeds that came out of network operations, but even those had holes where the local broadcast stations were expected to insert ads. You got to sit through a few minutes of black or "Insert Ad Here" instead of an ad, but big difference. The only feeds that weren't like that were sports feeds and you got to see the behind the scenes action where the ads were supposed to be put.

I'd like to know how we can put the nail in this utopian view of cable that it was created to provide ad-free content or that the cable fees the subscriber pay are supposed to replace the ad revenues for the program providers. That's so patently absurd that I cannot believe that anyone would say it. The local channels on cable always had ads because it was just broadcast TV on a wire, and the earliest satellite services were the SuperStations -- Ted Turner's WTBS in Atlanta being one. WGN another. WTBS carried every "local" ad for the Atlanta market, unless the cable company switched in a local, and it may have been the fact that all the Atlanta local ads were being seen in Padukah and Boise that pushed the local avail technology in the first place. You can STILL see Empire carpet ads on WGN because it is STILL a SuperStation. "1 8 hundred 5 8 8 2 3 hundred, empire"!

Re:Just wait

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, if you want to be technical about it...

My Grandmother had Cable TV because she lived in a valley with big ol' hills on all sides of her. Cable TV was once "Community Antenna" TV and the idea was that you put a big ol' antenna at the top of the hill and then distribute the programming to the people in the valley.

So what it meant was that she could get all the broadcast channels--ABC (Channel 8), NBC (Channel 4), CBS (Channel 3), and PBS (Channel 11) stations--and the picture looked great whereas if she stuck an antenna on her roof, she'd be lucky to pick up anything. But she still saw all the advertisements.

Later on, as I understand it, the companies that did this also mixed a satellite dish in there and gave people HBO for an extra amount. You could also get WTBS out of Atlanta and other "super stations"--but you still saw the advertising.

Now if you had your own satellite dish, you could skip the local advertising. Years ago, the company I worked for had a satellite dish and I remember watching Monday Night Football directly from the ABC satellite. You saw the network ads and then you were treated to several minutes of broadcasters chatting, shots of attractive women in the stands, and anything else that caught some producer's eye.

Scrambled broadcast

[goombah99]

Is there some reason why there isn't scrambled broadcast TV? There are so many digital broadcast channels not theres no reason to have Cable TV. Wait you say, HBO is only on cable. Yes so it is, but that has nothing to do with Cable. why can't they broadcast HBO scrambled? Then you could cut out the Cable provider and pay the broadcaster.

People in cities that pay for cable are mainly doing it because thats how they are used to doing it. Between broadcast and streaming cable is obsolete.

What cable could do is return to the days of yesteryears when there were no commercials at all on cable TV. Then they could compete with broadcast. But probably not with scrambled braodcast.

Cables future is as an internet provider not as a content provider.

Re:Scrambled broadcast

[Guspaz]

In my apartment, in the heart of downtown of the second largest city in Canada, or the sixth largest city in the US/Canada, I get a grand total of zero digital channels. Before the digital switchover, I got three or four analog, all but one with very poor quality (double/triple images, lots of snow, etc), and that one that came in well was only viewable if I stood in a certain place in the room, less the image degrade.

At the same time, satellite dishes are forbidden, and IPTV from the phone company requires you to have an internet connection with them (which would have me paying twice as much for a third the monthly cap).

So, yeah, cable television is kind of a must. It's the only viable option for me. My only other hope is that the phone company loosens their mandatory bundling requirement for IPTV. Such bundling is illegal anyhow, although nobody seems to care.

Re:Scrambled broadcast

[Ichijo]

Here's a very good antenna. Before I got it, my old Terk indoor antenna only received one digital channel. Now I get about 10, even with the antenna mounted indoors next to the TV.

Re:Scrambled broadcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there some reason why there isn't scrambled broadcast TV?

In the US, I'm not sure the FCC licenses it.

There are so many digital broadcast channels not theres no reason to have Cable TV. Wait you say, HBO is only on cable. Yes so it is, but that has nothing to do with Cable. why can't they broadcast HBO scrambled? Then you could cut out the Cable provider and pay the broadcaster.

People in cities that pay for cable are mainly doing it because thats how they are used to doing it. Between broadcast and streaming cable is obsolete.

