Suit Seeks 'A La Carte' TV Channel Choices 350
An anonymous reader writes "A breathtaking lawsuit was filed this week against every major player in the 'for-pay' television industry. Every major broadband and cable company in the US was named in the federal suit, which seeks the right to obtain content piecemeal rather than in the large (and expensive) packages that cable companies offer as the only option right now. This follows closely on the heels of encouraging comments from the FCC chair that he supports this kind of service. 'The complex web of contractual arrangements among service providers and networks amounts to a monopoly or cartel that has "deprived consumers of choice, caused them to pay inflated prices for cable television and forced them to pay for cable channels they do not want and do not watch," [antitrust lawyer Maxwell M. Blecher] wrote in the complaint filed on behalf of cable subscribers in several states. The complaint, which alleges a conspiracy to monopolize as well as violations of federal antitrust laws, names nine plaintiffs, but Blecher wants the U.S. District Court to certify it as a class action.'"
they have a up hill battle (Score:5, Informative)
They need to start there making it illegal for networks to demand that if you want to carry or subscribe to XYZ channel you do not have to get DEF and the crappy ZBZ channel as well.
True... (Score:5, Insightful)
It comes down to the fact that their business model is more and more dated by technology. No one is obligated to provide them a free ride.
Re:True... (Score:5, Interesting)
digital cable boxes can do alacarte Tv channels right now. we demoed it 4 years ago at a comcast meeting in detriot. current gear and billing and control system can do it RIGHT NOW. It's the content providers that are forcing most of the bundling.
Oh and the greatest profits are from the bundling, but all the cable companies will use the "we cant under contract" excuse to wiggle out.
you have to attack the content creators first.
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Not true (Score:2, Informative)
Not true. Cable companies offer packages of channels. They carefully separate their "money maker" channels (sports, movies, documentaries) into different packages. If you want the local stations, they're on the basic package. If you also want the sports channels, you have to buy the bronze package. If you also want, say, the Discovery channel... no you can't just add one channel. You have to upgrade to the silver package. No, you can't tra
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The poster wasn't referring to what the customer is allowed to do with the boxes, which is what you'll see from the buttons on the front and the remote's options.
The poster was referring to what sorts of things are technically possible with a digital cable box.
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Oh? Well if you don't mind watching it on youtube--with crappy sound and resolution--sure, there's no technical problem.
However, if we all wanted even NTSC resolution/sound fidelity at fairly good bitrate and framerate (read: better than iTunes), we would be in a world of sh!t.
There really isn't enough
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Re:True... (Score:5, Funny)
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Course, I wouldn't count 'viewership' as actually watching it. There's a world of difference between making something available and someone actually taking advantage of it.
Sadly this is often overlooked by media companies.
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you have to justify to the guy buying your Ad air time why he is not wasing money on a channel that is probably not going to get viewed.
You're an idiot. (Score:3, Insightful)
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"To comprehend the dimension of our task, let's look at the numbers. We collect information from approximately 25,000 metered households starting at about 3 a.m. each day, process approximately 10 million viewing minutes a day,
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I'm fucking tired of paying through the nose so that I can have 10 religious channels, 15 infomercial channels and half a dozen "public access" channels where my hard earned tax money goes to provide facilities for nutjobs, lunatics, religious freaks and potheads to shake their jonk (Jim Spagg) or drone on with poor pr
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Seriously. Why do you want to legislate that private corporati
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Several burger chains sell extra paties ala carte. "OEM" versions of cars and trucks exist and as well as plenty of aftermarket mosds. You can get marinara in ANY variety you want. They even sell versions without the high fructose corn syrup.
In real capitalism, there's someone to scoop up every last available penny and niche players and products thrive.
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Because they are being granted a monopoly on service in a given area. When the consumer cannot influence the supplier through the free market, other methods must be used.
The cable company has the choice to not offer cable in that area if they don't like the terms. You can't force the company to sell to you, just mandate that if they would like the monopoly to sell to all town residents without competitio
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I used to have this... (Score:2)
It wound up bought by Time Warner over a decade ago, and one of the first moves TW did, removing a la carte.
The colors duke! (Score:2)
A little bit of the green
But none of that blue stuff! Hold the blue channel!
The colors, they're breathtaking!
Wait, that's not what it meant? But i want 73 channels of garbage just so that i can watch my history, discovery, and cartoon network!
