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

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

[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.