What cable could do is return to the days of yesteryears when there were no commercials at all on cable TV. Then they could compete with broadcast. But probably not with scrambled braodcast.

Cables future is as an internet provider not as a content provider.

Yeah, um, local broadcasts of HBO won't work, it'd be more expensive than what they currently do, which is let somebody use it on a Satellite.

And if you think cable is obsolete, you don't live in a mountainous region.

Re:Scrambled broadcast

[cdrguru]

Is there some reason why there isn't scrambled broadcast TV?

We've tried that already and it didn't work all that well. Now, with the far smaller range of television stations, it would be even less practical.

Back in the 1980s in Chicago we had Channel 44 which was scrambled movies and adult content in the evenings. You needed a really good UHF antenna to get their signal clearly outside of the city limits, which is maybe 25% of the population or less. Because the signal was broadcast there was a proliferation of "Channel 44 Decoder" boxes that were available and at that time it was not illegal to decode the signal because it was broadcast. This predated the Al Gore-led Satellite Home Viewers act which transformed the landscape of signal reception in the US and for the first time made receiving and decoding a signal illegal if you were not "authorized". The introduction of this act led to the immediate demise of C-band satellite dishes and carved out a niche that allowed DirecTV to operate.

Without this act, neither DirecTV nor Dish Network could operate. However, we would also not have fairly silly laws on the books making it illegal to decode signals that are broadcast and can be received by everyone.

Re:Scrambled broadcast

[sjames]

I can't say in Canada, but in the U.S. the allocation for television broadcasts required that the transmissions be in the interest of the general public. Scrambled signals are worthless to the general public so are forbidden. That requirement being because the spectrum is a public commons.

Re:Scrambled broadcast

[Kalriath]

I'm confused as to how a law saying that you can't decrypt the TV signal without paying for it is "fairly silly". I dare say such a law makes perfect sense - if everyone simply pirated the channel, then there's no way it could operate - broadcast equipment at that scale is immensely expensive. Not quite putting a fucking satellite in orbit expensive, but expensive enough.

Re:Scrambled broadcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait you say, HBO is only on cable. Yes so it is, but that has nothing to do with Cable. why can't they broadcast HBO scrambled?

Because HBO won't allow it.

Re:Scrambled broadcast

[Jmc23]

That's a pretty good antenna for the price. I had one and it allowed me to get some US channels about 100km's away when I lived in Surrey, BC. However, amazon doesn't deliver to Canada, and TigerDirect where I bought from no longer sells them.

Canada would be a perfect country if we just had the crazy mail/internet shopping and coupons that the US has.

ala carte will cost too much

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, ala carte cable pricing. In my case, with Charter Communications, it is calling up customer service and deciding which of 491 different channels I want. And then changing my mind and changing the line up in a few months. Ala carte selection will drive the billing process crazy.

My MOXI DVR lets me drop the channels I want from the guide. This gives me some semblance of ala carte pricing. The Cicso junk does not. By the time you have surfed 491 channels...

Oh, and Charter is using Switched Digital Video. That means they have more channels than the cable can handle. So they only broadcast the channels that are being watched. And if they run out of channels, well, they will not tell me.

Re:ala carte will cost too much

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Ah, ala carte cable pricing. In my case, with Charter Communications, it is calling up customer service and deciding which of 491 different channels I want. And then changing my mind and changing the line up in a few months. Ala carte selection will drive the billing process crazy.

A la carte pricing will 'cost too much' in roughly the same sense that cablecard suffered magically intractable interoperability problems... Because the providers really don't seem to want it, they have exceptionally minimal incentive to provide a good interface for customers to get it. Shockingly enough, businesses that sell individual items(like, oh, every retail and online store ever) have generally worked out ways to manage the terrifying complexity of offering a bunch of SKUs and charging you for the ones you want...

By way of example: Our friends at Amazon have a bit over half a million products listed in their DVD section. They manage to make, in most cases, hunting by title, hunting by genre, hunting by 'other people like', hunting by 'people who like stuff I like liked', and any number of other parameters pretty trivial. The checkout process isn't exactly rocket surgery either.

Re:ala carte will cost too much

[studog-slashdot]

By way of example: Our friends at Amazon have a bit over half a million products listed in their DVD section. They manage to make, in most cases, hunting by title, hunting by genre, hunting by 'other people like', hunting by 'people who like stuff I like liked', and any number of other parameters pretty trivial. The checkout process isn't exactly rocket surgery either.

