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John McCain Working On Legislation For 'a La Carte' TV Channel Packages
An anonymous reader writes "John McCain, Republican Senator for Arizona and former U.S. presidential candidate, is drafting a new bill that would pressure TV providers to allow customers to select and pay for only the channels they want to watch. The bill will also 'bar TV networks from bundling their broadcast stations with cable channels they own during negotiations with the cable companies, according to industry sources. So for example, the Disney Company, which owns both ABC and ESPN, could not force a cable provider to pay for ESPN in order to carry ABC.' Perhaps most importantly, the bill could 'end the sports blackout rule, which prohibits cable companies from carrying a sports event if the game is blacked out on local broadcast television stations.' This would hamstring the ludicrous practice of blacking out TV broadcasts in order to drive fans to buy actual tickets to a game. The cable and satellite TV industry is expected to push back very strongly against the bill."
Wont pass though.
I can have my dream package of just home shopping networks, pay-per-view previews and c-span!
I have a feeling this will all be moot soon. Youtube are about to unveil subscription channels, and we already have Hulu, Netflix, etc. All we need is an idiot-proof box for the living room so that grandma can surf all these channels with her "clicker" and we'll forget there ever was such a thing as cable tv.
Is this man not president?!
inb4 trolls
the bill could 'end the sports blackout rule, which prohibits cable companies from carrying a sports event if the game is blacked out on local broadcast television stations.'
Why not just end all blackouts, whether on cable or broadcast TV?
There is added value in buying a ticket to a sporting event over watching it from home. I've never heard anyone say they bought the ticket because of a TV blackout.
I gotta admit, I just took a Nelson rating diary survey, and all its done is made me realize how much I'd like to cancel my increasingly expensive cable service. I watched maybe 8 hours of broadcast TV during the week I kept the diary.
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
Finally someone goes to bat for the consumer of these shows rather than the big cable companies. My fear is it will never pass because too many of his Republican friends don't want the cable companies to lose profits.
The idea of a la carte pricing for cable tv is probably nearly as old as cable tv. They've been talking about it forever and never getting shit done.
About 3 years ago I gave up and became a cord-cutter - internet only for everything. I don't give a damn about pro sports (bread and circuses) so it has worked out great for me. Now if only I didn't have to buy my internet access from a company that is also a cable-tv provider...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
What's the catch? What odious crap is hidden in this bill?
I assume the underlying concept is with monopolies or oligopolies. If all the networks are forcing cable companies to pick up all of their stations or get nothing, and they all do this, it's basically a oligopoly (many single monopolies colluding).
So.. there is probably some basis for this kind of things relative to other monopolistic laws we have in place.
tv and politicians need each other. neither can afford to make the other *too* mad.
I can see mandating a couple of basic channels for news and weather... which they already provide for free over the air or dirt cheap (my grandfather pays $5/mo for basic cable with ~12 channels, mostly local). I get free basic cable from TWC for subscribing to Internet (about the only perk keeping me with them). But to mandate it for every channel is overstepping boundaries.
You tube is coming with specialized channels at $ 1 per month (hopefully i'll get all the sports i'm interested like world-football/ MLS etc) along with netflix/amazon-prime for series/movies (i don't care if i am a few season behind) ...i'm good.
Writing laws to protect the entertainment industry? What kind of crap is this? Just take away their monopoly protections, and problem solved.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The only reason is they are given a monopoly it near one to avoid cluttering telephone polls with competitors. If we had an all comers pure fiber network from our municipalities it would be a different story.
No sir I dont like it.
The answer to too much government is more government.
Only watching internet streaming (mostly Netflix) and OTA broadcasts. On demand streaming is the future. Got tired of paying nearly $100/month for 200 channels, of which I would only watch 10 at most. Wanna bet if they sell a la carte, each channel would cost $5-10 month plus a $25/month "maintenance" fee?
This is too little too late. Forget saving these dinosaurs, I want to see them crash and burn.
You could make the argument that the big media companies are using monopoly powers to force people to buy products that they don't want. That should probably fall under current legislation, though.
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
I have about a 50-50 chance of strongly liking or strongly disliking legislation he proposes.
I'm sort of assuming that he's going to eventually turn this in a proposal to require unbundling of both cable packages and Constitutional rights.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Me neither. I'm hardly a libertarian, except in the sense that everyone is*, but this seems to me to be government overreach.
Cable TV is not a vital public service, in any shape or form. It's not important infrastructure you must have access to or else be significantly disadvantaged. Nobody is any the worse for not having it. In fact, it's actually just awful.