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Re:The colors duke! (Score:4, Insightful)
Look people, ala carte might sound good, until you realize that in order to remain revenue neutral the people who watch the popular channels will pay less, and those who watch the more obscure stuff will pay more. And who are we kidding the cable companies aren't going to roll out a new pricing scheme that is revenue neutral, so in reality only those who choose the only the most popular networks will pay the same (and get less), and anyone who wants anything out of the ordinary (read: slashdot) will pay more.
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Then again, many channels that are never watches are also included in the rate. So while a single channel may go up, it is likely offset by not having the other 90 channels we never watch. Besides, ala carte does not mean packages can not be offered. Which in turn means, low priced channel packages. Rather, it likely means real channel packages which people will
The sad sad death of fine quality programing (Score:2, Funny)
Excellent News (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Excellent News (Score:5, Insightful)
This is awesome. I have a 'digital plus' cable package with over 200 channels, which I had to buy because the 4-5 channels I regularly watch were on that list. I would love to get rid of the other 190 channels or so, (200-(5 I watch)-(5 or so others I occasionally use/check)) and if I could get a price cut at the same time, that'd be even better.
That won't happen. If anyone thinks they can take their current bill and divide by the fraction of channels they watch to get a new a la carte bill, they're deluding themselves.
I'm also not quite getting the basis of the lawsuit. Can I sue the grocery store for refusing to sell me one egg?
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Of course. BUT, if you look at the rates for C-band which is a la carte you will discover that news, sports, adult material and current entertainment channels are MUCH more expensive than routine Discover channel, TV show rerun, etc channels. Ask not who pays the ridiculous salaries of top athletes -- you and I do when we
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Can I sue the grocery store for refusing to sell me one egg?
Maybe not, but the grocery store (at least mine) also offers eggs in packages of 2, 6, 12, and 18.
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You can't afford them either way. (Score:3, Interesting)
Dumb person:
I am paying $100/month for 200 channels, but I only watch 5. If I could pay ala-carte, I could get the 5 channels I want for only $2.50!
Smart Person:
If I and everyone else only pay for 5 channels instead of 200 channels, each channel gets 97.5% less revenue, and either raise their rates by 4000% to compensate, or they go out of business. (Even that isn't quite right as it ignores the components of cos
A La cart channels NO - A La cart programing SI! (Score:5, Insightful)
I want analog cable... (Score:2)
80% discount theme park tickets (Score:3, Interesting)
No, but you have a choice (Score:5, Interesting)
and you have a choice.
I am juste olde enough to remember pinning myself at Disneyland CA with the cute pins and my ticket to indicate having an all day pass-- as opposed to paying per ride... but-- I don't have to go to disneyland... I can go to the local carnival....
furthermore, amusement parks don't have governmental granted monopolies over a certain geographical area.
Businesses with Gov granted exclusive privleges by god do need clamping down/regulations.. or they will certainly run rampant... and this goal has no real hurdles, other than the desires for a fat bottom line on the part of the corps.
nothing else... and if the 'people' grant them the exclusive privlege of serving the 'people' then the 'people' should be able to place limits on what they get..
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You have choice in the matter.
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Re:80% discount theme park tickets (Score:5, Funny)
You're on the wrong website.
Go Lawyer, Go! (Score:3, Interesting)
In my area, I can get basic cable ($50), the local high-def channels ($0), and a DVR ($9). Sounds pretty good, right?
Oh wait, if I want the "Navigator" functionality (the ability to use the digital cable's menus and program recordings), I have to pay $3 AND purchase a $30 "Digital Tier" pack of complete crap channels.
If I built a new MythTV box (no local phone line, so no TiVo... has that changed lately?), it would take several years to recoup my costs. Monetarily, I don't think it would be worth it; however, it's tempting to take a hit just to make sure the money I do spend doesn't end up in Time Warner's pocket.
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Yes [hackrag.com], and it's been that way for a while. I don't even think the Tivo HD has a phone line plug on it, just wired Ethernet and USB for wireless. The series 2 had only USB for wired or wireless Ethernet with a separate phone plug.
