Posted on 02/22/2006 7:22:22 AM PST by ZGuy
As parents become increasingly concerned about what their children might see on television, some in Washington are proposing a “cure” that would be worse than the disease. Under the banner of conservatism, some proponents of a per-channel (or “a la carte”) pricing scheme claim that doing away with cable’s current bundling model will clean up cable. Ironically, such a mandate would greatly damage educational, family-oriented and religious programming.
Currently, cable and satellite operators have enough channels and channel surfers to subsidize high-quality, wholesome content that doesn’t draw enough advertising or subscription revenue on its own to survive. While some a la carte proponents entice conservative-minded subscribers with the promise of no longer subsidizing such channels as MTV and VH1, in fact it is these channels with a wide base of viewers that subsidize family programming with a smaller pool of viewers.
This practice of bundling diverse, specialized and alternative content with popular entertainment has engendered an explosion of educational programming and donor-funded religious broadcasts which can now reach 90 million homes. With a la carte, these niche programmers aren’t likely to survive, because many of them depend on channel surfing to attract new viewers.
The real irony is that some of a la carte’s most vocal supporters sound the clarion call of family values, when if they had their way, the selection of family-friendly programming would be greatly reduced. Religious broadcasts in particular are highly dependent on channel surfing, since its most important audience is comprised not of regular viewers, but viewers who stumble onto their programming in a time of difficulty – an impossible scenario under a la carte’s pre-selection mandate.
While some a la carte proponents imply that their only opposition is the cable industry and liberal Hollywood, Jerry Falwell opposes a la carte pricing because it “threatens to purge Christian broadcasts from the vast majority of U.S. households.” Pat Robertson has come out in opposition to a la carte as well. Would anyone seriously suggest that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are cable industry stooges bent on defending Hollywood smut?
Educational programming stands to suffer as well. Pro-regulation forces claim that a la carte will only result in the loss of silly, hyper-specific channels, but Judith McHale, president of Discovery Communications, told a Senate panel last year that “Discovery’s award-winning networks will not exist in an a la carte environment and consumers will have lost the channels they regard as the pre-eminent source of high quality, family-friendly programming.” Discovery’s networks include such obscurities as Animal Planet, TLC and of course the Discovery Channel, in addition to a dozen other channels focusing on health, science, travel and kids’ programming.
Lest conservatives think that a la carte will affect all players equally, think again. If an a la carte pricing scheme were to knock channels near and dear to liberal hearts off the air, how long would it be before liberal activists and their Democratic allies in Congress were calling for taxpayer subsidies to keep them on the air in the name of diversity?
One needs to look no further than a high school economics textbook to understand why a la carte is a bad idea. Cable providers depend on the same bundling model as dozens of other industries for the economies of scale necessary to offer an unprecedented selection of diverse programming in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Bundling allows providers (or manufacturers, or publishers, or service providers) to offer the maximum selection at the lowest possible price. Cars sold in Alaska come with air conditioning, and newspapers come with comics whether a particular subscriber reads them or not, because of a bundling model that offers consumers more for less. Should the government mandate that these, and a host of other industries, start offering their products tailor-made to each customer?
The cable industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to educate parents as to the multitude of tools they already have to exercise near absolute control over the content that flows into their homes. An a la carte cable pricing mandate is a big government solution that would have the unintended consequence of destroying religious, educational and family-friendly programming, stifling programming innovation and resulting in higher prices, all to solve a problem consumers have the ability to solve for themselves. Now where is the conservatism in that?
I'd be willing to pay double the normal rate per channel if I could pick the channels a la carte. As it is, I don't have cable or satellite at all, preferring to get my news from the Internet. I even watch movies on the PC now.
I think the customers are wanting a la cart - that way the crap would go broke because mom & dad would quit subsidizing MTV and the Queer network. I don't have cable but if I could pick a few channels and bypass the crap I would. Until then, I won't. And that's that.
I pay way too much and watch fewer than 10% of the channels that I have. (Okay, "watching" is a bad word for the radio channels. But I have a lot of bad words for all the shopping channels.)
Why the heck would the government interfere? If the cable company wants to offer packages where the consumer selects individual channels, GREAT. No need to force it by decree. Let the market sort it out.
I hope some FReepers with more knowledge than I will weigh in on this. The argument sounds doubtful to me. It sounds as though we would be left with 500 channels of porn if they take away bundling.
In addition, bundling occurs at a smaller scale within channels. Just because you like the History channel doesn't mean that you like everything on it. Maybe you watch it because you are a Civil War buff, but you still get the shows about Ancient Greece, or WWII, or whatever.
Was this article written by someone in the cable industry? I'd love to have a la carte cable. Buying it by the package I get way more TV than I want with only a few channels worth watching.
We have a remote control that gives us access to only those channels we want.
As always the problem isn't the cable companies, the problem is the channel companies. They're mostly owned in clusters (the ESPN cluster, the Viacom cluster, the Discovery cluster, etc) and they push all or nothing deals to the cable companies that "encourage" them to carry the weaker less popular channels to get a cut rate on the channels that are why people get cable. As long as cable companies are having to buy channels in bundles they're going to force the customer to do the same thing, they need to have a way to make you pay for the channels everybody know you won't watch but they have to carry anyway. The closest we'll ever get to a la carte is cluster carte, if you want one channel they get in a bundle you'll have to get them all.
"..Civil War buff, but you still get the shows about Ancient Greece.."
I think if you are a Civl War buff, you are also a history buff in general and would watch a fair number of other history shows. I be a Food TV buff and watch maybe a third(?) of the shows regularly.
I would consider a la cart also if it was offered. Until then it's rabbit ears.
I think you missed HIS most important point. The market may decide that the crap channels stay, and family oriented channels disappear. We may prefer free markets, but be ready to accept the consequences of those market choices.
I receive over 150 channels via sattelite. I've had to block over 80 of them due to content. Who needs the "L" channel. And why should my kids watch Discovery Health where they show "extreme makeovers" plastic surgery or better yet Discovery healths sexual identity programs where they take you through a sex change operation. Real educational TV (sarcasm). Nickelodeon had a program teaching kids the proper way to fart while in school. Something about using the pencil sharpner while releasing slowly. Now that is educational.
BTW; Channell blocking and parental controls of content cant block the commercials that show the raunchiest or most appalling snips of todays TV shows.
A la carte may hurt diversity but it is a lot more efficient economically and socially.
We should only get what we want to get nothing more nothing less.
This all may be moot however. Media is evolving into a high speed downloadable content. Between TIVO (which is great) and downloading from the net. People will finally get only what they want without all the fat of shows no one cares for.
The writer was afraid. He fears people having control over the content coming into their homes. I would not pay to have religious channels coming into my home, as I would not pay to have the home shopping channels come into it either. Both segments pay dearly to be bundled.
I could probably limit my cable channels to ten. And that is generous. And those ten still have infomercials in the latenight times.
I stopped my cable a few years back, and went to NETFLIX. I have not regretted it for a minute. And I still have a few hundred titles to see in my Que list. 50,000 titles and more coming. TV, movies, obscure stuff, more things than anyone could imagine.
Internet for news, NETFLIX for entertainment.
Best of both worlds, now if JAG would only go on DVD...
DK
I'm another fan of the idea of a la carte cable. We've never had cable but I would like to see a few things I've heard about.
I see no reason why I should float MTV, gay TV, sports shows, cooking shows, shopping shows, or anything else that I don't like.
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