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Intel to Offer A La Cart?

29K views 458 replies 51 participants last post by  housemr 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Intel does not control whether a la carte is going to be available. The content providers package the channels to sell to the cable/sat companies and that is unlikely to change because intel want it to. Also as has been pointed out, a la carte might easily make the price of a single channel very high.
Any of the cable/sat companies could offer a la carte if their channel providers would agree.

The posted article points out some of these issues.
 
#4 ·
I hope they pull it off. I for one would be happy to have the option to pay for individual channels. I realize that the price for those channels might be seem high but then I would be able to decide if the content they provided was worth the cost.
 
#5 ·
"pfp" said:
I hope they pull it off. I for one would be happy to have the option to pay for individual channels. I realize that the price for those channels might be seem high but then I would be able to decide if the content they provided was worth the cost.
It's also likely that the channels you want would no longer exist in an a la carte world.
 
#6 ·
Hoosier205 said:
It's also likely that the channels you want would no longer exist in an a la carte world.
I agree that many channels would go away and quite frankly many of them should. I also suspect that some good programming from the channels that disappear would return on the channels that are left.
 
#8 ·
"pfp" said:
I agree that many channels would go away and quite frankly many of them should. I also suspect that some good programming from the channels that disappear would return on the channels that are left.
Revenues used for production would tank. It hasn't worked and it won't work. I have no idea why it even gets discussed. It defies logic.
 
#9 ·
Satelliteracer said:
Good luck to Intel on this. Count me as one that believes it won't happen for any number of reasons.

http://allthingsd.com/20120608/intel-cant-break-tvs-bundles/
I suspect they do have a steep uphill battle to deliver unbundled packages but I also find it unlikely that cable/telco companies will allow their TV revenue stream to be cut by a 3rd party through the use of their broadband service.
 
#10 ·
Hoosier205 said:
Revenues used for production would tank. It hasn't worked and it won't work. I have no idea why it even gets discussed. It defies logic.
It hasn't worked? When was it tried?
It gets discussed because consumers get fed up with paying good money for channels they don't care about with no option to opt-out.
 
#11 ·
pfp said:
I agree that many channels would go away and quite frankly many of them should. I also suspect that some good programming from the channels that disappear would return on the channels that are left.
This is exactly right. Instead of having a thousand Discovery channels each with their own niche programs, you would have one or two Discovery channels which would carry all the successful programs.

Everyone who says a la carte won't work is assuming that the existing business models would remain static. This isn't the case. The programmers would adapt to it and make it work. As long as there's $$$ to be made it will work. And there's definitely $$$ to be made even in an a la carte world.
 
#12 ·
pdxBeav said:
This is exactly right. Instead of having a thousand Discovery channels each with their own niche programs, you would have one or two Discovery channels which would carry all the successful programs.

Everyone who says a la carte won't work is assuming that the existing business models would remain static. This isn't the case. The programmers would adapt to it and make it work. As long as there's $$$ to be made it will work. And there's definitely $$$ to be made even in an a la carte world.
How many hours of unique programming do most networks provide? There is a lot of consolidation to be done, for sure. I am in agreement that there are way too many channels. With the continued proliferation of the DVR, there is no need to run every Pawn Stars episode 10 times per week.
 
#13 ·
"pdxBeav" said:
This is exactly right. Instead of having a thousand Discovery channels each with their own niche programs, you would have one or two Discovery channels which would carry all the successful programs.

Everyone who says a la carte won't work is assuming that the existing business models would remain static. This isn't the case. The programmers would adapt to it and make it work. As long as there's $$$ to be made it will work. And there's definitely $$$ to be made even in an a la carte world.
Yes. Because when discovery tries to sell a channel for X dollars, they won't try to sell a bundle so it looks like you get more.

A la carte failed with BUDs.
 
#15 ·
If a la carte is such a bad idea then they should move to the other extreme and have one and only one package which includes all premium channels and all sports packages. According to the anti-a la carte group this would result in lower per channel costs so there should be no arguments against this. ;)
 
#17 ·
"pdxBeav" said:
How did it fail with BUDs? My programming costs were far lower with a BUD than any cable or DBS package at the time.
They went bundle. A la carte is per channel. Bundles are not a la carte.

And your costs were probably lower because of the lack of needed infrastructure to support you as you saw the same signal as cable companies than on a la carte. Not to mention that way back, there was a lot of open stuff (like networks and sports) that are not open today.
 