I'll admit to having tinkered with MythTV and it has a lot of potential, but without investing more than I would on the box than I would for a Tivo, it would be hard to pass the Wife Test. All three of the Tivo's I've purch
I see the point sorta but... (Score:2, Interesting)
I want an a la carte TV channel as well. I only want to pay for the shows I watch. I also want an a la carte newspaper. I don't care about the sport section so stop charging me for it. The thing is though that a cable company can offer channels for less by packaging them. I might not really be too keen to pay as much as someone with kids for a kid's channel, but there's occasionally something good so I'm willing to pay a small extra in addition to other chann
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Well, here's your problem (Score:5, Interesting)
We would love to offer a la carte programming, but there are two huge obstacles.
1) Many times, we are charged per cable subscriber for a network even if we don't offer it the subscriber. ESPN is this way, as well as some of the sports channels. You'll pay for it as a customer even if you don't want it, because we get charged for it. That charge is comming to you one way or another, either through a package price or a base price as a cost of business. If you don't want ESPN, we're still paying for you to have it.
2) Many networks like Discovery and Fine Living give us massive price breaks if we show their second and third tier channels to a certain percent of subscribers. If we ran an a la carte service, this would be a nightmare. It means that if in a given month, if 30% of our subscribers didn't want Fine Living, but wanted Food TV, your price would triple. Do you really want to have a monthly bill that fluctuates that badly from month-to-month based on the whim of a TV network?
This isn't meant to FUD you. God knows, we'd like to be able to offer you a la carte, we have the technology to do it. And honestly, even though cable and sat companies piss customers off, we don't really want to. You are our customers. But to the networks, YOU ARE NOT THE CUSTOMER, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. The advertisers are the customers, and they are selling your eyeballs. Until that situation changes, and the networks have less power over us in contact negotiations, you probably won't see a la carte. For all the malfeasance you can lay at the feet of cable companies, this is surprisingly not included.
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Innovative (Score:5, Interesting)
But we can't do that. They wouldn't let us show Fine Living but NOT Food Network. We could potentially do a la carte for packages, but we kinda do that already. The only improvement would be to break the bigger packages along networks. But you'll still see lots of crap channels bundled with the likes of Viacom.
Remember, our relationship with networks isn't friendly. Comcast got sued, and we're under current litigation over the remote DVR "Start Over" service. It's copyright infringement to start the show over if you switch the channel, because we're the ones recording it, not you. Heck, we get threats all the time during negotiations over offering the DVR service. Networks are convinced that home recording is illegal and think we may be liable because we aren't forcing you to watch your show in 3 days without skipping commercials or delete it. They think shifting the commercial time as much as 30 minutes ruins the value of the commercial.
Sure, we may be incompetent from no weak competition. But we don't get get our jollies by screwing customers. Remember, if a network can keep your eyeballs, they'll run roughshod over you. Viacom knows there's no substitute for MTV, but God knows if we piss off enough customers, sat TV would destroy us.
Re:Innovative (Score:5, Insightful)
I see this as an illegal use of a monopoly. Fine Living as a product has a monopoly granted to it by copyright. No one else can take Fine Living and resell it without permission (and a contract) from the content owners. Yes, there may be other channels that offer shows on the same theme, but they are not the same thing.
And so the owners of the Fine Living monopoly force their customers to also buy Food Network if they wish to buy Fine Living. This is what I see as the illegal part. It's not illegal to have a monopoly - heck, copyright law grants it every day, even to this post to Slashdot. But it is illegal (or should be illegal) to use a monopoly to force your way into other markets, or to use your monopoly to expand your monopoly. That's how I see content providers' bundles.
Note: If you wish to republish this post, you are required to exclusively buy and use SydShamino brand toothpaste. That's right, SydShamino brand toothpaste, with less glycol than the competition!
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The GP says that their negotiations with the content providers is our problem. It isn't. It's their (the cable company and content providers) problem. Let me pick the channels I want and pay for them. If content providers want to give me channels for free, with no strings attached, fine.
A commercial free network with premium content (HBO, etc)? I
Premium vs non-premium (Score:3, Insightful)
Interestingly, channels like HBO and Cinemax (Time-Warner companies) are cheap compared to ad network channels like ESPN (around $6 a head). Our basic access, which is dirt cheap at under $10 a month, you get the local channels, and the shop-at-home channels. It's pretty much free to send it to you, because the shop-at-home channels pay us per subscriber, subsidizing the line.