Yeah, I'm not sure what's wrong with Netflix Canada. Maybe it's the fact that I use the Wii client? But the website sucks in exactly the same way... I can search by predefined categories like by genres, 'Netflix thinks I'd like this' which is usually wrong, by 'Recently Added' which is only updated once a month or less, 'New Releases' which is sort of okay but not updated very often, 'Popular on Facebook' wtf?, and 'these are like something you just watched' which is only partly useful since the client/website has no way to distinguish between me, the wife and each of the kids, none of us whom have the same preferences. And ALL of these continue to shows things we've already watched, so they are practically and effectively useless.
I can also search by title text (not quite regex but not keyword either, but only gives me the first 16 or so results).

What I want: to be able to search by title text (with keyword, free form and regex modes), rating classification, year of release, actor, producer, etc, and to be able to do all of them simultaneously. To be able to turn on or off the display of already watched items.

What I'd really like to see is this: every item has a link to IMDB, which links back to Netflix. So this could occur: I've just watched Prometheus in the theater and I know Michael Fassbender looks familiar. My buddy mentions yeah, he was in X-Men. When I get home I pull up X-Men: First Class on Netflix and rewatch his performance as Magneto. Then I use the IMDB link to bring up IMDB's page for First Class, scroll down, click Fassbender, scroll throug his movies, see that Fish Tank is available on Netflix, click and stream. This is totally achievable. Hook it up Netflix!

Also, I'd like to be able to rate something 0 stars. The current interface makes you choose between rating at least 1 star and non-rating. Since I use ratings to keep track of things I've watched, 0 stars needs to be an option.

Also, get on that content horse. I'm >< this close to paying for a VPN to get US Netflix, which is money that could instead go into Netflix's pockets.

... Okay, got off on a tangent there. Sorry.

The Downside ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that there are often really interesting cable channels that are new or that are poorly advertised. These are often part of the "bundle" and you can discover them by accident. With an ala-carte system, it will reduce new channels coming online and only the established channels will remain.

Oftentimes regulations are used not to protect the consumer but to fool the consumer into protecting the established companies. Large corporations for example are very much in favor of corporate income taxes. Why? Because large corporations grow slowly and their profits per-size are thus small. They also have as much coming off their depreciation rolls as are going on. Small more nimble corporations grow rapidly and can double in size in a year or two and corporate income taxes help keep rapid growth in check helping protect the large slower and less efficient corporations.

Re:The Downside ....

[MightyMartian]

I look forward to the day when there are no channels at all, and you simply watch whatever the fuck you want to watch whenever the fuck you want to, regardless if it's made by some BIG STUDIO or by a couple of kids in their garage. Who the fuck should care about what "channel" anything is on. The future is channel-less.

Re:The Downside ....

[Anonymous Coward]

We will still have channels. They just won't be like current channels, they'll be "bundles".

You might subscribe to HBO to get access to all their shows because it's cheaper than subscribing to any (say) three of their shows.
You might subscribe to TVLand to get access to (formerly) syndicated reruns because the market simply can't support some older shows any other way, but it CAN support all these shows collectively.
You might subscribe to a "Harpo" channel and get access to that production companies works.
etc. etc.

Re:The Downside ....

[keytoe]

I look forward to the day when there are no channels at all, and you simply watch whatever the fuck you want to watch whenever the fuck you want to, regardless if it's made by some BIG STUDIO or by a couple of kids in their garage. Who the fuck should care about what "channel" anything is on. The future is channel-less.

I completely agree that it's time to drop antiquated notions like channels, time slots, prime time and other nonsense. People are moving away from that model. My DVR sits idle most of the week but for some reason on Thursday and Sunday night I have to micro manage the tuners to make sure I can record everything. Because apparently everything is on between 8PM and 10PM on those two nights.

This is nothing but inertia from The Way Things Were and no longer makes any sense.

Re:The Downside ....

[Anonymous Coward]

it's called youtube

Re:The Downside ....

[geekoid]

While the channel will mean just that: which chanel do you gte your media. It won't be a frequence, but it will be a channel of delivery.

