A La Carte Cable TV Channels?

[GoFish]

Wonder if this will get out of the starting gate??

Post from Slastdot.com
A La Carte Cable TV Channels?
Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday April 15, @05:02PM
from the but-they-gouge-you-on-the-packages dept.
ryantate writes "I was reading TV Tattle and came across an interesting story in the Washington Post about people who spend less than $30 per month on cable buying a la carte. To do this you need a huge C-band dish, but Sen. John McCain wants to require a la carte pricing on digital cable. Content companies like Viacom are fighting it -- they don't want people to be able opt out of their less established channels. And at least one economist type, this guy in the Financial Times, seems to think we'll end up paying just as much under a la carte pricing. EchoStar is game but says Viacom and others are refusing to go along. "

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/04/15/203226.shtml?tid=149&tid=99
Post in Washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13092-2004Apr14?language=printer

[Bob Haller]

This has come up before. Everyone fails to realize the main point!
EVERY CABLE SUB WOULD HAVE TO HAVE A ADDRESSABLE BOX!

Most likely every cable company would have to go digital to be able to sell the channels ala carte.

This would likely end the get basic channels on all tvs.....

It would turn cable upside down emptying their corporate pocket (wallet) to pay for all those millions of boxes and upgrades.

Since charlie supports it my guess is the current E boxes are capable of doing this channel by channel.

For those who want all the channels like they have today it wouldnt change anything

I hope congress passes it, as it would end the corporate greed of the mega viacoms of the world!:)

[jhickman]

Didn't Dish have a package at one time where people could pick any 10 of their Top 40 (at that time) package? I'd like to see Dish bring that back, only being able to pick channels from the Top 120 or 180 packages as well.

[amit5roy5]

Yea, they did, it was called Dish Pix, I think.

[Marvin]

I saw the Post article the other day. Wow..he only pays $25, 9 of which is for the C Band stuff and $16 is for the French stuff on E*.

The one thing that gets me is that apparently, unless Im missing something, he only gets WGN, TCM, MTV, TV Land, Nickelodeon, CMT and the IFC for his $9 a month on C-Band which is $1.29 a channel and thats with the packaged TVLand/Nick/MTV (or at least thats how my programmer did it). How many people would be happy with just those 7 channels or any 7 channels for that matter?

A la carte might be great for people who don't want to be subjected to channels like MTV or ESPN, but in the end its going to cost about the same, if not more money for less channels. Id rather have more channels for the same price..

[cdru]

How many people would be happy with just those 7 channels or any 7 channels for that matter?

A la carte might be great for people who don't want to be subjected to channels like MTV or ESPN, but in the end its going to cost about the same, if not more money for less channels. Id rather have more channels for the same price..Disney E/W, TNT, USA, TBS, Comedy Central, ABC, CBS, NBC. Ok it's 9, but it you exclude the OTA that I could get instead I have 6. 80% of the TV that I watch is on one of these 9 channels and the other 20% I could live without.

[Killfile]

Yes, there was a package that allowed A La Carte programing picks (for E* anyhow). The most pervasive of those packages was I Like 9, which let you pick 9 chanels plus locals.

In recent years the programing providers have moved in favor of a package policy, and prevent E* and D* and really everyone else from selling channels individually.

My understanding of the E* receivers is that all of them have the memory capacity to authorize a fair number of channels A La Carte. The E* and D* authorization systems are geared to an Al La Carte system anyway, which you can see evidence of if your receiver ever looses authorization. When you get authorization back you'll see channels coming on individually instead of as a block.

[ypsiguy]

Under the current package system, crappy channels like Nick GAS are subsidized and stay on the air. Why should I have to pay for that channel? Let's go to a-la-carte or theme based programming packages, and let the marketplace decide which channels survive.

[JohnL]

Yes, there was a package that allowed A La Carte programing picks (for E* anyhow). The most pervasive of those packages was I Like 9, which let you pick 9 chanels plus locals.

In recent years the programing providers have moved in favor of a package policy, and prevent E* and D* and really everyone else from selling channels individually.

My understanding of the E* receivers is that all of them have the memory capacity to authorize a fair number of channels A La Carte. The E* and D* authorization systems are geared to an Al La Carte system anyway, which you can see evidence of if your receiver ever looses authorization. When you get authorization back you'll see channels coming on individually instead of as a block.

Dish never had a ALA CARTE package called "I LIKE NINE". Dish did have a promotion called "I LIKE NINE" which was a Nine Dollars off per month promotion when you signed up as a new subscriber.

