Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans 864
unassimilatible writes "Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain seems to be leaning towards sponsoring legislation mandating something I have wanted for a long time: Forcing cable companies to offer "a la carte" programming packages. No U.S. cable or satellite currently offers such a plan. However, as the Washington Post reports, "That may change, if some lawmakers and consumer groups get their way, as the cable industry finds itself under increasing scrutiny. Lawmakers report that their constituents are angry about cable bills that have risen at three times the rate of inflation since the industry was largely deregulated in 1996." McCain money quote: "I go down to buy a loaf of bread. I don't have to buy broccoli and milk to go with it." Bottom line is, cable companies have a government-authorized monopoly, so maybe they need to recieve government-mandated "innovation." Why should I pay for 15 non-English channels?"
evil cable companies (Score:4, Interesting)
And here Slashdot shows its leftist bent (Score:0, Interesting)
This will do nothing (Score:2, Interesting)
Bundling is how the cable companies can get away with charging what they do for basic cable, but I'll bet that the cost per channel will be higher if this were to happen.
Do this for DirecTV (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all cable compaines are evil... (Score:2, Interesting)
Cable companies now have no excuse (Score:5, Interesting)
I couldn't have said this better myself... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong - I have NO problem with access to any of those channels, but what *I* have wanted for *years* is for cable (and satellite) companies to provide me with the content *I* want at a reasonable price. Not charge me for a 120 channels because that's the only way I can see the 20 that I actually *want*.
I wouldn't mind so much IF cable wasn't so expensive. I looked from switching back from Dish Network to my local cable co.. The price I pay for *everything* that's available on my line-up is US$89/mo. via Dish Network. I wanted to get the local channels in HDTV. But to do that I'd have to switch back to cable. To switch back to cable, and keep my current channel lineup would have been US$170/mo!!! And that's not including the HDTV support...! To add insult - my local cable co (Comcast) doesn't *have* as many channels as Dish Network does.
The Dish Network ads are right - cable cos. *are* pigs...
Re: Evil Government Intrusion (Score:5, Interesting)
But then the concrete on your roads would nver set for cable companies laying down cable. And the investment is too high for too many competitors. So the market has to be as free as possible. And freedom to choose what to buy is the best answer in the circumstances.
Super idea. (Score:2, Interesting)
nb: I cancelled my cable entirely but kept the cable modem access in 2003
This was one of my major complaints about television. I had to pay for sports/golf/etc channels to get
Pick up a book and read instead or download what you really want to see.
[/curmudgeon]
Less is sometimes even worse... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Of course there is a "market" for this (Score:3, Interesting)
Technical Nightmare (Score:5, Interesting)
Therefore, we're talking requiring a digital box for each customer, and every single TV set - that alone will tack $5+ per TV onto everyone's monthly cable bill (digital boxes are ~$150-200 and up.
You'd probably also end up with a lot of marginal channels going off the air (outside of Slashdot, how many folks will actually _pay_ for TechTV on an a la carte basis?).
Re:This will do nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
The cable company isn't sponsoring daily corporate carnivals for the CEO's kids with the money they make. The service they provide costs money. If they make less money, there will be an increase in prices to pay for the costs, or there will be a decrease in service.
Also, many channels that are decent but not necessarily profitable, i.e. CSPAN, will be the first to go.
It'll be a lot of fun paying current rates for six channels, because those are the only six channels available, no?
Re: Evil Government Intrusion (Score:1, Interesting)
So, to solve this, we are to piss and moan to our benificent Congressweebles? They will swoop down and magically [poof] insure free-market principles?
Just don't buy cable. Last time I checked, you could just not watch TV. [shock and dismay!]
Or has cable TV become another right? [cornell.edu]
Re:Of course there is a "market" for this (Score:5, Interesting)
but you TV-addicts are the ones fueling the market
I am really sorry I enjoy watching movies, TLC, TechTV, etc. I wish I could be cool and liberated like you, Anonymous Coward. Sorry if I get a flamebait outa that. I just couldn't get through Sunday without my Simpsons/Sopranos fix.