Prime time means the shows you watch during a peak period. That will not go away.It will change. Instead of being "What prime time shows do people watch", it will be "what shows do people watch during prime time?"

People respond to ads different at different times of day.

Re:The Downside ....

[cpicon92]

I will miss channels. It was nice being able to turn on the TV and then completely shut off my brain. The ability to decide what to watch and when comes (for me) with the annoyance of having to decide what to watch and when.

Re:The Downside ....

[Cabriel]

I believe they call that "DVD Boxed Sets"

Re:The Downside ....

[Mitreya]

The future is channel-less.

Indeed. And they should move to KickStarter-like model for renewing show for next season, instead of relying on arbitrary metrics (such as number of viewers which often depends on the ever-moving timeslot and requires having cable to participate)
Bring back Firefly! :)

Re:The Downside ....

[dontmakemethink]

As long as there are commercials there will be channels telling studios what kind of crap they want to shove down our faces to assemble demographics to match their potential advertising base. Channels should be paying us for allowing their garbage into our homes.

Re:The Downside ....

[Anonymous Coward]

So pick the first show on Netflix's "Top 10 for you" and watch it.

Re:The Downside ....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing but inertia from The Way Things Were and no longer makes any sense.

Except that people discover new shows by watching TV. Video on Demand is nice and all, but you can only demand what you want to see, you can't demand to see something that you don't know exists. Most people aren't going to do an hour's research into catalogues to find something they might like, we pay the TV station to do that for us.

Re:The Downside ....

[jecblackpepper]

It seems to work for movies, books and music. Why not TV shows.

Re:The Downside ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why does every no name person on youtube ask, "subscribe to my channel?"

An even better system....

[mark-t]

... would be to just pay for the specific shows you watch

You watch shows X, Y, and Z on whatever channels? You watch them every day or every week? Fine... subscribe to those shows, and then the PVR provided by the cable company automatically records those shows for your perusal later (or you could watch it "live", if you happened to be around at the time).

One Monet for a Reality Check

[rueger]

The Canadian CableCos are about as "competitive" as the Cel companies. Then again, they're usually both.

The likelihood of any ordinary consumer seeing any saving from this is more or less zero. You now have two choices:

a) Accept bundles of channels that include all sorts of crap you don't want.
b) Pay through the nose to choose a smaller number of channels, the result being that your monthly bill doesn't change.

I'll stick with c) do neither.

Re:One Monet for a Reality Check

[Guspaz]

Right, because there are obviously no available choices for television service in Canada. Why, a person in Montreal can choose between only six different services (Illico digital cable from Videotron, FibeTV IPTV from Bell, BellTV satellite from Bell, ShawDirect satellite from Shaw, Colbanet IPTV from Colbanet, Zazeen IPTV from Acanac) from five distinct companies over three different transport mediums... No competition whatsoever!

What about a sports only plan where you just may

[Joe_Dragon]

What about a sports only plan where you just pay for the sports channel and not crap like lifetime, OWN, logo, mtv, vh1, ETC.

Put ESPN in a HBO like pack disney as well

[Joe_Dragon]

So you only pay $10 for it if you want HBO also disney used to be a pay more channel and even it acts like now days with west feeds and stuff like disney XD, disney JR and so on.

Yep, money for nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty soon here in Canada the CRTC will approve channel-less cable TV packages for the price of DIGITAL BASIC, $38.04/month. Don't forget to add the HD terminal rental fee of $13.14/month. One-time installation fee of $49.99 may apply. Taxes are extra.

You can buy the box or rent to own up there

[Joe_Dragon]

You can buy the box or rent to own up there.

And that buy the box with out a outlet or mirroring fee on each box as well.

Re:What about a sports only plan where you just ma

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be more interested in a no sports plan where you just pay for the interesting channels and not crap like ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN classic, ESPN 8 "The Ocho", and Fox Sports.

When I want to watch sports, I go to a bar with friends. And, ESPN is a big part of why cable costs so much.

