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Ala Carte TV Is Coming!
- Thread starter landtuna
- Start date
Nobody said it was for cable but my guess is that the Internet will replace cable in the not-too-distant future anyway so it is probably a moot point. Having one common distribution scheme will be a lot more efficient than all the private plants now existing for cable. People will opt for the cheapest way to access content and the cable companies have already proved they do not fit that scenario. Of course sufficient bandwidth would be necessary to carry bit-heavy HDTV and the various ISP's would still have us by the gonads at each end point. At least ala carte might force all those worthless channels that very few watch out of business.
I have no reason to believe that we live in a "one or the other" world. The internet is no less wired than cable. In most cases, it travels down the same coax. All this does is put more power in the hands of a couple of big telecom companies. Once they have everyone eating from their hands, they'll do what everyone else does, and nickel & dime users for excessive bandwidth. This also forces some of what you call "useless channels" to consolidate with companies owning the more valuable ones, and forcing some kind of bundling down the road. The one thing you can always count on is if there's a way to make money, they will do it.
I don't see the point. The article states you need a "base package" of $26/month, and then most channels are going to be an additional $3.50 each. And I'm sure any sports channels will be a lot more than that. So by the time all is said and done most people will be paying the same price as cable anyway (and end up with fewer total channels).
I guess it is possible that ala carte could mean partial bundling but somehow I don't think that will fly with the ala carte purists. Once people find out they can subscribe only to the channels they watch they will not accept a return to bundles. Or, perhaps, certain programmers will offer both as used to be the case with C-band subscriptions. You could buy each channel individually or you could buy packages (which were marginally cheaper) but at least you had somewhat of a choice.....unlike today.
Isn't that the American way?
I think the only conclusion you can raise from this is that finally a big name company is considering some form of ala carte - something that has not been discussed seriously to date. Competition will undoubtedly decide what form it eventually takes but at least with the Internet as the pipeline we will not be limited to the footsie being played today with the local franchises being handed out by our local politicians.
Phone companies are famous for offering what seems like a great deal, and then changing the terms after a year. You may be able to get ala cart for a year, and then the roof caves in. They're not going to lose money just to make the purists happy.
When C-band was in fashion we enjoyed ala carte and could, if desired, subscribe to bundles. But you only paid for what you watched. Then the pizza dish arrived and people who didn't have the tech capacity or didn't want the relative complexity of the big dish subscribed but the only thing they could get was tiers of packages and the end price was lots of crappy channels they didn't watch at greatly inflated prices. As an example my C-band subscription was 1/12th of the same basic service on the pizza dish.
Programmers back in those days made money and there was intense competition unlike today where you have usually one cable choice and two satellite choices - but they all offer virtually the same programming at identical prices.
What ala carte may mean is not only do you not have to pay for unwatched services but there will be more players again like the C-band satellite days of old. That is a good thing for everybody assuming the Internet can handle the bandwidth.
There are lots of other choices. There's AT&T's U-verse, and that's who this is aimed at. Verizon also offers FIOS in some places with fiber cable. Phone companies are selling TV and cable companies are selling phone service. It's all one big mess. Soon, the content companies like Disney and Warner will get into distribution, just as Comcast now owns NBC Universal. Lots of choices, and they all have one goal: To send you a monthly bill.
What may be a more interesting trend to watch is cable companies that are either dropping their entire TV service or major groups of channels.
Ringgold Telephone Co. in Georgia and BTC Broadband in Bixby, Okla.—have pulled the plug on TV service altogether, preferring to simply focus on Internet and phone service. Suddenlink Communications, an operator that serves about a million customers, has announced that it is dropping the Viacom channels.
Granted these are small players but it wouldn't surprise me to see this becoming more widespread as cable companies balk at paying retrans fees, customers complain of rising cable bills and more homes switch to streaming video by internet. Of course, a natural consequence of this trend, should it grow, is that cable nets will have to convert to becoming streaming-only nets.
You can read all about it here:
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_...412120310-lMyQjAxMTA0MTM3MDQzNjA2Wj?mg=id-wsj
Ringgold Telephone Co. in Georgia and BTC Broadband in Bixby, Okla.—have pulled the plug on TV service altogether, preferring to simply focus on Internet and phone service. Suddenlink Communications, an operator that serves about a million customers, has announced that it is dropping the Viacom channels.
Granted these are small players but it wouldn't surprise me to see this becoming more widespread as cable companies balk at paying retrans fees, customers complain of rising cable bills and more homes switch to streaming video by internet. Of course, a natural consequence of this trend, should it grow, is that cable nets will have to convert to becoming streaming-only nets.
You can read all about it here:
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_...412120310-lMyQjAxMTA0MTM3MDQzNjA2Wj?mg=id-wsj
Not unlike phone companies that no longer offer POTS service. Yes, I think you're correct. Being the intermediary between consumers and content is not a happy role. Not sure if Comcast is in a better place as both intermediary and content creator. Same with Liberty. Interesting that TW got out of the cable business.
No, for the vast majority of us there are but 2 or 3 choices. I live in the 5th largest city in the USA but have access to DirecTV, DISH or Cox for "cable" TV service. All of them offer essentially identical programs and they charge almost the same thing (excluding bait-and-switch pricing).
I have but two choices for Internet service: CenturyLink DSL (the phone company) or Cox Communications (cable). Again, pretty close to the same pricing and services.
The lack of competition is why cable TV and Internet service are so expensive.
I have all the choices I listed, and TV & internet is still expensive, even with competition. Contrary to popular opinion, competition doesn't always lead to cheaper prices.
Competition almost always leads to either a better product or a less expensive one. There are some products sold on "status" (hello Mercedes-Benz) which will not meet that criteria but those are few and far between - and even MB has stiff competition these days.
You assume a free and fair marketplace. That's not always the case.
Obviously if the marketplace is being affected by unfair practices or regulation then competition and pricing can also be affected. In most cities cable services are an unregulated monopoly once the cables are laid.
Obviously, you forgot that Disney OWNS ABC and ESPN...
Which would be easier to achieve if the government and wireless and cable companies weren't trying to kill broadcast TV...
Not sure what point you're trying to make. Those are both content, as is NBCUniversal. Comcast/Xfinity the cable company is what he means by "distribution".
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