Posted on 09/15/2019 11:07:01 AM PDT by TomGuy
Last week, Comcast, Disney, CBS, and Fox sued to block a new Maine law that would require cable companies to offer à la carte TV. Now, a second lawsuit filed by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association representing more than 200 cable networks, has been filed to block Maine’s new à la carte TV law.
(Excerpt) Read more at cordcuttersnews.com ...
You’d think Spanish stations would provide English subtitles.
Because cable bundles include channels from competing media companies. MS’s bundling was a block against competition. The real issue here is media empires. Bundles happen because there’s 6 companies that run all the biggest channels, and a bunch of little channels. They negotiate prices with cable companies based on which bundles which networks go into. Put more of their “also ran” channels in the “basic” bundle they charge less for the big dogs that are why people buy cable in the first place. The cable companies have no choice. The empires don’t want a choice. Going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
That. Cable customers usually watch half a dozen channels and never bother with the other 95 they must pay for. The garbage channels will either close up shop or give better programming.
Outrageous, isn’t it!
IF I could receive local television OTA I would not need cable. Maybe the FTC should force BROADCASTERS to put repeaters every so many miles, and justify their monopolies and ad sales.
How did it ever come to this, where a local CBS affiliate sells its time to an advertiser, that then sells its signal to a cable company, that then sells that bundle to people? Cable started out as “you pay for the service, NO commercials”.
I’d immediately dump all sports channels, CNN, Spanish channels, VICE aka druggie channel, Outdoor, Univ of TX Bevo channel, HBO, community channel, cartoon, OWN, TNT (refuse to patronize Oprah and Turner), QVC, Disney, duplicate and triplicate channels (why?) and the 59 music channels. After that, price comes into play many more hitting the dust.
For the same reason you’re paying for all the other freebies illegals get.
Sports networks on cable are the driving factors in prices ... most people just do not watch sports, or only watch one or two or only at sometimes of the year. The rest go unwatched, but command premium prices from the cable companies, and thus cable prices to the consumer skyrocket.
Without the sports, cable dies.
After the many miles away “local” channels cut their signal power, many people can not longer get anything with an antenna.
And some of them are thinking “why am I paying for some of these shows in English!! Only my kids watch them!” :)
Let everybody choose what they want to watch. Shouldn’t even be a question.
I have some streaming channels for 25 bucks a month and i’m good.
And I watch quite a bit.
I end up watching the talked about series about 4 years after everyone’s talking about them :)
I can watch just about any cable tv channel on the internet for free. Been doing it for over a year now.
Our cable company offers a “choice” option where you get certain channels included but you choose 10 others also. The service is $24/month. We decided to use it and then, we were told only new customers could take it. lol Still mulling over our options.
Why fight this battle when the war is already lost? 6 customers quit cable/sat every minute. Directv Now is bleeding customers. I dropped DirecTV after 20+ years and looked for a strteam of OANN but Klowd TV only sells an 86 channel package. I didn’t bite. I’d pay $5 a month for OANN but I have sworn that never again will I buy a TV package with channels I don’t want to get one I want. In fact I would pay $5 a month to get OANN but would not buy a package with OANN for $5 a month.
Hey just last night I was watching the Mets in
the NYC area on CW 11 carried by Verizon
1/2 way through they had an ad for Snapchat
where a girl was proud of some boy she knew
Liking boys
Pissed, I complained strenuously
They told me they have no control over the programming or the ads
Is that so? I thought they could overlay the ads?
Tech savvy, but too lazy to have dropped standard offerings
What roku, firestick etc option do I have to avoid this shiite?
I want a la carte. Can I order out of market sports channels too?
How are you doing it?
“National Cable & Telecommunications Association representing more than 200 cable networks”
The “bundling” that prevents a la carte BEGINS with the cable channels, not the cable channel distributors like Comcast et al, regardless of how the bundling helps them too.
No cable channels are single independent channels. All are part of companies that own any number of channels, some a great many channels under one cable channel or media conglomerate.
The bundling begins with the giant-multi-channel cable channel owners, as their demand on the cable distributors - like Comcast, Dish, Verizon, AT&T ect, as to what channels they MUST take together if they want the popular channels they seek most. That is what leads to the bundles the cable distributors offer.
I think the cable distributors ought to look at the legal challenge as one they can face, by accepting it as a way they could no longer be forced to take in bundles all the channels that the cable channel owners want them to take as bundles.
Yes, it would initially shrink the cable distributors revenues (as some cable channels actually die), but they all provide Internet services and they could move to expand their own channel-by-channel video streaming services, which is part of what cord-cutters and bundle-busters want to do.
On the TV, I bring up the Roku home screen in which I can connect to video streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, RightSide Broadcasting, etc. Hundreds of streaming channels are available through the Roku platform. Many of them free. Some you pay for. But you decide.
In recent years I find myself streaming directly through my laptop devices more and more so the large television screen in the den is pretty much turned off most of the time now.
> You’d think Spanish stations would provide English subtitles. <
That would be cultural appropriation. Whaddya trying to do, start a riot?
The Roku can work with teh TV, though, right?
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