Given that, let the market take care of it. If Disney gets greedy and insists no bundling ABC without 50 other unrelated channels that cause a cable provider's costs to go up by $50 per subscriber, then let it fail because nobody can afford it any more. Governments shouldn't be micromanaging issues like this.
* I'm in favor only of those laws I support, and against laws I disagree with. As such I'm in favor of small government, obviously, because small government people believe that there should only be laws they deem necessary which by definition means the ones they agree with and not the ones they disagree with.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I've always been mildly surprised that no one has argued that channel bundling violates Section 3 of the Clayton Antitrust Act. Basically the networks and cable companies are engaged in tying which can in some circumstances be illegal. While it may be legal in this case it seems to exist right on the edge of legality. I've never been convinced of the argument that channel bundling is in the best interest of the consumers and it certainly is only possible due to the market power of the companies involved.
Sure, but I could probably still get the 5 channels I want for less than I spend on the 300 I never watch.
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
TV volume and a la carte TV channel selection. These are the things their constituents really care about. It's about time they did something.
Yes you're missing something... the government is supposed to be representing the greater good, not pure corporate interest.
I know they've pretty much only been doing the latter since 1980 and its easy for people these days to not see what the purpose of government even IS... but come on. If people are being scammed they are supposed to care. That's the government interest.
No wonder we are a country of ignorant fat ass's and the rest of the world hates us.
Ignoring the merits or lack thereof of the proposal, isn't this sort of thing exactly the opposite of what "conservatives" claim to be about? And doesn't McCain claim to be a conservative?
There's another reason McCain is behind this: A la carte cable is a very popular idea with the social conservative faction that holds a lot of influence within the republican party. The FRC has frequently put out a public call for something like this. Their motivation is in obscenity and indecency: They really don't like the idea that good christian conservatives have to pay for the raunchy entertainment and liberal media channels because they happen to be in the same bundle as the Disney channel and Fox news.
Internet streaming isn't for everyone, particularly people who are addicted to left- or right-leaning political pundits on TV or parents of kids too young to get into a sports bar.
The government controls the broadcast spectrum. Requiring certain concessions as a condition for use is not inappropriate, even for a small government.
The greater good would, though, require the government actually focus on important stuff, which quite honestly the payment rules for TV channels and the provision of access to sporting content isn't.
Would it be nice if I could just buy the channels I want? I think so, sorta. Probably. I don't know. I have a feeling Dish wants me to pay what I'm paying regardless. I suspect I'll gain one or two channels I currently don't have in my package because they belong to another tier, but I'll unexpectedly miss out on content I thought I never watch but actually do.
Moreover though, it's not the kind of thing I want the government doing, because the government has an irritating habit of screwing things up when it decides how people should pay for something. One of the (many) reasons for the failure of, for example, passenger rail in this country was the decision of state and Federal governments to micromanage ticket pricing. Indeed, much of the freight rail industry collapsed for the same reason in the 1970s, it took deregulation to prevent it all from collapsing and a massive government bailout to keep the system in the North East up and running until it could be made profitable agaain.
And it did that despite the fact the industry involved, that it was destroying, was actually important. Cable TV isn't.
I don't see value in the government micromanaging this. Access to the Internet? Perhaps. But even there it needs to be aware of its limitations. These proposals seem, to me, to be an excessively large amount of action for a trivial problem.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The government permits cable monopolies, and therefore have a responsibility to ensure that those monopolies aren't abusive (yeah, they're doing a piss poor job of it).
The solution is trivial: End cable monopolies. In the '80s there were 3 cable companies in my area, competition was fierce, and prices and service were great. Today there is a single cable company, and they are a disaster.
You can't be serious. You can find pundits of all types on the Internet. And for sports, well, there's always AM radio :D
You can find pundits of all types on the Internet.
Including MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Rachel Maddow, on a device that a 70-year-old who refuses to learn how to use Google could operate with a familiar TV-style remote control?
Excellent. Just in time for nobody to give a rat's ass any more.
sig: sauer
Let me know when I can watch all my sports teams live without going to a website that tries to install some virus or 'plug-in'.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
What does it say about a candidate if he thinks that one of the most important issues facing the nation is which selection of cable TV channels people can subscribe to. What's he going to do next? Highway speed limits for horse-and-buggy carts? Food safety regulations for roadkill? Video game ratings for Pong? Bad as Obama has turned out to be, McCain would have been even worse.
This really had me scratching my head because the legislation is about 20 years too late. Then I realized that it's John McCain, and his constituency are probably seniors who still watch a lot of cable. I'm not exactly young, but even I just download or stream something if I really want to watch it.
