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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.'"
This is great, but it has become a moot point for myself and others who have long since abandoned cable television.
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.
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.
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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?
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.
Remember when the SyFy channel actually showed SciFi programming?
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.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
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.
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
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.
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.
.sig withheld by request
Torrents are already unbundled.
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.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
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!
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.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!