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 ...
My house phone and Cable are OFF. Haven’t watched a sport all year, even when I had cable, and I was a fan of several sports.
Tom Rutledge, the CEO of cable TV company Charter Communications, told Wall Street this week he was "surprised" that 1.3 million of his 5.5 million customers don't want TV.
They just want broadband internet. They're actively NOT subscribing to TV in addition to the web.
"Our broadband-only growth has been greater than I thought it would be," he added.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/charter-cable-ceo-surprised-that-customers-want-internet-not-tv-2013-11#ixzz30yHHoJEb
What is Malware Bytes. Is it something different than my normal antivirus software?
Yes, I wasn’t clear about that. But network bundling imposed on cable carriers is only contractual, not regulatory. It isn’t mandated by the federal government. That’s where the consumer deception comes in.
Cable carriers are under no legal obligation to purchase only packages. If they would simply refuse to purchase the bundles and take the financial hit for a few months. the networks would cave and offer what consumers want.
Cable companies would make up their losses and then some as single-channel-purchase consumers returned to the fold. As it is now, their business is shrinking, not expanding.
If a huge market like Los Angeles simply refused to renew Time Warner’s franchise until they offered a la carte purchasing,that could be the first domino in forcing the networks to be responsive to consumer demand.
Yes, but when you cut the cord on cable, you also give up the local (network) stations. Unless you want to go back to antennas and rabbit ears!
Cable companies would lose the argument if they refused to buy the bundles the networks offer. Every time the cable company and a network get into an argument the network wins, because eventually the network gets blacked out and the viewers want to know where their network that they’re paying for is. Last year Cox and the local CBS had one of their arguments, so CBS went away right before the NFL playoffs, Cox was fighting the good PR fight, all the way up until a previously planned rate hike went into effect. Then Cox customers blew up at them, here they were “fighting” a hike from CBS that amounted to $2 a month, and then they hit us with another rate hike that averaged $8 month. They caved into CBS’ demands within 48 hours of the first bills hitting mailboxes.
I’ll go one further..
un-bundle the channels AND the shows..
Let me pay for just the shows i want to watch.
That’s why a huge market like LA needs to flex the muscle they don’t understand they have.
Cities own the cable franchise, just as the People of the United States own the broadcast airwaves. That’s a huge hand. It’s a royal flush. The city — not Time Warner — decides which cable company gets to scoop up all that revenue. Offer the franchise to the first company that bids with “per channel” pricing.
In a market like LA, it would be a game-changer.
That's why EVERY THINKING PERSON IN THE WORLD is opposed to "Net Neutrality".
They do flex their muscle, they just don’t flex it the way you want. In the end the public considers it the cable company’s job to get them the networks, and they don’t want that service interrupted. Which is why the cable companies always lose the arguments with the network, because the people join the networks’ side.
Cities do not own the cable franchises, they ALLOW the cable monopoly. Very big difference. But in the end the city has no power in that either, if they kicked out cable company X then the cable company would remind them who owns all that cable, and they don’t intend to be selling it to whatever new cable company the city chooses to allow, which means no other cable company is moving in, which means the city won’t be kicking out company X.
I checked out MLB.TV to see what their rates were last year. I am about 300 miles from the team that would be considered ‘local’ for the service.
I also noticed in the fine print that, if the stadium area was blacked out, so would my MLB feed be blacked out.
That sort of defeated the intent of using MLB.TV.
More ‘full episodes’ TV related websites are teaming up with the cable companies. To watch their ‘full episodes’ one has to sign up through a cable company link.
The days of direct linking to the ‘full episodes’ websites are numbered.
a full T-1 is only 1.5 mps but it is rock solid
my total comcast bill is $203, including internet, telephone, and cable with full HD, all movie and most sports channels, multiroom (3) DVRs, converters for 3 old analog sets, and the Xfinity X1 operating platform. This internet speed is with three TVs showing different HD channels in various rooms running concurrently. It is pretty hot.
You hit the nail on the head there.
It’s not just the cable companies (though the sports are a big reason why a la carte won’t happen).
If cable went a la carte, that would be the end of MSNBC, CNN, MTV ... the list of liberal brainwashing channels that would vanish overnight goes on and on ... :-).
You can get a great picture over-the-air (sometimes better than cable depending on their methodology) on a 1080 HD televison with rabbit ears (assuming you’re within signal range).
I think it's too late for that. Netflix and Amazon are the future. Subscribing to a channel (and paying for shows you don't watch) will seem as archaic an idea as subscribing to cable (and paying for channels you don't watch).
The simple fact is that people don't watch channels. They watch shows.
BFL
I had DirecTV with NFL Sunday Ticket for 12 years. Every year the cost escalated. Every year, I paid for it.
Until last year. I cut the cord February 2013 and haven’t missed TV for a minute. Besides stopping smoking it was the best decision I’ve ever made.
I can listen to the games on XM Sirius while doing projects around the house. I did that last year and enjoyed it.
DirecTV sends me flyers and emails, begging me to come back. But, I never will.
I agree.
But when the sports fans are left on their own to pay for those channels, the price will go sky-high. 'Cuz the rest of us who don't give a damn will no longer have to subsidize them.
The "à la carte" crowd might best think hard about what they're wishing for.
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