Proverbs 21:19
MLB team zones are to big and not all RSN's have full coverage. A la carte can help may makeing rsn's your choice to buy or not and let the high cost ones be on more systems looking at CSN NW, CSN Philly / TCN Philly, CSN Huston, up coming dodgers channel, ect.
Cable has become a joke! It's Springsteen's 57 channels times TEN today. The major content providers are extorting the service providers because they know it's an all-or-nothing deal. Even though maybe only 1/3 of customers watch ESPN, no service provider can reject the entire ESPN suite because they know that's a deal-breaker. And the major content providers use that as an excuse to package 3-4 satellite channels that show the same content and charge more.
It's insane that I can surf through dozens of channels and see nothing but crap on. With a la carte, content providers will HAVE to produce quality and not rely on being a filler dial number. I could care less if 1/2 of the stations go away. And, the bullies like ESPN (I think averaging about $8/mo of your cable bill) won't have service providers by the nuts any more.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Me neither. I'm hardly a libertarian, except in the sense that everyone is*, but this seems to me to be government overreach.
Cable TV is not a vital public service, in any shape or form. It's not important infrastructure you must have access to or else be significantly disadvantaged. Nobody is any the worse for not having it. In fact, it's actually just awful.
Given that, let the market take care of it.
I will assume you mean the mythical "free market". There is no such thing, of course, and this is especially true where market choice is limited by natural monopolies, as is the case in cable and satellite television service. So your solution fails. It's less than ideal, but only regulation will see to it that the consumers are not getting the short end of the stick, as they are now.
some Blackouts are not based on selling out. Also some teams have games on OTA channels that do not cover the teams full zones but you get lock out of those games even when you get the RSN games on your local RSN's.
lot's of other stuff.
to go dbstalk for and search blackouts for a lot more info.
Agreed in theory, but not in principle. It won't make much difference now because incumbent providers gained a system from the exclusivity, and hence cheaper, than building a new one.
What is really needed is something similar to the way electricity is delivered in many areas now, like Texas. ONE provider runs the infrastructure ... power poles and three phase wiring ... or bundles of dark fiber going to everywhere (and not that multiplex crap they call FiOS ... I mean a minimum of 4 whole strands to every home). Then a chosen provider can be hooked up at the other end of the strand to provide their service structure. None of the providers needs to invest in the infrastructure. But it also needs to be an open service where people can lease the fibers directly to each other, for example (run 10 Gbps on each of several wavelengths between home and work). Let the cities then run, or contract, that infrastructure. Open it to all providers.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Yeah, the result is likely to be paying the same amount of money for smaller numbers of channels -- they already know that you'll pay $100 a month for 300 channels to get the 10 you really want, so they'd just charge $10 per each of those channels. Some number of people will end up better off, some (probably larger) worse off, but they'll extract the same amount of money in the end, except you won't have access to the penumbra of channels you watch things on occasionally.
I'd probably be one of those better off, since I could care less about sports, so I'm not against it, but I wouldn't expect it to change much except perhaps killing off some more of the more generic filler channels.
"Buy our FIOS, get cable free!"
This.
I actually like McCain somewhat, he's better than the far right religious nuts. But Cable TV is entertainment. There's no need for the government to meddle in the free market. If it were power, or even Internet access I would understand.
Depends on the team and the game, but I feel I can get the majority of my sports games from either OTA antenna, EPSN3, or some other major network website. It's a little frustrating that they aren't all easy to find like they are on a TV, but you can typically get them without resorting to illegal feeds.
"And why is a Republican trying to put regulation on business?"
Um, to pander for votes?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I meant what I said, and gave an example of how the market can react. This is not a required product. You are not going to be denied a job, prevented from socializing, or lack important information needed to live your daily life if you eschew cable TV. The market is perfectly capable of handling "abuses" because people can, and do, walk away from the stall if the price is too high or the product is not what they want.
Cable TV is:
1. Not a monopoly, not that it matters.
2. Not required.
3. Not important.
4. Dependent upon delivering value to paying customers to be successful
Quite honestly though, even if it were a monopoly, with Dish Network and DirecTV going bust tomorrow, cable TV is still not required, is still not important, and is still dependent upon delivering value to paying customers to be successful. Beyond basic protections against fraud, what the hell regulation does it need?
It doesn't.