Canadians get the better WGN with all the sports a

[Joe_Dragon]

Canadians get the better WGN with all the local (Chicago OTA only) sports as well.

the space channel is the real Syfy channel not

[Joe_Dragon]

the space channel is the real Syfy channel to be NBC will let us have it

No more sports

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a pretty full-meal deal on Shaw. Fully half of the HD channels are sports channels - some are regular channels that are given over to full sports coverage at various times of the year. I don't watch sports. Other channels appear in the HD channel lineup, but are visibly NOT HD - (looking at you, Fox 26 - a UHF channel out of the states that runs old Two and a Half Men reruns). Other channels are given over to full time bullshit - the occult and pseudo science. I will drop all of these channels in a heartbeat even if it doesn't save me a dime. Can't vote with my feet if I am forced to have these channels anyway. Maybe a clearer signal will be sent when bullshit channels like TLC, History, and (sadly) National Geographic, suddenly looks all of their viewership.

ive two channels i want

[Anonymous Coward]

bittorent and newsgroups
have a nice day at your regularly scheduled movie theatre

also stuff like VH1C own and others

[Joe_Dragon]

also stuff like VH1C own and others drives up cost as well.

Truth in a name

[Roger W Moore]

Remember when the SyFy channel actually showed SciFi programming?

Yes - that was when it was called the SciFi channel. Now it's called SyFy and shows iffy programming...so they only got a couple of letters wrong.

CRTC Confidential?

[Anonymous Coward]

The CRTC is making confidential decisions now? And we are just to take it on faith that's not outright admitting they are being compicit in some new scheme to screw the taxpayers they are supposed to represent? I'll believe *that* when I see it.

Re:What about a sports only plan where you just ma

[geekoid]

How about a plan without any sports channel. I can not imagine those channels are cheap.

CNN, HLN, TBS, TNT, TCM, and Cartoon Network

[tepples]

At least in my country, HBO's parent company wants you to subscribe to CNN, HLN, TBS, TNT, TCM, and Cartoon Network before you're allowed to subscribe to HBO.

It's called satellite

[tepples]

Is there some reason why there isn't scrambled broadcast TV?

In the United States, there is. It's called satellite. The problem in Canada, I'm guessing, is that it's so far north that one is less likely to have a good enough view of the southern sky.

Re:It's called satellite

[cdrguru]

As far as I know neither Dish or DirecTV operates in Canada. I am pretty sure it has to do with satellite "footprint" where the signal can be received reliably. Sure, there are plenty of people getting DirecTV along the southern edge of Canada, but they can't advertise their service there because it doesn't work even over the lower provinces. I am not sure Canada would let them get away with saying that if you can receive the signal then fine, otherwise too bad.

Re:It's called satellite

[Jerry Rivers]

I could be mistaken, and please correct me if I am, but I do believe Canada has its own satellites. You don't point your dish South there.

Re:It's called satellite

[Fjandr]

Last I was aware, neither DirecTV nor DishNetwork would sell subscription service if you did not have a service address in the USA, despite reception being perfect in Central America. I know a number of people who have dual residences who pay their service in the USA and simply imported the equipment to the country they live part of the year in. Once the service is activate they can't control reception based on geographic location unless there is an actual physical line-of-sight impediment.

That said, I could understand if much of Canada is outside of the broadcast horizon and thus technically unable to receive reception even if they game the DBS sales restrictions.

After a quick search, DBS is available in Alaska. It doesn't appear it's limited to Juneau, and even if it were that would still enable broadcast to anything in Canada excepting YT, NT, NU, and very northern QC.

Re:It's called satellite

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what the nuances are, but if you mean Satellite TV, yes, we have them in Canada.
http://www.shawdirect.ca/english/default.asp
http://www.bell.ca/Bell_TV
http://www.telus.com/content/tv/sat/

Re:It's called satellite

[Anonymous Coward]

All broadcast satellites that I'm aware of are in geosynchronous orbits, no matter who owns them. Just as "south" (as in "somewhere over the equator") as everyone else's, in other words.

Re:It's called satellite

[Anonymous Coward]

That is right. Any orbit where the satellite stays in one position is south of canada. Polar orbits can be geosynchronous in that they stay at the same longitude but the dish would still have to track lattitudes. Also you need 3 or more satellites to cover 24 hours.

Re:It's called satellite

[AliasMarlowe]

The problem in Canada, I'm guessing, is that it's so far north that one is less likely to have a good enough view of the southern sky.

