Posted on 12/03/2005 6:43:34 AM PST by cloud8
At least 2 companies break rank, express support for options
WASHINGTON -- Conservative groups love the idea of letting television viewers pay for only the channels they want on cable and are happy it's back on the table in Washington, where lawmakers and regulators are fed up with raunchy television.
While the cable industry generally loathes the notion of an à la carte pricing system, at least one cable company and a potentially big cable competitor have embraced it.
À la carte would allow cable subscribers to pick and pay for individual channels rather than being forced to buy packages. A parent, for example, could pick Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network -- and not have to take MTV or other channels they may find objectionable as part of a bundled package.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I understand your rhetorical point. But your statement "markets never fail" is not true. There are market failures.
"I'm not kidding you one bit when I say that with an increasing & alarming frequency my bride & I will sit down to be entertained in the evening (around 7PM CST) and there's not one thing showing which piques our interest, not one."
Slight hijack - everybody should have Tivo. Ever how much time you spend watching TV in a week whether it's 2 hours a week or 40 hours a week you might as well have all your favorite programming available right then.
Ya beat me to it!!!!!!
Flat out best way to charge for cable is to meter it like electricity-- every time you turn on the boob tube, the meter starts to turn.
You get "access" to every channel the provider carries (except the ones you block out for your own personal reasons), and maybe there are two or three tiers of cost. FOX might be 1 or 2 cents for a five minute block while HBO might be 3 or 4 cents per block-- something like that.
You get a bill for EXACTLY what you watch-- AND there is an insentive not to just turn the damn thing on an veg out for hours on end.
> Let the market sort out what survives and what doesn't. I suspect there's more market for the educational channels than one might first imagine.
For PBS? Talk about the heavyweights subsidizing the low viewership channels. I'll bet PBS'll fight a la carte with everything they've got. Save Big Bird!
"You want peopled who don't want all those channels to subsidize your TV viewing."
I do? First I've heard of it. I just want those channels, and I'm willing to pay for it. You can have whatever you like. It's of no concern to me. You can even shut off your cable or dish and that would be fine with me.
You have me mistaken with somebody else.
I like the idea and might subscribe to cable (or satellite) again if I could pick and choose the channels I wanted. Most of the channels in the bundles don't hold any interest for me and I shouldn't have to subsidize something that lacks sufficient audience appeal to make it on its own.
"You can hear all the Russian you want on a cheap short wave set. Breaking news as it happens...depending on who controls the media at any given moment."
That's true, and I have three such shortwave radios, none of them cheap. The good ones work better. However, I cannot see live stuff on any of them. I'd rather see it as well as hear it.
And drive viewership down more? Seems doubtful :)
There are very few channels now that aren't part of a larger family, and likely all the channels you're interested in fall into that category.
While we're on the subject of interesting cable programming, do youselves a favor and find out when the next showing of the "THE WOMAN WITH HALF A BODY" is being shown on The Learning Channel again. I swear to you, watching this show changed my outlook on life. This woman is my hero, and you'll see why when you watch it. I think it should be required viewing for everyone. If you do catch it, let me know what you think.
Yikes. Sounds scary.
Here's some dirty little secrets about the cable industry you may not know:
1) Cable pricing is set mostly by a few 800-pound gorillas like ESPN/Disney. Let's say ESPN wants broad carriage of their new "ESPN U" channel. At the next time their contract with a company is up, they tell the cable system that they can carry ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, ESPN Classic, ESPN Deportes, ESPN GamePlan and ESPNU for $15 per subscriber. If the cable system says "we want ESPN and ESPN2 but not the others", ESPN will say "Fine, that will be $25 per subscriber." Placement of the "junk" channels is part of ESPNs way of gaining greater visibility and squeezing the competition for available channel space which they can then turn around and sell more ad time to their advertisers saying the ad will reach more homes.
2) The shopping channels (QVC, etc.) actually PAY to be carried. It cuts the cost of your cable bill.
3) Some religious channels offer their programming free of charge. Their belief is that reaching people for God is more important than turning a profit.
4) A true a-la-carte system would cause prices to go up because advertising rates would go down (less potential eyeballs for each channel) so the cable customer would wind up paying a larger share for the rights fees and production costs of the products they watch. More events, especially sporting events, would probably go to pay-per-view as a result.
I think the best solution for both worlds is a-la-carte by interest group. You'd get a standard tier of the major channels plus some channels that are free or pay for access then additional add-on packages: sports, news, music video, music audio, family/children, classic movie, women's programming, science/discovery, spanish language, etc.
This would make for some unholy alliances. To get FNC, you'd also have to get CNN. To get CMT, you also have to get MTV, etc. But you could eliminate entire groups of channels that you have no interest in or don't wish to subsidize and probably see some savings based on that.
"Give me a break, the cable industry is in collusion with the media conglomerates to get us to consume as much crap even if we really don't want it. I don't want my MTV and I shouldn't have to take the time to go block it or support it in any way. Echostar is the exception as they wanted to start offering smaller packages ala carte but Viacom had a shitfit and put a stop to it."
I saw the promos for it while watching (with amazement) the "Electric Orgasm" special on TLC.
But I went to bed before the second airing of "...Half a Body"
Of course you can - turn off your TV and stop paying for cable/satellite.
Not if I just want Fox News. There is no free market. It's an all or nothing deal.
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