I meant what I said, and gave an example of how the market can react. This is not a required product. You are not going to be denied a job, prevented from socializing, or lack important information needed to live your daily life if you eschew Cable TV. The market is perfectly capable of handling "abuses" because people can, and do, walk away from the stall if the price is too high or the product is not what they want. The market can take care of this one.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
the cable companies hate their customers but love their money.
Not hockey.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Although the post suggests this bill will get a lot of resistance from the media, one of the biggest contributers to John McCain's Campaign was Newmax. Go ahead and look it up on www.opensecrets.org. You can find there who donates and how much to any national politician. My question, if this is so bad to TV and such, then why would a News Media organization be one of the top contributers to his campaign? It doesn't make sense. Politics doesn't work that way. What is REALLY in this bill?
While having local sports events blocked from their local cable may upset some viewers (the few that are left who actually watch TV), the real commercial problem with a la carte delivery of cable service is the money-making channels that no one will select. How many people will sign up for the Home Shopping Network or the many other shopping channels if they must pay to receive them? The religious channels also have a problem. Some number of people will pay for them, but the channels rely on people wandering in by accident or impulse for their outreach goals. They will wither and die if only the choir shows up for the service. Both the shopping and the religious channels provide a lot of income for the cable providers. If they are not there (because subscribers are forced to pay for them), then the price of everything else will go up to maintain the cable company's income stream. This should nicely accelerate the decline of cable/satellite broadcast media and move everyone to Internet services even more quickly.
This is my rant. On Verizon and Time Warner if you want the FuelTV channel which is where the MMA fights are covered live, you can only get it by buying the most expensive package. It's their Super duper deluxe with a bazillion channels I don't care about. But it's the only one where you can get Fuel.
I tried to think, but nothin' happened!
*cough*FCC*cough* I'm in full support of this. TV might actually make a slight return because you don't have to buy so many "useless" channels.
Cable TV is: ...
1. Not a monopoly, not that it matters.
Beyond basic protections against fraud, what the hell regulation does it need?
They sure had no issue invoking powers usually reserved for utilities/public works/government though... to use utility easements and real-estate right-of-way exemptions and so on to dig up private property to lay their cables.
If they want to hide behind "we're not a monopoly" then fine, however every time property is bought/sold they can re-negotiate access rights as a NON government/utility entity. Or do you think every private corporation, non-utility, gets to dig up private property for their business model?
They ride in on the same access rights and exemptions electricity, water, gas, sewer lines do. So if they act like a monopoly, get legal exemptions that are reserved for government/utilities, I don't care if they technically aren't one, they get to behave like one including somebody higher up in government placing some limits on their behavior.
Because you can watch the NFL...oh that's right you can't!
What the devil is the federal government (or, indeed, any government) doing, telling companies how they need to package their sales offerings?
In the best case, this is micromanagement. In the worst case, follow the money, just who is paying for the legislation, and how are they going to use it to screw consumers?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Depends on the team and the game, but I feel I can get the majority of my sports games from either OTA antenna, EPSN3, or some other major network website.
There are a few cities where OTA channels broadcast a decent percentage of major sports (LA and Chicago come to mind), but others have sports almost completely locked up on the RSN. Here in the DC/Baltimore area if you don't have access to the RSN, you would see about 25% of baseball games, and 10% of basketball and hockey. NFL, of course, you will see all of your home team games.
It's even worse in Philadelphia, where about the same percentages are available OTA, but Comcast SportsNet Philly is only available on Comcast cable.
I thought the GOP stood for smaller government?
I don't think we need legislation to unbundle cable channels, if consumer demand is strong enough it will happen. The problem is too many people just pay their ever-increasing cable bills and perpetuate the problem.
How would you like it if Congress decided to come unbundle your products or services?
Sure, but I could probably still get the 5 channels I want for less than I spend on the 300 I never watch.
I hear a lot of people quote such small numbers of channels, but the reality is that most households watch at least parts of a lot more than that, especially if you count the OTA channels (which you would still have to pay for if you wanted them from your cable/satellite provider instead of actually OTA).
Excluding OTA, my 2-person household watches shows on 18 channels every month. We don't watch a lot of TV, but we do have enough varied interests to spread out a little. For a family of 4, I'd expect that the number would easily grow to 30. I can't imagine prices as low as $1/channel, what with all the extra record-keeping that would be required, so you'd still be looking at a $45-60 bill. For $70, I get a lot more channels from DirecTV (even ignoring home shopping and music-only channels). Even if the family of 4 still only watches 30 channels, it's certainly not the huge rip-off that a la carte proponents would make you think it is.
