I wish cable companies would charge us based on...

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Crono
A la carte is what I would love, but apparently television providers have to sustain the crappier channels (which some people watch very rarely, and some not at all) by bundling them, and it would be more expensive for the average household to buy a la carte.
I don't watch more than 5 cable channels, though: CNN, History, History International, BBC, and occasionally CBS (60 minutes, only).

yeah, pretty much.

more than half of the cable channels would cease to exist soon after a widespread a la carte service were offered. So much worthless crap on cable.

but... but... if the cable companies can't offer 250 channels in their premium tier, whatever are people going to watch? Unfortunately for the consumer, the emphasis seems to be on quantity, not quality of programming.

 

[Crono]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
but... but... if the cable companies can't offer 250 channels in their premium tier, whatever are people going to watch? Unfortunately for the consumer, the emphasis seems to be on quantity, not quality of programming.

Yup. An a la carte model would actually (someone correct me if I am wrong here) cost less for those people who would be satisfied with a couple of channels, even though most people would pay the same or more. A la carte would be great for us customers who either get our programming primarily online and/or just don't watch that many channels.

I just want a few quality channels. I don't need Oxygen, or Spike (I admit, I have watched the occasional Bond movie on there), or Fox News.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver
Anyone else wish cable companies had a plan where they could charge your based on which channels you want to watch? Instead of coming up with some package that gets you 300 channels or more and of all of them you only watch like 30? Yet, you still have to pay for all the other channels?

And here's how it'd play out if they did that:

They'd do some surveys and studies to determine which set of channels helps them generate more than 90% of their revenue. Let's say it's 15 channels.

They'd then take the typical $/month rate, divide by 15, and make that the new price per channel.

Result: Their revenue stream would remain largely undisturbed, while you'd be paying more money for less service.



....pretty much what Techs said, though a bit more succinctly. 🙂

 

[adairusmc]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: loki8481
low rated channels like history, etc would go under and all we'd be left with are 10 flavors of MTV and 30 ESPN's

Gotta go. ESPN 26 is showing the Sherpa Yak Bowling finals.

What I would really want is ESPN 8, "The Ocho."

 

[n yusef]

Everyone is (incorrectly) assuming that people would pay for only and all of the channels that they watch. Don't you guys ever get bored and watch an episode of No Reservations on the Travel Channel, or Iron Chef on the Food Channel? Sometimes I watch Top Gear on BBC America. Or if I have company over, a friend will turn on the Celtics game on Comcast Sports Net. Think of competing networks like FOX News, CNN and MSNBC. If you had to pay for them, don't you think most people would only buy one, and certainly not all three (MSNBC viewers won't buy FOX News, and vice versa)? I watch about 60% MSNBC, 35% CNN and 5% FOX News. Think of all the parents who wouldn't pay for MTV or Cartoon Network, but whose kids watch 2 hours of that a day (bad parenting, but good for the TV industry).

It's in the TV industry's best interest not to sell channels a-la-carte. A lot of TV watching is just random browsing, not scheduled viewing. I think very few people would buy networks like FX, because they shows slightly-old action movies and TV re-runs (devout viewers of its original shows not included). But tons of people enjoy bad movies and TV re-runs sometimes.

If I think of the TV channels I would pay for, the list is really small. If I think of the ones I watch, the list grows. I bet most people are like me.

 

[rubix]

they shouldn't charge for anything. you're paying to be advertised to. paying customers should have the commercials removed. will never happen though.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
ala carte cable has been being discussed for quite some time now

seems like many content providers do not like it, as currently popular stations subsidize unpopular ones. i think i read some analysis that predicted the consumer would be worse off - either paying about the same or less to get a subset of channels, but not proportionally less.

It's worked very well in other countries, but I haven't done a lot of research on a la carte. There may well be a number of reasons it wouldn't work here, but more likely the opposition is because it would cut into broadcasters' bottom lines.

 

[Farang]

THIS IDEA WILL NOT WORK PLEASE DROP IT. Goddamnit this is the most annoying myth,

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Crono

Originally posted by: DrPizza
but... but... if the cable companies can't offer 250 channels in their premium tier, whatever are people going to watch? Unfortunately for the consumer, the emphasis seems to be on quantity, not quality of programming.

Yup. An a la carte model would actually (someone correct me if I am wrong here) cost less for those people who would be satisfied with a couple of channels, even though most people would pay the same or more. A la carte would be great for us customers who either get our programming primarily online and/or just don't watch that many channels.

I just want a few quality channels. I don't need Oxygen, or Spike (I admit, I have watched the occasional Bond movie on there), or Fox News.

Given the amount of advertising that occurs on channels like Spike, you'd think that they could actually pay US for having the channel. How the hell do they manage to take a 90 minute movie, edit out parts that aren't pg-13, and manage to stretch it out to 3 or more hours?

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
[
Given the amount of advertising that occurs on channels like Spike, you'd think that they could actually pay US for having the channel. How the hell do they manage to take a 90 minute movie, edit out parts that aren't pg-13, and manage to stretch it out to 3 or more hours?

LOL, so true.
I'm so frustrated with commercials anymore that I have to DVR everything before I am willing to watch it. It seems there is 3 minutes of program then 2 minutes of advertising.

I hate that AMC has commercials now. It did show movies intact without ads, no more 🙁