Re:Why a big government solution? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there's satellite. Which doesn't seem to be competition enough.
Dump ESPN (Score:2, Interesting)
Now if I could only opt-out of those sales taxes and tourist taxes that are squandered on sports stadiums, I'd be a happy camper.
Re: Evil Government Intrusion (Score:4, Interesting)
However, it would be nice to get HD service from either of them with a cable modem at a decent speed for under $100 / month. Ugh - slave to electronics.
About time (Score:1, Interesting)
Not only that... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm all for choice, but this will in no way affect the PROVIDERS of the entertainment. The American public has already shown a willingness to basically pay whatever they have to for their entertainment (look at ticket prices to any event nowadays for proof!) The program providers know this and so no matter what the cablecos do to split up channel selections, THEY will still pay out the ass.
Now THAT'S 'reality television' for you...
Umm, in case you haven't noticed, (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Technical Nightmare (Score:2, Interesting)
In the places I've lived, this has never been the case. You need the digital cable box for certain channels, but basic cable has always been available using only analog.
I believe you're referring to over-the-air requirements there. I don't believe there's such a requirement for cable. There *is* a brewing requirement for digital cable decoders in TVs, but not (as far as I know) a requirement for the content to be all digital.
Sure, if the channel is broadcast in digital format, you need a digital receiver.
Yep... Case in point - (Score:4, Interesting)
Nonetheless, my dad made the call and was informed that there was an unadvertised package for $15/month that would give them basic local and a few other channels. They called it the 'basic-basic' plan or some such garbage. I guess it was a way to keep people like my parents for leaving completely.
The cablecos know their pricing is out of hand, but the fact is, the PROVIDERS of the channels are equally blameworthy, if not more so.
Viacom: "Tell ya what. We'll give you VH2, MTV2 and 3, and the Munchkin Channel as part of our package deal!"
Comcast Exec: "Yeah, but all we really want is VH2 and MTV 2 and 3..."
Viacom: "Ah, so sorry. These channels only come as a package... Say! Would you like some Food Channel to go along with that?"
Frustrating indeed!
Charging by channel? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, the problem with this is the cable companies' tendency to price gouge. However, maybe something as simple as mandating that the cable box always display an accurate real-time running count of the day's viewing charges might counteract this. Since most people are basically cheap, they'll shut off the service if they see the day's total go over a couple of bucks. This would put pressure on the cable providers to keep the charges reasonable.
Another approach might be to give billing control over the various channels directly to the upstream provider. The current cable company would only handle the physical infrastructure, with their costs covered by the base rate. The content providers would compete against each other on price for the individual channels that people watch. This could work kind of like the current arrangement for competition in long-distance phone service, where you choose among long-distance services that are brought to you via your local phone company.
Re:My thumb thanks you (Score:4, Interesting)
If I paid $3/channel I actually watched my cable bill would be about 1/4 the amount it used to be for basic digital. Sounds great to me.
Re:A la carte (Score:3, Interesting)
To drive the nail in the coffin, a local telco is wiring the city with fiber over the next 4 years and offering Very high speed internet, digital cable, and phone service. We should FINALLY see some Real competition in all services (phone cable, and internet.)
Re: Evil Government Intrusion (Score:2, Interesting)
Free maket? In my area [redfordtwp.com] there is only one cable provider (Bright House Networks [brighthouse.com] (formerly Time Warner [timewarnercable.com]),) and they are c*cky as hell. A few months ago, I switched to satellite for lower monthly costs, and a low cost TiVO. Right before I canceled my cable TV service, I received a letter stating that the rates were again going up. The justification? They were going to add some channels aboutr which I couldn't have cared less. I wonder if they will lower rates when they remove channels (e.g. when the TechTV/G4 merger [slashdot.org] is complete. I'm willing to bet that they won't. For the most part my cable modem service worked fine, but when it did, and I was a direct customer, they had no tech support outside of business hours. Near the end, I switched to Earthlink [earthlink.com] cable modem through the same cable company, $5 cheaper per month ($25 cheaper for the first 3 months,) and tech support was available 24/7 via Earthlink [earthlink.com]. When I made the switch, all of my hardware stayed the same but the cable company charged me $9 to switch the billing record. What a bunch of crap. The cable companies know they have people by the balls, and they take advantage of it.