I'm 25. Call me when I can watch all the HBO, Showtime etc and Live Shows from the Internet. And I mean nonstop, without having to search and cross my fingers that some channel is still working. Big networks can pull the plug on ITV at anytime they wish, and have before. Apparently none of you read the news about how set they are to end all this 'free' TV access.
If they can't make money, you don't get any shows. And you'll be stuck watching some 12 year olds Youtube channel that updates once a month. Besides, TV isn't going away anytime soon, It's just ignorant fools like yourselves that can't stand to see other people doing things that you dislike.
...not holding my breath though.
Verizon FiOS currently has me over a barrel. My family watch shows on only a handful of the 200+ (probably 300 or 400 by now) channels that I'm paying for. Of the three channels we watch most, say A, B, and C to protect the innocent, the lowest tier of FiOS has none. The second tier has A but not B or C. The next tier has B and C but not A. The third tier has A, B and C. So I have to pay for next to the top most expensive tier to get the three channels. Add to that the fact that to watch it I have to rent a couple of "set top boxes" (quotes because it's under the set because you can't balance it on top of a flat screen) despite both TVs having perfectly good digital tuners sitting unused. Why do I need a decoder box when they have a huge box bolted to the side of the house? Can't they decode it in that and let me use my own TV tuner?
I don't think most people have thought through the what would actually happen if TV went a la carte. The only stations that would survive are the ones that get the most subscriptions (money), not necessarily the same as those with the best content. It would be a major shakeup far more reaching then just content providers and broadcasters.
I took the dive and cancelled my TV subscription years ago. The one thing that I miss is live sports, particularly my hometown NHL team. Im quite certain that those sports teams in my hometown that rely on TV funding would fold with a la carte TV funding as they can't even sell out the seats.
So they pass a law saying cable companies have to let you get your channels a-la-carte. So what? Cable companies will offer customers the "package" for, say, $100, or individual channels for $25 each. Who would go for that kind of-la-carte price?
Finally, a reason to love the conservative vilification of Hollywood! (Brought to you by... Hollywood! but I digress.)
The business model for cable television relies on bundling, where a portion of your monthly cable bill goes to all those channels that you have access to but don't watch. If this bill passes (FAT CHANCE) it will utterly change what cable looks like.
Fictional example: The Dogfood Channel gets 1 cent per month for every subscriber. But because Dogfood's parent company Viacom requires any cable operator that carries MTV to also carry Dogfood, the 200 million cable subscribers with access to MTV mean a revenue stream of $2,000,000 *monthly* for Dogfood. Most of which is shared back to Viacom, which spends maybe $10,000,000 *annually* to produce the warmed-over reality advertorials on the channel. That's $14 million in profit for Viacom on just one channel.
The big TV producers have a huge incentive to invent new channels full of cheap fluff, and force cable operators to carry them.
Cable companies, by the way, will likely be in favor of this legislation, because if subscribers only pay for what they want, and the operators charge overhead on each selection, then they stand to make more money then they currently do. At any rate, a larger percentage of what subscribers pay will stay with the cable company, rather than going to access fees on all those channels they didn't want to carry in the first place because nobody watches them.
It will also make the local advertising that they sell worth more because there will be way less inventory, and the ads will reach a much more targeted demographic.
On the other hand, if I can get a la carte channel service via the cable company, why not just skip the middleman and order my channels directly from the producer, via internet streaming?
This bill will never pass, but only because it destroys the business model of a handful of big, powerful TV production companies. Consumers and cable companies would both benefit, at least in the short run.
There are many good replies to my question here. I wasn't trolling, I was legitimately asking.
I can understand the collusion/monopoly arguments - those would grant government a legit reason to step in and protect the consumer from unfair business practices, but I'm not aware of any allegations of collusion between cable/satellite providers to maintain the "tiered package" business model to the detriment of consumers. I also don't think cable TV companies can generally be rightly considered monopolies, because although that specific delivery mechanism may grant a natural monopoly, there are 2 major satellite providers, and there's a lot of room in geostationary orbit.
As far as sports blackouts, I see that as a result of the agreement between content owners and content providers. If consumers cancel cable or just a sports package because of blackouts, the cable company can use that as a bargaining chip next time around. If consumers don't cancel, and continue to pay for the service they get, the cable company has no incentive to push the content owner for a change in the contract.
Cable TV is a luxury in sense that the parent points out - people don't need it, they pay for it if they feel that the product/service is worth the cost. I pay (a lot) for Comcast cable, I have the HD DVR with the On Demand feature; while I'm not a fan of them as a company, the quality of service I have recieved is quite acceptable. I also have a Roku for an older (non-HD) TV, Netflix and Amazon Prime are available for that device for a fraction of the cost of cable. I would also be happy not to watch at all.