#18 ·
"pdxBeav" said:
If a la carte is such a bad idea then they should move to the other extreme and have one and only one package which includes all premium channels and all sports packages. According to the anti-a la carte group this would result in lower per channel costs so there should be no arguments against this. ;)
Yes. Because we all think in extremes.
 
#19 ·
pdxBeav said:
This is exactly right. Instead of having a thousand Discovery channels each with their own niche programs, you would have one or two Discovery channels which would carry all the successful programs.

Everyone who says a la carte won't work is assuming that the existing business models would remain static. This isn't the case. The programmers would adapt to it and make it work. As long as there's $$$ to be made it will work. And there's definitely $$$ to be made even in an a la carte world.
Actually, this is exactly wrong. Think about how a show comes into existence...the planning, testing, piloting, etc. You're looking at it through a post show successful launch. Now back up to prior to shows launching and how they come about. You will have many fewer new shows, much less of the riskier ones because there will no incentive to create them.
 
#20 ·
tonyd79 said:
They went bundle. A la carte is per channel. Bundles are not a la carte.

And your costs were probably lower because of the lack of needed infrastructure to support you as you saw the same signal as cable companies than on a la carte. Not to mention that way back, there was a lot of open stuff (like networks and sports) that are not open today.
They only moved away from a la carte when BUD was on it's last leg. It was successful for most of it's existence. Once the BUD numbers dropped down to a few hundred thousand subs the programmers saw them as more of an annoyance and eventually stopped offering their service to them.
 
#21 ·
Satelliteracer said:
Actually, this is exactly wrong. Think about how a show comes into existence...the planning, testing, piloting, etc. You're looking at it through a post show successful launch. Now back up to prior to shows launching and how they come about. You will have many fewer new shows, much less of the riskier ones because there will no incentive to create them.
I don't dispute that there might be fewer new shows, but I don't see that as a problem. Good shows will find a way to get on the air. Instead of true a la carte I would also be in favor of choosing channels based on programmers or more sub-packages. i.e. If I want one ESPN channel I must buy all of them. If I want HGTV I must buy all the Scripps networks. Even this would make more sense then what exists today. But it doesn't make sense that everyone must pay for ESPN and their exorbitant fees if they have zero interest in sports.
 
#22 ·
pdxBeav said:
They only moved away from a la carte when BUD was on it's last leg. It was successful for most of it's existence. Once the BUD numbers dropped down to a few hundred thousand subs the programmers saw them as more of an annoyance and eventually stopped offering their service to them.
Although that was also before there was anything to bundle with all the consolidation in the late 90s along with the launch of the digital sister channels. TNN and CMT were still Nashville based, Nickelodeon, VH1 and MTV didn't have all those sister digital channels, BET was still a separate company and didn't have Centric. ZDTV/TechTV didn't get absorbed by Comcast to expand G4. All those Discovery digital nets didn't exist yet outside of TLC. Discovery Fit and Health was just FitTV, a sister station to The Family Channel, which was still semi-religious. ESPN was one channel and wasn't owned by Disney yet. Disney Channel was still a premium cable channel in many areas and didn't have Toon Disney or SoapNet.
 
#23 ·
KyL416 said:
Although that was also before there was anything to bundle with all the consolidation in the late 90s along with the launch of the digital sister channels. TNN and CMT were still Nashville based, Nickelodeon, VH1 and MTV didn't have all those sister digital channels, BET was still a separate company and didn't have Centric. ZDTV/TechTV didn't get absorbed by Comcast to expand G4. All those Discovery digital nets didn't exist yet outside of TLC. Discovery Fit and Health was just FitTV, a sister station to The Family Channel, which was still semi-religious. ESPN was one channel and wasn't owned by Disney yet. Disney Channel was still a premium cable channel in many areas and didn't have Toon Disney or SoapNet.
Very true. That's why I would like to see the ability to pick channel "groups". That seems more reasonable, but the programmer and distributor have a symbiotic relationship that won't be easily disrupted.
 
#25 ·
pdxBeav said:
How did it fail with BUDs? My programming costs were far lower with a BUD than any cable or DBS package at the time.
I'm guessing that was a few years back when all programming was cheaper. For me when I selected the channels I wanted it always was cheaper just to get a package that contained those channels than it was to pay for them individually.
 
#26 ·
joed32 said:
I'm guessing that was a few years back when all programming was cheaper. For me when I selected the channels I wanted it always was cheaper just to get a package that contained those channels than it was to pay for them individually.
Yes, same here. But there were also many more smaller packages to choose from. And then you could add 1 or 2 channels to a package to get exactly what you wanted.
 
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