Ironic Quote (Score:3, Interesting)
Before bundling, there were actually a lot more channels aiming at a limited audience. It isn't terribly expensive or difficult to create a cable TV channel. You need content of some kind (public domain movies, tapes of local pastors on their pulpits, interviews with local "celebrities"), an uplink disk, and enough money to rent satellite time (a few hundred an hour, I think). The hard part is getting cable companies to carry you. But that didn't used to be a problem, because local companies were all too happy to find cheap programming.
A few years ago, the cable company in Santa Cruz ditched all its independent channels in favor of "more popular" channels. Meaning new channels they'd been forced to carry after contract renegotiation. Many of these channels were just placeholders, showing old TV shows that nobody else wanted -- the providers' lawyers had been ahead of their programmers! There were complaints from people who missed the Eternal Word channel, but the cable company didn't really have a choice.
Re:My thumb thanks you (Score:2, Interesting)
With the exception of paid movie channels (HBO) and C-SPAN, most cable channels run an advertising based business.
And for the price of $3.00 per channel/month that you mentioned, I'd be likely to try a new channel for a month to see if it's something I like. How much are Blockbuster rentals these days?
Re:Quality (Score:2, Interesting)
The only way to solve this battle is to change the system such that people pay for what they want and if there's not sufficient demand for something, it gets dropped. Which is exactly what this model will do.
If you want proof that quality of television programming has fallen, check out the lineups of the three major networks, compare them to a decade ago, and get back to me.
Re: Evil Government Intrusion (Score:2, Interesting)
Surely this could be solved easily enough by forcing the cable company to allow other people - including rival cable providers - to buy some bandwidth on the cables.
Re: Evil Government Intrusion (Score:5, Interesting)
I better make this quick before the Mod-sharks bork my opinions again.
You bring up a valid issue, one that most of the leftists here are incapable of listening to. It is possible, however difficult, to keep things on the local level. Cable companies deal with the local goverments, and this is how they keep their monopolies. Take the fight to the city council, and you can see real change.
Take the fight to Washington, and you get Federalization, more hegemony, more collusion. Do you actually think that John McCain gives a flying crap about your cable bills? The man probably hasn't paid a cable bill in 20 years (if ever). He's interested in maintaining the relationship he has with the Time-Warners and Comcasts of the world. Do you really think he'd knowingly sabotage that relationship, just so you can watch Dick Van Dyke re-runs for $10 less a month?
Please. You want Uncle Sam to stop playing with the Big Boys of Wall Street? Then, YOU stop playing with them. I haven't watched cable TV in 7 years. I find my news and entertainment elsewhere. What would happen if most Americans did that, hmm? The Big Boys wouldn't be quite so Big, would they?
Re:He who pays the Piper calls the tune (Score:2, Interesting)
Who cares about marginal/niche channels? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My thumb thanks you (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok but what about... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:My thumb thanks you (Score:3, Interesting)
Can't imagine what each channel will be if this goes through.
Re:evil cable companies (Score:5, Interesting)
I also think that some channels that are less popular will simply get removed, regardless of the wishes of the fans of _those_ networks feel, which can be unfortunate if you happen to be a fan of that network. I may not care about HGTV but what if it were more popular than Boomerang? Which channel is going to get dropped first to make way for another channel?
More for all channels, but not the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, out of the 100 channels you get, how many do you spend more than a fraction of a second surfing past? I probably only watch 20% of the channels I get. If the rates were to double for all of basic cable, but I only paid for the 20% I wanted, I'm still saving.
One downside I see is that networks could become like TV shows. If it doesn't perform well in the first year, it'll get pulled for something else.
Regional monopoly (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at a map. Companies know that 95% of people live and die within 10 miles of their home so it's easy to carve out territories.
