Posted on 05/09/2013 12:34:44 PM PDT by Teflonic
John McCain wants to unbundle cable and to stop broadcasters like CBS and Fox from moving their stations to pay TV. The Arizona senator right now on the Senate floor is introducing The TV Consumer Freedom Act of 2013 (read it here). The legislation is intended to “allow the consumer, the television viewer who subscribes to cable, to have à la carte capability. In other words, not required to buy a whole bunch of channels that that consumer may not want wish to subscribe to,” McCain said moments ago. The former GOP Presidential candidate also went after broadcasters like CBS and Fox who have said that they could move to cable if they lose in the courts against Barry Diller’s Aereo streaming service. “We’ll also establish consequences if broadcasters choose to downgrade their over-the-air service,” McCain told the Senate. His legislation would also eliminate the sports blackout rule “in events that are held in publicly financed stadiums.”
The proposal is expected to meet heavy resistance among the cable companies. ”Only Dish and Cablevision have been for a la carte and smaller bundles because we think it’s consumer-friendly”, Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen said during his company’s conference call today. “Having said that, there are five big groups that probably have enough clout in Congress to stop that legislation today. He added that “the marketplace is going to determine” if the price is too high. “There’s an awful lot of people who don’t consume (200 channels)”, he said, “and most of us would like to look for creative solutions”.
“This is unfair and wrong — especially when you consider how the regulatory deck is stacked in favor of industry and against the American consumer”, he said. “You can only do that when you have a monopoly”, he added.
(Excerpt) Read more at deadline.com ...
Every Sports league will charge separate.
The airwaves could be finally pay as you go.
I solved the problem years ago when I quit watching tv.......You’d be surprised how good life is without that squawking in the background.
We watch an episode or two of a series on Netflex each night—and that’s it!
My dream channel lineup:
The Blaze
Fox News
Fox Business
History Channel
History Channel 2
BBC America
Sci Fi Channel (I refuse to call it syfy)
The Hub
Cartoon Network
Local Fox Station
Discovery Channel
USA Network
TNT Network
Those are the only channels I have watched in the last few yesr and some of them for only ONE show...
We pulled the plug on cable. So happy to do so. Our children have played outside for hours every day since. Well, it helps when we ban them from the xbox.
I have had it with paying for propagandists that hate what is good and love what is evil.
Something can be done. It’s called the Free Market.
Nobody is forcing you to pay for anything right?
If people don’t like the prices, ditch the service. Geez.
We live in a free country. Anytime the government touches
something it screws it up.
Agreed, I think even HAVING an FCC that manages CONTENT is a gross OVERSTEP of federal power.
I think the FCC should only be a small group of nerds with slide rules and degrees in Electromagnetic engineering who make sure devices don;t spew out all sorts of EM and that you dopn;t have two stations talking over each other....
Which means we cut the FCC’s staff and funding down to less than 1% of what it currently is....
Mind your own business McCain. The country is broke, the system is broke, we are being invaded and attacked, the Constitution is gone and THIS is important?
God help us.
The reason this won’t work is that most of the cable stations are owned by the networks. They require you buy all of their channels or none.
So if you choose not to get ABC, you won’t get any ESPN or Disney.
Don’t want F/X? Then you lose FoxNews, etc.
It’s not “government overreach” because cable is like the water company or the electric company. It’s not a true free market. The government (us) is already involved.
There can be five hot dog carts on the same street; but we’ve all agreed it’s impossible to have five sets of cables running to your house so you can take your pick.
So one company is awarded (by government) the chance to serve a particular area. No competition.
Since the consumer can’t take their business elsewhere, as in the case of the lousy hot dog cart, the only way to make cable companies responsive to what the consumer wants is government regulation.
The consumer wants a la carte cable. If the cable companies don’t think they still can make money offering it, then they need to give up their local franchises to other providers who can.
Wrong my friend, McCain has never been a friend of cable.
If this passes ESPN will cost you $20.00 per month. They may give up subscribers but not cash.
Actually, I do have an analog TIVO with a gigabyte HD and dual tuners, but f*k#n;g Comcast forced us to put digital adapters on all the TVs, so now the TIVO is useless. Comcast’s reply? You’ll have to rent one from us.
The important part is if they dont offer free airway service that bandwidth is available again and some local broadcaster can pick it up. Also there will no longer be restriction on sporting events. Your local town/city can show any Sports game that built the stadium or coliseum.
ala carte will not allow cable companies to package it. The law would force a channel per channel charge.
Who would want ESPN?
They’re openly anti-american, and anti-christian, and anti-normal.
so instead of paying 100 dollars for 100 chanels you will pay 10 dollars for 20 channels.
The solution would be to make contracts that require must carry clauses illegal. If you want espen you have to take espn 2-15,
can it be worse?
I have, I guess you’d call it, 2nd Tier on Time Warner Cable. No premium channels like HBO or Showtime.
They’ve moved a channel every couple of months to the upper tiers so now I’ve got about 70 channels.
Sounds good doesn’t it?
But that 70 includes 3 Spanish channels, 3 shop at homes, 5 copies of the same IROC channel, and a number of other stations that have 2 or more - one regular and one HD.
Who the F does he think he is? Is he going to introduce legislation to mandate what is in a happy meal?
Cable TV is not a utility. It is not essential to life. In fact, there is not a single “exclusive” cable contract in the country. If you wish to spend the money to build cable plant, and you agree to the terms of the agreement with licensing agency, you too can build a cable system.
The cable TV/Broadband plant was the largest privately funded construction project in history.
The government has no business sticking their nose into that business. If unbundling was profitable, they would have done it years ago. This is simply clear evidence that these idiots have no idea how to run a business.
F McCain. He is the biggest idiot of them all.
...that should have read a terabyte HD.
Put the digital adaptor on a switch box or on the Tivo, and tell communistcast to shove it.
“However, it is deeply insidious for us to continue down the path of dictating what services private companies must offer.”
It’s not a “private company” when you are enjoying government controlled access to public infrastructure via cable systems.
Would you say the electric company is “private” and should be unregulated? How about water service?
Cable is a PUBLIC utility. Private companies are allowed to use public infrastructure... but they MUST be responsive to the public. We don’t own the content, but we own the means of transmission.
ABC, CBS, and NBC might be private companies... but they don’t exist without a license to broadcast on the public airwaves. That’s why they’re also subject to regulation.
Why shouldn’t cable companies be subject to regulation? I own their means of transmission. It’s my street.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.