Cable TV: a la carte=higher prices?

[Eric J in MN]

An article on Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council, brings up the possibility of letting cable customers only pay for the channels they want (a la carte):

The FCC has never had authority to regulate cable programming, but Bozell wants Congress to either extend the agency's authority, or force cable systems to let customers pick and choose channels one by one rather than in large packages.

Bozell prefers the pick-and-choose method (or a la carte, as it's known in the cable industry), which he says would give viewers control over what channels come into their homes. Parents wouldn't have to worry about their kids sneaking a peek at The Shield or MTV Spring Break when nobody was around.

But both Hollywood and the cable industry have resisted a la carte so far, claiming it would drive up prices...

It seems to me that if cable customers typically pay $50/month for dozens of channels they don't watch, and if instead they were given the option of a general fee of $15/month plus $2-per-channel/month, someone who chose 3 channels would then pay $21/month, a big savings.

The above prices are speculation on my part. Any law requiring cable companies to offer a la carte would have to limit the price-per-channel for channels with tv commercials.

A cable industry opposed to a la carte, forced to offer it by law but with no limit on how much they could charge for channels with tv commercials, might charge $50-per-channel/month, to effectively nullify the law and force almost all their customers to continue buying groups of channels.

[Deja Q]

1. Driving up prices? Gee, when do cable prices NOT go up?

I don't have cable anymore. Their game isn't worth it.

[Eric J in MN]

2. I don't get cable, either.

I decided to spend that money on a DSL internet connection.

[SoCalDem]

3. Personally I would LOVE it, but what would actually happen

is that the "niche" channels would cease to exist. Most have already been "folded" in with name-brand channels (TLC,History,Discovery, A&E), but the smaller ones who are still independent would probably fold. If no one was "buying" them. cable companies would just dump them

[cynatnite]

5. Sounded likea good idea until I read your post

I would love to dump all ESPN stuff. No one here does sports.

But you're right. The channels we value could wind up not existing at all.

[SoCalDem]

6. I have ALL the sports crap blocked on my Dish

and anything FOX :)

[TheWraith]

11. Maybe not.

One thing you might see is specialty channels getting priced higher to capitalize off the smaller subset of dedicated viewers--say, $10/month for the Golf Channel instead of $1/month for CNN.

Then, you'd see a balancing act come into play for minor channels: the amount of commercials they carry, versus subscriber numbers, versus the price paid for the channel. I suspect that a lot of the minor channels would end up being offered for very low prices, or else grouped together in group-buy packages that would simulate the same thing we've got now, in order to get people to buy a lot of channels together.

Then again, if the Gameshow Network and HGTV went out of business, I wouldn't be crying. They're a waste of bandwidth.

I love the overall idea too--out of the 180+ channels on my Dish Network satellite, I only ever watch anything on 60 of them. And of those 60, 39 are already pay channels like HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax. Because of that, I get stuck with over 100 channels of shopping, sports, Fox News, and GameShow TV that I don't want and can't get rid of without losing other channels. With today's technology, it would be easy to accomplish--and the cable companies are lying when they say it would cost more. They just don't want to interrupt the gravy train: entertainment companies producing cheap recycled channels to sell to the cable companies at a vastly inflated price, then the cable companies passing along an even more inflated price to the customer. You're already probably paying $5 a month for things like Food Network, Gameshow, etc.

[SoCalDem]

13. I LOVE HGTV

:)

[Eric J in MN]

14. If you wrote the law, what would it say?

That every channel needs to be offered a la carte, but can also be offered in packages?

Could they charge any price for a channel they want?

[bluestateguy]

15. Tell you what I would do

Let the cable companies offer packages, so they could offer incentives for customers to buy that way. It would be cheaper per channel through a package, but if a customer wanted to buy per channel they would be free to do so. You could even give the customer an incentive to buy more channels by saying that it would be cheaper per channel if you bought say 100 channels, and buying 200 would be cheaper.

[Eric J in MN]

17. But if the cable companies hate the a la carte concept, then

won't they charge a huge price for a single channel to effectively nullify the law requiring a la carte?

[baldguy]

4. There's no reason it should.

But then everyone would see how popular the 24-hour GOP Hate Channel, The Conservative Propaganda Channel & the American Taliban Channel REALLY are.

[gizmo1979]

7. I also love the idea

I have no use for 6 shopping channels and the rest of the crap.I think this is a great idea.

[Patty Diana]

12. 60 jebus freak channels

[UdoKier]

8. I don't know, but it would kill a lot of lousy channels.

And that would be a good thing. I personally would not pay a dime for any home shopping, or home improvement or cooking channels, not to mention the Spanish channels or the Jingoism (History) channel.

I'd probably just get the major broadcast networks, Comedy Central, Sci-Fi, TV Land and Nickelodeon for the Kids, that's about the only ones we ever watch.

When we had satellite service in Japan, it was an a la carte system and it was great. There were packages, and we got the English one, but you could also pick a la carte, which would've been good if we only wanted 3 or 4 channels.

[Eric J in MN]

9. I'd like to be able to just get a few channels (nt)

nt

[bluestateguy]

10. No Fox News?

Ooh, I find myself in rare agreement with Bozell. I'd make it a point to get all of the environmentalist channels like Outdoors, Discovery, Animal Planet, National Geographic, as well as all of the channels with the most risque displays of sexuality like VH1's and MTV's.

[Neshanic]

16. Watch out TBN, you may get what you wish for.

So we go to paying for the channels we want. I like the idea. First to go, all religious shilling networks. Could be some people that feel the same way; tired of paying for all channels, knowing that the religious networks get their share.

So no more TBN, and the seven others that are on my system. That means no money for you and Jan, Paul. So when Jan's jonesing for some collegen, you will have to appeal to the uber faithfull, the ones already paying to see you. Tough sell that one Paul.