But places like NFL network and ESPN charge us for them, even though we don't send them the signal for their channel. NFL costs
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Re:Well, here's your problem (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be a nice guy. Just leave the whole damnded cable tv company when you get a chance. Their business model is doomed and they are headed to where radio is. As you correctly point out, in the advertisement supported video content model, the viewers are product, not customers. People with more discretionary income will be quickly cherry picked by internet based content delivery systems. As the high income people drop out of the viewership, you need to get louder and shriller with the ads and that will drive more people out. Once all people who are willing to pay for the content leave, the disposable income of the viewers left in your domain will be very small. You might still have 50% of the current viewers, but disposable income is very unevenly distributed towards the higher end. Your top 20% of the viewers have 80% of the disposable income. It does not take much for the ad supported model to lose 50% or 66% of the value.
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I have trouble imagining how a non-ad-supported model would work, especially for the majority of Americans who watch a lot more TV than the average Slashdotter. Let's take Friends for example - that show reputedly would pull in $500K per min per new episode in commercial revenue. Considering there are some 8 minutes of commercials, that's $4M per night.
Now, that show was immensely popular, so let's say it had... 10M viewers that night (I'm pulling this number out of my bottom, but I imagine 10M is fairly
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Many networks like Discovery and Fine Living give us massive price breaks if we show their second and third tier channels to a certain percent of subscribers.
This system isn't written in stone. I assume the people involved are smart enough to come up with another system that works for an A La Carte cable network. Maybe limit the pricing to the average over a whole year? How about pricing based on subscriber demographics? Just because you use one business practice now doesn't mean that is way it always has to be.
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I appreciate you taking the time to post an insider perspective on things, but your conclusion of "For all the malfeasance you can lay at the feet of cable companies, this is surprisingly not included" does not follow from the two reasons you gave. Your company entered into a contract involving viewer-hostile terms rather than negotiating a better deal, and somehow you expect viewers to only be upset with the network providers who proposed this crappy pricing structure, not the cable companies who agreed t
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If you work for Comcast, could you PLEASE put the CEO and the president of the Big Ten into a room and let them beat each other until they can come to SOME agreement about this Big Ten Network fiasco? I really don't care which way it goes (basic, sports level, ala carte, whatever), I just want to watch my Penn State, damnit! I'll pay extra for it, I just want the option.
Yes, I've already called and emailed both sides berating both of them.
And th
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Then don't offer it. If you have to pay $20 per month for ESPN (because it comes bundled with 40 other sports channels) but no one would pay $20 for just that one channel, then you drop it. If there are a few people that would pay for it, offer it. I don't see the problem.
2) Many networks like Discovery and Fine Living give us massive price breaks if we show their second and third tier channels t
Cry all you want (Score:2)
No, we don't treat our customers like mindless drones. Our division has pretty good customer satisfaction. It would be higher if we had serious telecom or sat competition. That's the nature of our market, it's simple economics.
You have two options, study our market, find the inefficiency (lack of cable competition, IP monopolies from the networks), and solve the problem in innovative ways like pollution credits worked for the power industry. Or you can pass stupid laws that create giant externalities
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To be completely honest, that was not my intent in any way. I completely understand the points that the OP is trying to make. The problem comes in where cable co's have complete monopolies in many areas (take my area- very wooded, tall trees so few can get satellite, only one option for cable TV. What does it cost? $75.00 for the basic analog channels the last time I checked). This particular cable company has actively prevented other cable cos from coming in, and those who want cable, pay the
We do this, it's not that effective (Score:3, Interesting)
First, we'll drop smaller networks that try and play rough. We can afford to.
But what happens when Fox wants a better deal? They run commercials saying how the local cable company is trying to take your channels away. Most of our customers think they have a God-given right to TV and we're just getting in our way. It can be surprising what people will do without before going without TV. The pecking order is something along the lines of Rent, power, TV, food, phone, etc on down the line. We'll take lo
Short memories (Score:5, Interesting)
ESPN (Score:3, Insightful)
Department (Score:2)
ESPN (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's silly (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to work for Cox Communications, and in my area, "limited" cable is $11/month (channels 2-22, aka fancy rabbit ears). "Expanded" is an additional ~$30 (23-72). And the digital tiers are something like $2/month (for 5 to 20 channels per tier each). (HBO, Starz, Cinemax, etc, are priced entirely differently).
The digital channels (which are most popular to complain about--probably because there's the perception that there are "hundreds" of them due to their channel numbers reaching into the 300's and 400's in some cases) are by far the cheapest channels there are, and it doesn't make sense to break up a package that cheap.