Maybe not. We have a small satellite dish at our cottage, which is at 61.5N - further north than any major population center in Canada (between Whitehorse and Yellowknife in latitude). It works fine, with the added benefit that its angle is steep enough that snow does not accumulate in it; apparently this is a problem in parts of the Midwest. The usual issues with satellite still apply, such as heavy rainclouds degrading the signal, and making sure the path to the satellite is free of trees and expected to remain so for a few decades.

Minor gripe: why does slashcode not render the degree symbol (&deg; or &#176;)?

Re:It's called satellite

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK is further north than most of the population of Canada and we get satellite services just fine.

Re:It's called satellite

[jvillain]

Dish and Direct don't operate in Canada for two reasons. First they don't own the rights to brodcast the programming they carry into Canada. Second Canadian law requires the owners of a telecom company to be at least 50% Canadian.

Re:It's called satellite

[jvillain]

Canada has two Satellite operators. Bell and Shaw. Some Dish programming uses the transponders on one of the Bell satellites. The satellites are in geosynchronous orbit which puts them above the equator. So Canadians all point their dishes south.

Re:What about a sports only plan where you just ma

[whoever57]

What about a no-sports plan where you don't pay for the sports channel

FTFY

Really, that would have the most value to me. ESPN is (or so I have read) one of the most expensive sets of channels for the cable companies to acquire, so it annoys me to pay for them, when I never watch them. Of course in the scenario where I can choose (and actually pay less) for not getting ESPN, that is going to increase your cost of ESPN.

Unbundled...but not cost effective

[erp_consultant]

It would be great if each of the 200 channels (or whatever it is) were available for 25c each but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. How is it that iTunes can sell the best selling songs of all time along side some tune you have never heard of - both for 99c? One is clearly more popular than the other but they cost the same amount. The tv networks use this model where the "popular shows" (i.e. NCIS, etc.) subsidize the "unpopular shows" (insert favorite fringe tv show here that hardly anyone watches). If you start unbundling things then the cost per show goes up. At the end of the day you spend about the same and get fewer channels. Granted, you'll watch the shows but you'll pay about the same as before. I don't think it's an accident that the pricing model ended up this way ;-)

Don't care

[Sean]

Torrents are already unbundled.

Activate the Reality Beam!

[Tailhook]

Sure for a couple percent of people.

See the National Cable Television Association, top 25 [Cable/Satellite companies] by subscribers.

The one at the top there, Comcast, has 22.2E6 paying cable TV subscribers. Netflix passed that number over a year ago. As of the end of Q2 2012 Netflix subscribers amount to more than 25% of the sum (97.5E6) of all US cable TV and satellite subscribers.

We're waaay past a couple percent. Never mind Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc.

Cable TV is losing customers across the board. Comcast has been losing cable TV subscribers for over 40 consecutive months. Netflix predicts a total of 7 million new subscribers in 2012, and they're on track to hit that. Do the math. Inside about 48 months Netflix will have a subscriber base equal to half of the all cable TV subscriptions. That is assuming no acceleration in Netflix subscriber growth and no acceleration in cable decline, both of which may be bad assumptions.

Re:Activate the Reality Beam!

[gQuigs]

And that's counting me, as a comcast cable subscriber, because it was cheaper to get cable & internet then internet alone.

I don't own a tv.

News without Fox

[Anonymous Coward]

One bright spot is that people can subscribe to Rogers' news package (and get e.g. BBC World News) without having to sign up for Fox News. When I last signed up for cable in Canada (about 7 years ago, since I moved abroad about 5 years ago), I was offered one free "premium" bundle along with my basic digital cable. Since I don't give a damn about sports, televised "music", and didn't have children at the time, the only package that sounded somewhat interesting was the "more news" bundle. When I heard that it included Fox News, I opted for the Kids package (since it would at least force Rogers to direct some of my money toward children's programming).

Hacked Nagra Vision Keys

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada all your satellites are belong to us.

Re:One Moment for a Reality Check

[rueger]

Leaving aside that two of your choices are both Bell, from this I can assume that in Montreal you already have amazing options in choosing your mix of channels and pay low low prices?

Or perhaps do you pay the same price as everywhere else - that somehow creeps towards $100 a month for most households?

Bring It On!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like you know something, but if you do you're not telling. TFA article seems to indicate that even though Canadian cable company will offer a la carte pricing, they will also try like hell to make sure it doesn't effect their bottom line, regardless of how the offer might effect what's purchased from them. I take this to mean that they're more interested in retaining an artificially high margin than adopting a more market driven approach to marketing.

