Posted on 11/02/2019 9:34:00 PM PDT by Steven Scharf
Portland Press Herald November 1, 2019
Cable companies want judge to pause new Maine law requiring à la carte channel choices
BY EDWARD D. MURPHY STAFF WRITER
A Maine federal judge is deciding whether to put a temporary hold on a first-in-the-nation law that requires cable companies to offer channels on an à la carte basis, a case that pits consumer choice against corporate control.
Federal District Court Judge Nancy Torreson did not indicate when she might rule on the request for a temporary restraining order sought by the Comcast cable company and nine cable broadcasters, including Disney, Fox Cable and NBC/Universal. The cable company and broadcasters sued the state and more than a dozen towns and cities in September over the new state law, which would require cable operators to allow customers to pick and pay for channels they receive on an individual basis.
Cable companies generally offer channels in bundled packages, and critics say that forces consumers to pay for channels they’re not interested in watching in order to receive the channels they do want.
The à la carte cable law was passed by the Legislature earlier this year and took effect in September. It would likely have to be enforced by individual towns and cities, because the cable companies have franchise agreements with municipalities. But the state has indicated it would hold off pushing for enforcement until the lawsuit is settled.
. . .
A lawyer representing Comcast told Torreson on Friday that the law would limit choices and lead to higher prices for consumers. Matthew Brill said that channels with more limited viewership would likely fold or no longer provide programming in places with à la carte systems. That would allow the more popular channels to raise prices for their programming, he said.
The Maine law “seeks to alter, fundamentally, the way cable service is provided,” Brill said. “It would upend the economics of this industry.”
But Torreson replied that it appeared to her that “the state is trying to get a better deal for customers.”
As to the merits, I agree with the concept of the law.
A-HA! What I’ve been advocating for years!!! Hit these racketeers right in the wallet. I’m fed up with these hive-minded conglomerates dominating media content and running off the competition and upstarts. That’s why we cord-cut and we exist on streaming, on-demand media and voice services quite nicely, thank you.
It will be interesting to see how the judge rules.
If allowed, it could challenge the whole cable and streaming TV entities.
I know I get around 100 channels and watch, maybe, 12 to 15. I had to purchase a ‘tier’ of 20 channels just to get BBC America — which I later dropped because BBC-A turned out to be awful — little more than reruns of StarTrek:The Next Generation.
Ala carte would increase prices on the most popular, but one would not be subsidizing all of the others.
I like the concept too, but I don’t think. the government should force a company to provide a product that the company doesn’t want to produce.
I suppose Comcast et al could just decide not to offer their wares in Maine.
Anyone who still subscribes to cable or satellite need to have their head examined.
I don’t even have local TV.
Customers choosing channels? We can’t have that.
When I built my house 28 years ago I bought 200+’ of coax from the local cable company (in hopes that their lines might some day be extended) and buried it in the trench along my electric and landline underground service feed..
Still waiting.
Last year the company “generously” offered to pay $1500.00 of the cost of extending the line if I would pony up an additional $15,000.00.
You read that correctly—no misplaced decimal.
“So what if a neighbor wants to tap in?”
“Oh, they’ll just pay a basic hook-up fee”.
FOXTROT YANKEE!
In Hong Kong we could get over 100 English channels and a few Chinese language channels or bunches of Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog, Malay or even some French and German.
Xfinity in Houston is the pits. We must have the basic cable as the condo complex pays for it. But if you go up from 60 to 80 percent seems to be Spanish language or soft porn.
We watch free streaming using the Roku
I get Spectrum streaming through an app on my Roku.
I picked 10 non premium (HBO, Showtime, that sort) channels and get all the local channels for $20 a month not counting internet costs.
I haven’t watched TV since 2009.
Don’t miss it a bit.
Actually, if we could pay for only what we wanted, I just might decide to get cable.
Until then, forget it.
Sounds like Spectrum. Son used to sell for them and some of their quotes for people that are far from the main box are out of this world. I’ve heard as high as 25,000.00.
.
Yeah, I don’t know why people are concerned with what the cable company will do or allow ... just cut the cord and then using a streaming service like roku, sign up for what you want - your own
a l a carte service. All you need is wifi which you probably already have for your computer, tablets, phones etc.
Can’t get ESPN or HGTV yet but you get used to that. You can get all kinds of movie channels from Hallmark to HBO along with Netflix, Amazon etc.
Nation-Wide Ala Cart for EVERYONE-
we don’t need to be paying for 42 channels in languages we don’t even speak- don’t need 700 channels of crap- don’t want to be forced to pay for channels that throw the gay agenda in our faces- don’t want to pay for liberal dominated network channels etc etc etc-
Need a law requiring newspapers to offer their sections a la carte, and home improvement stores, and shoe stores, and book stores, and supermarkets, and restaurants and....Why should I pay for the overhead for women’s and kids’ shoes?
“She’s” an Obummer judge, no faith in decision whatsoever
If you have access to streaming services and a VPN, this is the way to go. If what you want is live sports, there are ways to get it, sometimes for free.
The cable companies actually have some channels that PAY them to be carried - the shopping channels and the religious channels. Those may be offered or put on for free. Many other channels are bundled by the content provider that demands the cable company carry the low-watched channel to carry the popular one. In other words, you’re paying to watch the Disney Channel, ESPN and your ABC affiliate but you are also getting extra Disney and ESPN channels at little to no cost. The same is true with Fox, Turner and Viacom.
Pay-per-view would still be pay-per-view - no savings there.
I suspect the a-la-carte structure would be something like: Disney Channel $5/mo. Disney plus all the related Disneys $6/mo. ESPN $10/mo (rights fees aren’t cheap you know). ESPN and ESPN2 $12/mo. ESPN, ESPN2 and all the related ESPNs $14/mo.
See where I’m going? Don’t believe that since you have 50 channels and your bill is $50/mo that you’ll be able to choose the channels you want for $1/mo each. It won’t work that way. The cable carrier could not stay in business like that.
A-la-carte might actually cause some bills to go up if they really do like a variety of channels because the total of the sum of the favorite channels will be more than the packaged cost provided by the cable company now as a way to attract new customers.
Careful, some TV addict will accuse you of virtue signaling.....
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