Where it might have an impact for some people, is breaking up the "Expanded" tier (most cable companies have something similar), as the bulk of that $30/month price is the subscription fee the cable network pays to ESPN (something like $24/mo, if I recall).
If my memory is accurate, and the ESPN fee is $20+/month, then that means the other channels (23-72 minus ESPN) are $10/mo or less. And then it's suddenly very "reasonable" again.
Of course... if cable channels are sold a la carte, then the price per channel will go up by necessity. The *average* cable bill will still be roughly the same as it is now (assuming the programming also stays the same--and of course it wouldn't). The difference would be that families with 8 members who actually use 2 dozen channels would pay a higher cable bill, and single-member households (like mine) will only subscribe to 2 channels, and pay less.
I guess what it all comes down to me is: It's a lot of fuss about something that isn't a big deal, and it's just as likely (if not more likely) to hurt the consumer as it is to help them, except in fringe cases.
End result (Score:2)
Anyone ever heard of this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Has anyone ever heard of this? This sounds like more of an abuse than a cable company setting prices however
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Illegal. See FCC [fcc.gov] regulations [akamaitech.net] on this.
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Guilty Pleasures (Score:3, Funny)
It's the cable equivalent of walking up to the rental counter with Super Slut Cum Fest #9 sandwiched between Howard the Duck and Sleepless in Seattle.
Winds of Change (Score:2)
You can, but it will cost you. (Score:2)
It is actually called a la Carte. You have to get basic digital. Then you can pick 1, 5, or 10 or something like that channels. The crappy part is for the privilege of doing this it seems to cost you more, and also some channels don't seem available in these packages.
'Bout time (Score:2)
No, wait. Let me start over.
I used to work at a cable company, about... crikey, ten years ago. This is in southern Ontario, where average cable penetration is rather higher than it is in the States. I remember hearing from people back then that the hot new thing was going to be the offering of individual channels rather than bloated packages.
Of course, about a year after I left, the company was bought out by a larger one. I
Say goodbye to good programming (Score:3, Interesting)
Ala carte sounds great for my pocketbook, but I'm not willing to give up the good, niche programming that would die off to save a couple extra bucks a month.
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However, one thing that chaps my ass even, er, chappier. Paying for channels that run COMMERCIALS that I will never ever fucking watch (e.g., ESPN*). So, I am basically throwing more money into the pockets of channels that already get revenue from COMME
Tied Selling (Score:2)
C-Band? (Score:2)
I have actually been complaining about this for years. I never watch OLN, BET, ESPN, the Golf Channel, the NFL channel, Fox Sports Network, orh the Soap Opera network, so why am I paying for them? I let myself be talked into a more expensive package simply for the reason of ge
Did you hear horses? (Score:2, Funny)
Sounds like the guy wants podcasts (Score:2)
a) not available with broadcasting (it being BROADcasting an all,)
b) already available with podcasting (or should be.)
The complaint about selection and choice of programs is entirely immaterial.
The material was not available over the broadcast channels either until is was MADE available at some point in time by the content provider and the broadcaster.
The material was not available over the podcast channels eith
The Great Equalizer (Score:2)
A la carte will define the true value of channels. With these insane packages (that essentially force you to get far more channels than you want), the big name providers can use their larger markets as leverage. What cable company would say "no" to ESPN? So, the cable company gets shafted. Now, if the cable company can say "Hey, a la carte just proved to us that 40% of your market came from female-headed households that only got your channel to watch Lifetime and Oxygen in the same bundle," ESPN (and Di
The money has to come from somewhere. (Score:2)
If restrictions on bundling are enforced on the providers, less popular channels from 1 provider will be at an economic disadvantage and will tend to disappear
The problem with ala carte (Score:3, Insightful)
Today, there is a cable/satellite channel dedicated to running old movies. How many people actually watch that enough to justify paying for such a channel? Damn few. How about a cable channel dedicated to television shows with Black actors? Today, there are more than one of these and considering both the number of people interested in such channels and their disposable income, it is doubtful that such channels would survive.
Sure, there would be plenty of people supporting the mainstream pablum that is on USA and FX. Movies with every questionable word silenced or redubbed. SciFi channel might survive, but it has a rather narrow appeal.
Unfortunately, the money required to operate an enterprise as a cable/satellite channel is pretty high. Today, if your offering gets picked up by cable systems you can operate and if not, every goes home to find something else to do. It isn't cheap to do this and it isn't going to be cheap in the future. This means that anything marginal or not clearly focused on the mainstream entertainment experience is going to go by the wayside.