It strikes me as pandering, not solving an actual problem.
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Minor correction: "I would also be happy not to watch TV at all."
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
I have had my issues with John McCain and his politics in the past, but this is just GENIUS!
Do you think it is in the purview or expertise of the Federal government to tell private business what products they must offer?
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
But is your company one of those that produces a lot of its own content? Or is owned by a content producer? If not, I understand your position entirely. You are being forced by the content providers to take their crappy channels along with the high demand ones. That's not an efficient use of your bandwidth.
In my opinion, the DoJ should break up the combination of content providers and distribution system owners. You, the cable company, act as the consumer's brokers in deciding which bundles to offer with the given bandwidth and you negotiate with content providers for the best price (cheap for consumers and some profit margin left for you folks). Content providers owning distribution channels interferes with that relationship and is clearly an antitrust issue.
Have gnu, will travel.
I don't subscribe to cable TV or even watch broadcast TV anymore. And I don't even watch shows in the internet.
The effort of finding a show worth watching - and the suffering I would experience watching the advertisements that accompany these shows have discouraged me completely. Finding new shows on my own isn't worth the reward of some novel entertainment (discounted for the horrible, soul-crunching advertisements.)
Broadcast/Cable TV have lost to the internet - and the piss-poor internet service in the states make spending your time doing just about anything else more worthwhile.
It's interesting to compare cable TV to gas - in some ways it's like a utility that is nonessential. In the US, commercial cable TV predates satellite, so it was for a time the only option for expanded programming, and in rural areas or areas not served by broadcast, the only option for TV at all. Still, it's less necessary than gas service, because the cost of replacing appliances dependent on gas may be prohibitive compared to the cost of gas service, and people generally accept that ovens/ranges and water heaters are pretty much essential to normal life. TV isn't.
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
I know they've pretty much only been doing the latter since 1980
:) Methinks you might be cherry picking your data a bit....
Right, it's just been going on just since 1980. Before that, things were perfect but good ol' Reagan screwed it up for everyone (eye roll). Had we only lived pre-1980 when big business was put in their place then we would have a utopia today instead of what we have. Dangit. We were so close if it only hadn't been for Reagan.
Can you smell the sarcasm yet? Good because I am laying it on pretty thick
You recognize the hypocrisy.
The people spewing the vitriol know themselves as pillars of virtue, the true keepers of the light and the one ring.
No brain, no pain.
The cable company doesn't buy a bunch of channels and then sell them at a fixed markup. They charge what they think you'll pay.
Look at it like this - the cable channel offers "The Entertainment Channel" and "The Knitting Channel" as a package for $10 a month. Everyone wants the entertainment channel. Only a handful want the knitting channel.
They're forced to offer a la carte. Since 90% of their subscribers have no interest in knitting, we can assume that we can charge them $10 for the Entertainment channel on its own.
The reason they bundle the knitting channel is that a few subscribers don't think it's worth $10 for that alone. But for the bundle they'll pay the extra. The Knitting channel gets a trivial amount of the subscription fee.
Under the a la carte plan, you pay the same amount but get less, unless you're also a fan of knitting, in which case you pay $11.
How is this better?
Good to see our tax dollars at work, focusing on the real issues.
I thought the Republican party was about getting government out of people lives? Maybe it's for everything but cable television. And women's rights. And marijuana. And indecency. And religion in school.
OTHERWISE, they're totally Live Free or Die.
And, by the way, no one should care about cable anymore. Seriously.
They ride in on the same access rights and exemptions electricity, water, gas, sewer lines do.
I don't know that the sattelite companies fit into this? At any rate this attempted regulation seems unnecessary unless it can be tied to public funds. I think the whole industry is due a major overhaul, esp here in H-town where about 60% can't watch the local sports teams whose stadiums are publicly funded (out of towner taxes do hurt) I don't have cable but go over to someones house maybe once per month if there is something live i ~need~ to watch.
Hello Cruel World
Yeah, if TV was perfect I could just pay for a couple channels. But, do we need legislation to ensure I get the kind of TV package I want? This isn't a life or death situation. This isn't an inalienable human right. It's TV channels! It's one of the ultimate luxuries in the history of the world. Has tv ever really enriched anyone's life THAT MUCH?
Right now i have the option, as a consumer, to not pay for any tv channels. I exercise that option. You know what? I'm actually really happy with my decision. I get more than enough entertainment through netflix and online games. Yes. TV packages are a bad deal, but it's not like we, as consumers, don't have options.
