Posted on 05/06/2014 12:51:00 PM PDT by jeannineinsd
Cable TV's sports costs are prompting a growing number of people to "cut the cord".
Exhibit A: The $8 billion charged by the Dodgers for broadcast rights to their games knowing full well that pay-TV companies would have to pass along this sky-high cost to all customers.
Time Warner Cable is the Dodgers' partner in crime. It paid that whopping sum for exclusive rights to distribute the Dodgers channel to other pay-TV companies, assuming, like the team, that it would get away with sticking both fans and non-fans with an extra $4 to $5 fee every month.
The harsh reality, however, is that most Southern California pay-TV customers already are forking out big bucks for local sports that they may never watch.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Sports has become indispensable for TV networks. It’s pretty much the only thing people watch live anymore, so they can charge advertisers more, and also push their other shows better. Knowing that networks desperately need sports means the leagues and teams get to charge more, of course then the networks have to charge everybody (advertisers and cable companies more), but we keep watching the sports.
Aren’t all the NFL playoffs and World Series games on network?
They are here in Indiana.
He’s paying $228 per month - Cable TV makes up $128 of that and phone and internet make up the other $100.
I dropped NFL Sunday Ticket 3 years ago, the only games I could watch were ones I had no interest in.
I am waiting to see what happens with the SEC network.
Add that to the horrible programming on EVERY cable channel. All fake reality teevee and tired rehashes on the "history" channels reminding us all ONE MORE TIME that the US won WW2.
It actually worked pretty well for a while, but several years ago it started to get worse and worse, to the point where now I’m not sure it has any value at all.
See, that's what I get for skimming.
They should be but channels like ESPN won’t allow it. Here ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN Deportes are in the basic package and ESPN Classic is in the $6.99/month sports tier. Then there’s Fox Sports 1 in the basic and Fox Sports 2 in the sports tier. NFL Red Zone is in the sports tier and it’s the only reason I see paying $6.99 a month for it, so I add the sports tier during football season and drop it after the Super Bowl.
Huh? I pay $47 a month for Internet! I don’t know of any one who pays $100 a month unless they have a T-1 superfast speed connection.
I only have the fastest available broadband line in my neck of the woods, 5 mps high speed broadband and that is plenty fast enough.
Between the rabbit ears and the internet, I have no reason to pay for cable.
I know - Ive been thinking about it - I really like the movies there - Crackle is another good one - Roku even has free channels with old drive in movies and westerns etc
Yep. Mine got me jacked into the $200’s (no competition here). So now only internet from cable. Antenna, Netflix & Redbox for TV, looking at Hulu. $40 for a voip box + voip service provider for home phone for a few bucks a month.
Cable companies lobbied hard against a la carte options, killed it in 2006. Now, they’re losing people, like me, in droves.
Now, after going to just internet, I get mail, email and phone solicitations constantly from them to come back to their triple play. F’em.
Three years ago I dumped satellite and put up my own antenna. I get around 70 channels via broadcast TV, many of which are extremely good channels.
Just this last week I moved my antenna onto a 10 foot mast and added a rotator, and now I pick up even more channels, and the ones that I already got I get even better than before.
There’s no going back for me. In 3 years I’ve saved close to $3,000.00. And I’ve put my money where my mouth is.
I would love that. Sports to me is a waste of good bandwidth.
Years ago when I was working at a public TV network, there was a hue and cry from the local high priest of freelance big buck sports that was our dept.head to watch more sports to get a better idea on how to do replays and the like. I said something along those lines to him. That didn’t go over very well. I didn’t care since I held a trump card that could have gotten him sued with him being the (non) friend of the veteran and such.
At the time the high priest and the other connected minions who were in the clique making big side money loved to lord over us little people.
The main way it was done was with the financial disaster of endless jr. high, high school, and no-name college team sports. All it did was funnel money to their buddies and ruin weekends for us making the piddly state job money. One of the lies that I didn’t buy that others did is that would be a good way to get in to the good money. A few of us sensible people knew getting in was by invitation only and I did everything I could to no go on those remotes. For the most part I succeeded. In the end I was proven right since the cliques hadn’t changed one iota.
Unless the law is changed, cable companies are prohibited from offering a la carte channels.
That’s what most people think. And it’s one hundred percent false.
People think that because the cable companies want them to think that.
The truth is it’s perfectly legal for cable companies to offer a la carte channel purchasing. But there’s more money to be made with ‘”mandatory” packages, so they straight-up lie about why they “can’t” let you buy just the channels you want.
What individual cities need to do is start reviewing their contracts with cable providers. Award the franchise only to companies willing to offer a la carte channels. Cities own cable delivery system rights, just like the American public owns the broadcast airwaves.
I see the cable TV business model dying unless the industry switches to an a la carte plan. Let consumers decide what channels they want to watch.
Its more of a hassle to administer but happy customers are better than those who “cut the cord.” They’ll do it in the end because they’re already losing money.
Also waiting to see what happens with that. Is the network going to be on basic pay TV causing price increases or it’s own subscription package? They’re still not sure. ESPN/ABC isn’t going to compete with what’s mostly their own product.
Fox has a Roku app that allows you to watch Fox network programming like “24”.
I watch this all the time especially for sports, and when the games are blacked out here in san diego they are on on this... free even
If you live in the city, you have lots of choices.
Those of us living in the boondocks have a choice between satellite or cable. OTA reception is lousy so we cough up the bucks.
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