Buyers like competition but sellers do not. If everyone agrees to keep their distance, everybody makes money. In the South where development is basically new (~30 years) this is a rock solid law of nature. Major corporations stay close enough to carry the banner of free markets but far enough away to make money.
Re:He who pays the Piper calls the tune (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Evil Government Intrusion (Score:5, Interesting)
What's it gotten us? Not damn shit. Bresnan bought Cox, Charater bought Bresnan, and each one proceedes to screw us harder than the last one, and more people went to the city council to complain.
So, we ran a referrendum. It passed overwhelmingly, and we kicked Bresnan out in favor of Nova (who, at the time, offered 50 channels for $25 a month, compared to Bresnan's 30 channels for $35)
Guess what happened? Bresnan bought Nova, and we got fucked again - as did everybody up in Gladwin county who already had Nova for their cable. We got our 20 extra channels, but we also got another fifteen bucks a month on our bill instead of ten off.
Last year, Charter cut seven channels and increased the price by $8. This year, they're planning to cut two channels and add one that will soon be merging with a channel we already get anyway, and they've already tacked $5 on the bill, with $10 more comming this summer.
Nice baby step but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why should I pay for TechTV when all I want is Screen Savers? Why should I pay for SciFi when all I want is ST:DS9? You get the idea.
This is a great move, but the whole industry needs to change to support subscription to individual shows if we are to see real a la carte selection of what we want.
How can we fix it? (Score:1, Interesting)
1. Have the government pass regulation that cable providers, can't own the lines. Then have all the lines operated by the government. The cable companies could then lease line time. This seems a little bit Communistic, but it would solve the problems of cable startups not being able to afford running their own lines. Although it is not very technically feasible either.
2. Screw the Cable TV industry, have all cable companies just offer internet access, then let the networks stream all of their stuff over the web. Then the consumer can decide what to subscribe to and the network can screw us directly.
Wouldn't it be interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. I might get Fox, because they tend to go out there and show something interesting (this year, Wonderfalls. Last year, Firefly)...but kill it mid season. But that's more than the other 3 are doing.
I suspect _that_ would really shake things up. And if a large percentage didn't get the big three, the advertising consequences would probably bump up the viability of some of the smaller networks.
Who watches MTV? (Score:4, Interesting)
Except, MTV is mostly viewed by the people in a household who are not the ones paying the cable bill. A sudden drop in subscribers could just as easily be explained by parents angrily dropping the channel, giving MTV back its "rebel" status and making it even more appealing to the younger crowd... you know, the ones with the disposable income.
If you don't believe me, look at VH1, a channel that plays much more music, appeals to an older crowd, lives under the same umbrella... and doesn't come close in ratings or revenue.
being forced to buy things you don't want (Score:3, Interesting)
All kinds of industries use these types of packaging plans to make consumers pay for things they don't want. When you buy a car, you can't just get leather seats. You have to buy the "luxury package" to get leather seats, which also includes expensive upgraded rims, etc.
The recording industry works this way too, "encouraging" the consumer to buy an entire album to get one song that they want.
It happens on the web too. Some sites put ads all through their content, and if you want to consume the content, you are forced to accept the whole package they are offering and consume the ads too. At least on the web and with any digital product, techology can be used as a tool to break these packages apart, so that the consumer can be free to make his own choices.
rebranded isp (Score:2, Interesting)
The exact same tech that installed my home internet thru road runner came to install the Earthlink cable hook up.
Some items to note though. In the middle of a town with buildings all the way arond having digital cable access and some even with internet, time warner still claimed the needed to waist what ended up becoming 1.5 months doing a site compatability survey before they would commit to an instalation date that came another 2 months later. Around 9 months after the instalation happend we had some problems when Earthlink sent time warner out to fix it, time warner started having a fit about using residential service in a comercial building and threatend to turn the service off of charge us the $300 for access instead of the $43 we have been paying. It took a $500 letter from my attorny explaining our survice was purchased from earthlink and not time warner so they had no right and a threat to file complaints to the ohio public utilities and the state atourney genrals office before they let iit drop.
i would welcome such law only if it had a stipulation that they had to do it without raising cost to the consumer durring the process.