When i think about it, subscribing to a channel isn't even what i really want. What I want is just a' la carte shows. Even with a channel you are locked into that channel's schedule. It's archaic and backwards if you ask me. Oh look, those options like netflix and hulu (and pirating) are already giving a superior option in my opinion.
The real reason it won't be liked by the content providers (dish, direct tv, cox, comcast, etc), and the channel providers (espn, tnt, discovery, etc.) are all tied to how they currently have their systems. The content providers won't like it much as they have to upgrade their network. They have this aging dinosaur of legacy cable in the ground, and have oil can type filters on their channels. This will require every TV to have a digital box on it to work. Yes they can amortize the cost by charging you $10 a month (or more), but that is not what the customers really want. They want to pay as least amount they can. Imagine a house that has 4 TVs (as many do), and now you are paying $20 a month for service (what is going to be required, just so you can be billed), and $40 just to watch shows on your 4 TVs. That is $60 a month before you pay for the content ... Now you are going to pay for each channel you want. Lets say you are a professional sports enthusiast, and want your channels. You need ESPN, TNT, TBS, NFL, MLBtv, plus the locals just to watch all the games and playoffs. That is probably $20 a month right there (according to cost (before markup) that is paid to each channel by the content providers). We have not even gotten into the costs that are there to watch "shows".
Channel providers have tied their contracts to "cost per seat" style licensing. This means if a content provider has 1.2 million subscribers, they have to pay 1.2 million times the going rate monthly to the channel provider to "carry" that channel, regardless of number of people who actually subscribe to that channel. They love this model as if they can get a critical mass of people (look at AMC and when it was not carried on a cable network, and they almost had a revolt when "walking dead" came back on), they can force more money from the content providers. This is exactly what they want, and don't want to have to deal with real world market forces. In fact, many channels would go away for good if people had to pay to get them. Look at things like FX, which does not have original programming (to my knowledge, it might now, I don't have cable, and use appropriate channel for my point), but only shows re-runs. Who is going to pay for that? Not many people. But since they are now bundled, and at little cost to the content provider, they ride on the coat tails of another company. If they had to compete directly, they would be ruined in months, and disappear.
This is what they have to address with this bill, should it be good for Americans. They need to provide a way for the content providers to have a service, and they pay for as you go, and pay for the services you use, and not screw the customers for the costs of the upgrades that have so long been needed to their decaying systems. Secondly the channel providers need to realize that they have to fight for time and eye balls now. They have to provide content and actually have decent programming. I don't know how they are going to pull this one off, as these two markets are already established, and the massive changes needed will not be in the final bill passed and we will get some bastardization which wont help anyone (like the health care bill).
Of my 1000 channel choices, I have, 24/7, 10 devoted to Dog the Bounty Hunter, 20 to new-age religion, 20 to old-age religion, 20 to new-age vampires, 20 to clairvoyant detectives, 200 to shopping and infomercials, 50 to soft- and medium-core porn (when I can get the hard stuff free on the net), 20 to fishing competitions, 20 to trash food (cooked on top of your car engine while you drive), 99 to trash sports, 300 to foreign language programming in languages I don't speak, 2 to high-school girls' volleyball, 5 to News for Voles (no, wait, that's Monty Python) et cetera ad infinitum. I would in fact pay extra to DELETE these channels, leaving the 100 or so choices I might actually watch.
Quick - define "moderate" without using your own ideology as a guide, and be intellectually honest when you try.
Being willing to consider all ideas regardless of whose "side" those ideas are associated with, and being willing to move incrementally forward and make improvements to the country (i.e. progressive, not reactionary), but unwilling to rush big changes and break what already works without a secure alternative already in place (i.e. conservative, not radical).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Because the cable companies were granted easements and right-of-way by the government, in exchange for government regulation.
You know, the kind of regulation that is administered by the Federal Communications Commission. The kind of regulation that this bill proposes.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Speaking as someone who has only voted for Libertarian presidential candidates, you're crazy if you think both sides are balanced in their craziness.
I realize there's plenty of derp on both sides -- as evidenced by your example, but it's generally not divided equally. I'd say the division was much more equal a decade ago, but it simply isn't that way any more.
I don't think listing examples is an effective way to argue about the absolute magnitude of derp. Listing examples of delta derp might be more efficient.
McCain's are the best.