I would miss the SciFi channel. I would miss TVLand and AMC (old movies). But my purchasing these channels on an ala carte basis would not be anywhere near enough to keep them operating.
Ala Carte is a method by which the larger media organizations get to push their message at everyone even more consistently than they can today. Anyone without a dedicated majority of the viewers loses. This has already happened with radio - there are few formats today and they all have mass appeal. Anything for smaller audiences is gone. Ala Carte cable will have exactly the same effect.
My greatest worry (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe this is fair and I can understand people making a free market argument here. But as much as I enjoy the prospect of not giving my money to the bottom-of-the-barrel networks like, say, E!, I am afraid that in the long run this may reduce the amount of quality channels available to me.
I'm not at a point yet where I have the energy to hunt down everything I want to see on the internet and put myself at risk by downloading stuff.
All I'm saying is, be careful what you wish for - you might not like what you get. As much as I can enthusiastically envision my cable box de-crufted of idiocy like the Golf channel (you have got to be kidding me, and this is not a slag on the sport itself), I also see a lot of the stuff I like dying away because the amount of subscribers cannot sustain it.
A better model for TV watching might be direct-to-DVD series that you could rent or buy from a Netflix-like operation. Even on the channels I like, I actually watch a very small percentage of the programming they make available. I don't object to the idea of foregoing cable altogether and instead getting DVDs of shows like Mythbusters or Survivorman, as well as the novel independent and foreign films I have come to rely on for sanity. Ditto bigger shows like Lost (maybe the most high-profile show I've ever liked) and The 4400. This might also provide the opportunity to be able to watch a show with all sorts of random crap popping up on the screen, which drives me batshit insane.
Also, completely offtopic, I'd love to see some kind of NIGHT FLIGHT themed channel which shows random weird crap all day. Wouldn't you? I know I'm not the only one who is sometimes too tired and bored to do anything but watch TV. Wouldn't it be great to have a channel that showed random animation clips, obscure music videos, 50s school scare films, acid-drenched biker films from the 60s, and so on, specifically for people who, like me, can easily flip through 200 channels and find not one thing I want to watch? And it should be a channel with an absurdly lax standards and practices department. Lots of titties, guns, Satanism, and kaleidoscopic psychedelic interludes. John Lydon's mug all up in the camera at least once a day. Boyd Rice racing Ivan Stang on a unicycle. Documentaries on anarchists, neofascists, Moonies, Scientologists, and Extropian VR gurus with no hair. Retro commercials, at random. I am talking Preparation H commercials from 1967. Ads proclaiming the lung-cleansing, expectorant effects of Lucky Strikes. Commodore and Atari 8 bit computer commercials from the 1980s. Drug hysteria films from the 1930s that aren't Reefer Madness. And also Reefer Madness. Nick Zedd films shown without comment or context between Terrytoons shorts. Random outbursts of Sonic Youth. Maybe show the Death Valley '69 video every night at 3:00 AM as some kind of tradition. Dog Police. Racist cartoons. Anti-Nazi WW2 propaganda cartoons. Random weird crap from Japanese television. Movies like Fantastic Planet. Documentaries on Raymond Scott, Laurie Spiegel, Esquivel, Can, Magma...insert your artist or band here. Propaganda films. Obscure blaxploitation flicks. Satanic panic documentaries and films which exploited the phenomenon (there are few things more satisfying to me at 3 AM than a movie like The Devil's Rain).
Re:Nobody is "forced" to buy anything they don't w (Score:2, Insightful)
True, but only if what you want is nothing. If what you want is one or two certain cable channels, you are indeed forced to buy them as part of a package.
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No, you're buying the one or two channels you want for the price of the full package. The extra channels are irrelevant.
(total amount you pay) / (channels you want) = (your price per channel)
For the most part the extra channels are there because they subsidize the channels you want. If you eliminate those channels your overall cost will most likely increase, not decrease.
Re:Goodbye to Small Channels? (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, it's slightly perplexing how channels get away with charging cable companies to carry them; they make money through advertising, and the more viewers they have, the more money they can make this way, yet they also charge cable companies to increase their potential viewership.
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Re:Oh please, you think they'll *lose* money on th (Score:2)
At least, I can hope so.
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Also, it makes it easier for the providers to lie to the advertizers about how many people *might* be watching.