Re:Not a good thing.. (Score:3, Interesting)
A method to allow how much fans care about a program or channel to determine programming would be a good thing as well. Some of the grass roots campaigns to save shows would have a more legitimate way to help support a channel and by extention, a program they want to see. I guess this might be slighly beyond the reach of ala carte, but clearly possible soon if not now the idea that by choosing to pay more a "quality" show, a lesser number of viewers can keep their show/channel on the air.
Another interesting possibility is that with an ala carte type system, the pressure would be on the content providers to hook new subscribers--ie new channels or programming means that they would have to give the content away for awhile for people to try out to see if they want to pay for it. Not that that's an original concept, premium channels have been doing it for years but on a wider scale, it would mean they're competing harder to get viewers which is a good thing.
Re:More for all channels, but not the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
And, honestly, how many percent of the programming on those channels do you watch? So, why should we have to pay for the rest of the crap that's on?
Why not just skip the middle men and just buy the content we want?
TV Antenna (Score:2, Interesting)
The only thing I miss is Bravo, a couple movie channels (AMC and TCM) and an occasional C-Span interview.
I'm much happier overall.
Re: Evil Government Intrusion (Score:3, Interesting)
Dish Network
DirecTV
(either, just take your pick. I'm on Dish myself but they're basically equivalent).
We have Charter at our house, for the broadband only. The cable quality (even digital cable) doesn't meet the quality of Dish, so we had it disconnected the day after they put it in and never cancelled our Dish subscription.
Dish and DirecTV are also way cheaper than cable. DirecTV right now has a guaranteed infinite price lockin. That's what they told me on the phone yesterday, anyway; they guarantee no price increases, ever.
I'm not sure why people are still subscribing to cable. The systems and the install are free, it's not legal (per the FCC, fed trumps local) for ordinances to disallow your mounting the antenna, the picture is better and the packages are cheaper.
OK, a few people have no clear view of the satellite due to buildings or trees. But not that many.
Re:Regional monopoly (Score:4, Interesting)
I really don't know how much profit cable companies take from monthly service charges, especially compared to similar services such as satellite or cell phones. But as has been written before, cable programming is just "bait" for the advertisements. The money you pay each month for cable is seen as a connection charge to the cable company. This can be loosely compared to how we pay for an internet connection but that payment is not for the content (in most cases) but rather for the connection. Free content on the web is paid for by advertising, much how TV works. Premium, ad-free content on the web requires payment in some form, much like cable channels such as HBO and Cinemax.
What this all means is that the cable companies cannot in any practical means charge you significantly less monthly if you choose not to have certain channels. This means that while there may be a law passed to require custom packages, this same law will not cut your cable bill in half by any means. I could see cable companies offering a flat connection charge of say $30 a month and then a certain charge for each channel added to the package. Different channels might cost different amounts. As you can see here, you may end up paying more to achieve about the same amount of decent programming you had originally. You may only have 4 favorite channels, that's how I am, but I find that having more options is often better. yes, half of the channels do suck, but who cares?
Ultimately, the best solution for dealing with high cable bills is to call up customer service and explain that you cannot afford the rate any more. They'll usually cut your bill down considerably for a year and then you can renegotiate later.
A better model (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is my idea for a better model for Cable TV. If Congress is going to mandate things, this is what they should mandate.
Make Cable TV simply be a high speed internet where every program provider can make themselves available without having to contract with every individual Cable TV company. The program providers then choose whether to make their programming available free and unencrypted, or encrypted with different payment schemes such as pay per program or pay per month.
The whole idea is to separate the infrastructure provider from the content provider (or as in the case of electricity and gas, the energy provider). With the exception of requirements to carry the basic market over-the air TV stations, Cable TV service should be entirely ala-carte. With digital transmission and encryption like we have now, and computers to interface directly with users and control the access to programming, it should be a very cheap and easy thing to do in the long run.