The only ala carte package that Dish offered was called Dish PIX and it offered ten channels for at first $9.99 and was then raised to $15.99. At some point the package was removed as an option for new subscribers but was available to Subscribers that had ordered it and wanted to keep it.

There were two reasons of the removal of the Dish Pix Package one was that Program content owners over time refused to be available in that package so fewer and fewer options were available, because of this Dish became tired of trying to explain why some channels were no longer available to Dish Pix subs that previously were. Secondly Dish was losing LOTS of Money on the package, the $15.99 did cover Dish retransmision consent of the Dish Pix channels but very little of the rest of the OVERHEAD associated with Dish Subscribers.

John

[JohnL]

Under the current package system, crappy channels like Nick GAS are subsidized and stay on the air. Why should I have to pay for that channel? Let's go to a-la-carte or theme based programming packages, and let the marketplace decide which channels survive.

Guy,

The reason is channel count, most people that subscribe to Cable or Satellite want as many viewing options as possible for the best price. Since the majority of SUBS are happy that is likely the way it will stay.

Ala Carte will NOT result in vastly lower rates. A change to ALA Carte would result in a completely Different model for Program content owners, which vastly lowers Advertising revenue. The final result would mean tripling or quadrupling of Retransmission consent from an average of 50 cents to 2.00 per channel now to 2- 8 dollars per channel. In the end you may end up with just the channels you want with a all Ala Carte MSO model but you would pay about the same or possibly MORE than you pay now for packages of channels.

John

[djlong]

The article I read yesterday said that Discovery Networks had "done a study" and said that a-la-carte pricing would mean that the average viewer would have to pay (I'm not making this up) $185 PER MONTH for service.

No explanation of how they came to that figure was offered!

[ypsiguy]

Discovery doing a study like that reminds me of the cigarette companies doing studies on smoking. Very impartial... :lol:

[ypsiguy]

Guy,

The reason is channel count, most people that subscribe to Cable or Satellite want as many viewing options as possible for the best price. Since the majority of SUBS are happy that is likely the way it will stay.

Ala Carte will NOT result in vastly lower rates. A change to ALA Carte would result in a completely Different model for Program content owners, which vastly lowers Advertising revenue. The final result would mean tripling or quadrupling of Retransmission consent from an average of 50 cents to 2.00 per channel now to 2- 8 dollars per channel. In the end you may end up with just the channels you want with a all Ala Carte MSO model but you would pay about the same or possibly MORE than you pay now for packages of channels.

John

Sounds like price fixing to me.

[FTA Michael]

The fact is, nobody really knows what a la carte programming would do. There are some educated guesses, all of which are the end products of selective premises, but no one knows the future.

I find it hard to particularly hard to speculate on what would happen considering that we don't have any particular a la carte plan to judge. Would every channel be available individually? Would there be theme packages as the Canadian DBS folks have them? Would there be a "back door a la carte", where you are allowed to opt out of channels to slightly lower your bill? The way a la carte is sold will strongly influence what happens, and we don't know what that way is yet.

[ypsiguy]

The fact is, nobody really knows what a la carte programming would do. There are some educated guesses, all of which are the end products of selective premises, but no one knows the future.

I find it hard to particularly hard to speculate on what would happen considering that we don't have any particular a la carte plan to judge. Would every channel be available individually? Would there be theme packages as the Canadian DBS folks have them? Would there be a "back door a la carte", where you are allowed to opt out of channels to slightly lower your bill? The way a la carte is sold will strongly influence what happens, and we don't know what that way is yet.

Honestly, I don't think we will find out. Cable will go into Congress and throw their money around and nothing meaningful will be done.

[Mike Richardson]

People say that if a la carte occurs, then channels will have significantly less "viewers" and advertising revenue will drop. In fact, it won't drop - it could even go up. Think about it. Right now, channels know how many homes they're in.

Let's say Nickelodeon knows they are in 75 million homes, and uses this and other numbers to price their advertising. But if we switch to a la carte (let's say everyone switches to a la carte at the same time) and 25 million homes elect to actually and specifically individually buy Nickelodeon, then those 25 million homes are much more valuable because they actually want Nickelodeon and are much more likely to actually watch it.

[FTA Michael]

It's possible that a la carte could hurt the 16th Discovery networks channel and help fun little niche channels such as B-Mania. Then again, the Discovery channels could cross-promote each other, and there's still a bandwidth question. In a word, yaneverknow.