Battle of the not-worth-shit-in-a-handbag media giants

[charlie]

Old Media Murdoch must be getting desperate for cash. First, he's tried extorting baksheesh from Google for linking to his properties. Now, he's holding out for exorbitant cable fees that are making Time Warner reel. If Rupert gets his way, your cable bill will include a $1 Fox tax.

This is too delicious, worthless Fox and perhaps the crappiest of crap cable providers at each other's throats. TW is threatening to go ala carte -- you want Fox, you pay extra for Fox. In the meantime, TW has put up a polling site to find out what you'd like them to do:

http://rolloverorgettough.com

So far, the favored choice is to tell Fox to go suck eggs. If you want to make Rupert squeal, go vote.

[RoyGBiv]

1. Interesting ...

Well, I'll say this. TW has some good marketing people.

I think I'll just sit back and watch this one. It's bound to be entertaining, if anti-climatic.

[charlie]

2. Yes, it's a slick move, innit?

Standing up to the networks, protecting your pocketbook, defusing a hostage situation -- whatta joke. TW hasn't enjoyed this kind of stroking since... since ever. A lot of the commenters are treating them like the Rebel Alliance.

Remember, I was ready to switch to ATT UVerse when it blew into town last year? I didn't. In short order, TW's reliability got reliable, and without fanfare or so much as a peep, bandwidth got bumped up a couple of Mbps. Funny that.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Yeah, funny ...

As though my individual opinion even matters, this is really what I want: genuine competition. Satellite doesn't actually provide it. U-Verse and that thing Verizon has do.

It's very, very hard to create a business environment in which real competition exists among cable companies. It would even be hard if cities were inclined to allow more than one franchise, which they won't unless the FCC comes in and declares cable infrastructure community property, which it won't.

Anyway, where they ATT and Verizon are running in direct competition with the cable-cos, things are improving across the board. Even Comcast took notice in Houston and, as in your situation, made improvements without even telling anyone directly. To do so would have been an admission that their service sucked hot wind before.

[bread_and_roses]

4. most hilarious to me is seeing TW as the "champion of the people"

given their rates and refusal to date to allow "a la carte" selection.

[RoyGBiv]

5. It is absurd ...

However, "a la carte" pricing is not as simple as it sounds and in some ways is not up to the cable company, e.g. many franchise agreements disallow it in order to ensure a certain level of programming, including local and public access.