It also sounds, to me, like you'll be dumping cable soon, if that's all you'd truly be willing to pay and there's no other provider will to compete for your revenue. (That or you'll be forced to accept being 'bundled'.

Since I'm an American, the only effect I'll see is from the sidelines. But I'd love to see our FCC require a la carte pricing in order to be able to find out whether a more free market approach changes the nature of the overall mix of programming available. I'm one of those freaks who resents bring required to subsidize the vast wasteland of mindless entertainment which has only been possible because of the fact that consumers have only been allowed an all-or-nothing vote in our system that 'encouraged' cable systems installation by sanctioning local monopolies for at least the 1st decade or their existence (prior to their ability to offer internet or VOIP services).

The result was the ability of the provider/owner of the network to set a price that led to the 70's song '57 Channels & Nothing's On' because any channel that could raise enough advertising revenue and pay for the privilege, could get a deal inked with the cable companies, and there was no real mechanism for competition. It's the sweetheart deal that led to the CEO of Viacom taking on the mantle of the megalomaniacal big politico donor in the 80's. And it's the same deal that encouraged Amazon et al to enter an artificially advantaged market which put many bricks & mortar stores out of business with lower prices through $0 in sales taxes, reduced overheard of having to collect, account for or report these taxes to the Gub'ment and free shipping deals that have also jeopardized our the USPS.

All in all, I'm one of those who believes that cable companies have been both highly and artificially profitable to the detriment of the general public. A la carte pricing should have been demanded long ago, if only so that content production might have been subject to the same feedback that Adam Smith postulated in the Wealth of Nations.

Cable was built with monopoly money, literally. And they've NEVER lived up to their responsibility (in the U.S.) to offer a meaningful level of educational or truly informative journalism. A la carte pricing is 30 years late, and there are far more important things to worry about, but even if it's only an experiment where the results can be rigged, I'd love to see it.

Re:Bring It On!!

[DarwinSurvivor]

effect != affect.

Re:Bring It On!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the media company, not the cable provider, who chooses whether to dictate bundles or allow a la carte pricing. Yes, some cable companies also own their own media, but in order to comply with fair business laws they have to offer their competitors similar pricing and structure as they offer to themselves.

In other words, most of your post is a pointless rant aimed at the wrong people. Don't bitch at your cable provider, call up HBO instead.

Re:One Moment for a Reality Check

[Guspaz]

I can't speak for "everywhere else". My cable bill is something like $60-70, but I've got a rather large number of channels, I'm not getting any bundle discounts, I'm virtually locked in via a bunch of silly rules in my lease, and the non-incumbent options haven't been around long enough to have any impact on price. Some of them do have rather large potential savings.

Re:One Moment for a Reality Check

[Guspaz]

I should mention that we've had a-la-carte selection in Montreal for years. Not completely, and there are all the cancon restrictions the government puts on it, but you can get basic cable and then pick most other stuff a-la-carte except for a handful of specialties like HBO Canada, but that's a restriction from the owner of HBO Canada that forces the cable companies to sell it as a bundle (even if cable carriers wanted to they couldn't sell it unbundled)

Doesn't matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cable cos and networks have both screwed themselves out of my money. Cut the cord last month and loving it!!!

Central Planning

[louzer]

Why is the government in the channel bundling issue? Should the government regulate how much we excrete too? Government doing everything in business is becoming more like how conspiracy nuts say Aliens are responsible for everything.

Re:Central Planning

[shutdown -p now]

Because it is Canada and not US.

2 little, 2 late

[Anonymous Coward]

tv is dying, long live tv

Well I cancelled my cable this past weekend.

[DarthVain]

I finally cut the cord so to speak. If they want me back they will have to start offering services I wish to pay for.

They will have to entice me back with more than overpriced a la carte. If they care to offer up a reasonable flexible choice at a reasonable price, but if they (and they likely will) fight this tooth and nail, making a token gesture, allowing consumers to purchace single channels are outrageous cost, then later cancelling the service claiming there is not demand for it because it attracted so few users...

Anyway, I will wait and see what actually happens, I wouldn't hold my breath.