CALIFORNIA COURT RULING: CABLE HAS THE RIGHT TO BUNDLE NETWORKS

[gregg75]

Although it hurts consumers (they pay more) the court said cable has the right to bundle if
they want.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/03/pay-tv-bundles-are-ok-even-if-they-hurt-consumers-court-rules/

 

[mjlarochelle]

Although it hurts consumers (they pay more) the court said cable has the right to bundle if
they want.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/03/pay-tv-bundles-are-ok-even-if-they-hurt-consumers-court-rules/

If cable is smart, they're going to stop bundling channels. With more and more people going online to find programming, cable is going to be forced to sell channels individually if people are going to keep subscribing.

Otherwise, cable will be merely a way to distribute Internet signals 20 years from now.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Although it hurts consumers (they pay more) the court said cable has the right to bundle if
they want.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/03/pay-tv-bundles-are-ok-even-if-they-hurt-consumers-court-rules/

If cable is smart, they're going to stop bundling channels. With more and more people going online to find programming, cable is going to be forced to sell channels individually if people are going to keep subscribing.

Otherwise, cable will be merely a way to distribute Internet signals 20 years from now.

They claim we'd be paying more with less with A la carte packages

 

[K6JHU]

Depends on how many channels you normally watch. If say, you typically watch 20 channels (and mentally you can add up how many in your particular case) then at say $2 a channel/month that is only a $50 bill.

What will really happen if this comes to pass is that some channels (e.g. HSN) will pay to be given to you and others (you can make your own list) will disappear because nobody is paying to watch them. And we may find there may be some real surprises out there as far as what people are willing to pay for.

BTW, Tivo publishes an anonymous list of the top recorded programs and USA Today publishes cable program ratings. Gives you an idea of what people watch.

Since I get to pick and chose from bundles I have done some of that already. I do not subscribe to the Latino or Chinese package, for example.

 

[Irishfl]

What would be interesting is if locals remained must haves, inwhich you had to pay $10 or so before picking channels. This would greatly benefit networks, as they would still have 100% of the public. Instead of competing with 100's of channels, they would be competing with lets say on average 20 channels. Wonder if programing would improve.

Wonder if networks could bundle their programing like premium channels do. For example you could pay $3 for TBS, $3 for TNT, $5 for CNN, $2 for Cartoon Network, $3 for tru tv, or you could 12 for the Time Warner package. Doing something like that might be the only thing that saves some of the more niche channels. I would also imagine most people would only pay for 1 cable news network. Probably the one they like, so bundling might be the only thing that could save MSNBC.