He is about as far from one as possible. This is blatant interference in private commerce. Nobody is compelled to have cable fiber or sat TV. If the providers dont want to do a la carte, that is their business in every sense of the word. And if content producers want to bundle their offerings, that is their right as well. And please don't think for a minute that McCain is doing this for the people.
It's like insurance - you're subsidizing. Do you think insurance plans should only charge you based on what you need or based on actuarial data for _you_?
The ala carte system is coming either way, there's no reason to force it on Cable companies.
There is another issue with providers that needs to be addressed.
I was looking at Verizon FIOS packages yesterday and notices something really bad.
For 50\25 Internet it was $90\month
For 50\25 Internet + Prime HD(210 channels) it was $90\month
Whats wrong with that picture?
Free market is what is wrong. Switch to fair market FTW!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You need to be RINO if you want a bill to pass the the Senate. Plenty of "real" Republicans can get bills passed in the House that go nowhere in the Senate.
You also got to wonder it the bill would outlaw Netflix and Hulu. Those are subscription based TV where everything is bundled together. If people wanted A-La-Cart they would use Amazon or Itunes.
al-la-cart on on the Internet is not doing to well. I am pretty sure Netflix uses more bandwidth than Amazon and Itunes combined.
Hope this passes so I don't have to pay for 200 channels of crap just to get the five channels I watch.
Ouch. You mean people are forced to pay for subscription TV? They can't just.. turn the damn thing off and go read a book instead?
Given the choice, I'd rather have access to the Internet than access to TV. That's even without the ease of acquiring television programming via the Internet.
1. Not a monopoly, not that it matters.
Actually, it matters a great deal. Cable television is the very definition of a natural monopoly, or as Mill called it, a "practical monopoly". /.
To suggest that it is otherwise simply because one "could" live without it is to ignore the plainest of facts about that "market". The forces affecting price and availability in that market are heavily constrained. To suggest that such a market is free is patently absurd, but then adherence to absurd notion is something of the hallmark of Rand fan bois on
/. would be up in arms if the government mandated that ISPs had different prices for access to different websites. Want the xxx domain? Better get the premium package.
all the niche programming will go away, and you'll be left with just a few popular channels.
Disney does not sell access to ABC and does not get subscriber fees for it either. Broadcast stations are split up into local affiliates. These are generally owned by companies like Sinclair. Sinclair might chose to require subscription fees instead of listing as a "must carry", but this is completely up to the affiliate and not the broadcast network like ABC.
A better explanation would be subscribing to ESPN without being required to buy ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN News, ESPN Classic, etc.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Ah, my dream from the late 80's surfaces again. I proposed this exact model a long time ago using ATM. With bandwidth, jitter, and latency guarantees ATM is the perfect protocol for audio and video (and the ultimate setup for low-latency gaming!). I said then (and still believe) that I'd rather have 5 ATM channels that I can connect to any video source I choose than 500 of what the cable company wants me to see. Why shouldn't I be able to see Portland Oregon's evening news? Why shouldn't I be able to take a peek at the local stations in George Town, Grand Cayman?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Funny - that was another proposal* I made years ago in reference to data-to-the-premises as well as cell towers and radio stations (and power transmission, etc). I wanted to create what I called a '10% company' that had a specific charter to provide connectivity - nothing else - with a guarantee of 10% profit. Any provider could hook into the service for the same yearly fee as any other, leveling the playing field for small telcos/radio stations/etc.
The benefits would be huge especially for data-to-the-premises and cell phones - one strand of fiber to the home for phone, internet, and video regardless of what service you subscribed to. Minimization of cell towers (no more stacks of antennas per cell tower or multiple towers/site) - all of the connectivity would be the same (nationally-mandated) protocol, and all phones could automatically interconnect with any provider. Same idea w/ radio station towers, etc. All the transmitters and antennas could be co-located, or even better, merged into 1 wideband transmitter with all the signals muxed into it.
*The other proposal: http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3737343&cid=43712211
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Yes, you can turn off the TV and read a book. I'm actually quite fond of it.
This is quite similar to the Microsoft antitrust case where Microsoft was using the popularity of Windows to push people towards IE.
No one needs a computer and if they have one they don't need Windows, but a large number of people still use IE.
I just wish that HBO would take my money so I could watch Game of Thrones without having to jump up a tier to get the option. I already have too many ESPNs as it is.
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
Ala carte channels would be governed by the law of supply and demand; so if you and five of your friends are the only ones who want to watch "The Channel That Shows Video from Alt.Plan9.OS.Demos" the price is going to be pretty high. None of the ala carte proposals I've ever seen say that the channel provider has to make those channels cheap.