Class Action Lawsuit Filed By People Who Want A La Carte TV
from the seems-like-a-long-shot dept
For many years, there's been a pretty big debate over whether or not cable and satellite TV providers should offer "a la carte" options, where subscribers could just pick and choose the channels they want to subscribe to. At a first pass, many people think this would be great -- believing that it would save them money because they wouldn't be paying for all those channels they get but don't watch. However, this is short sighted. Studies have actually shown that in most cases a la carte offerings would end up costing more.There are a variety of reasons for this. First, the pay TV providers would need to revamp their systems to support this, including their marketing and customer service setup, which would almost definitely raise costs. Second, what the current bundles do is allow certain popular channels to subsidize other channels. When you switch to an a la carte system, many of those subsidies are lost, and it would likely drive up the prices for many channels, rather than the other way around. So, while some people think it sounds like a good idea, it probably would likely result in a higher cable bill for many people.
However, that won't stop the class action lawyers from getting in on the action. A new class action lawsuit has been filed against the major cable and satellite providers, claiming that it's a violation of antitrust law that they don't offer a la carte channel selection. You can certainly see why some people would want it -- but it's unclear why pay TV providers should be forced to offer it. Either way, with the pace of change, it won't be all that long before this doesn't matter anyway -- and the entire concept of the channel is dead. We're reaching a time when people will simply subscribe to shows, and no one will worry about channels any more.
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Filed Under: a la carte, cable tv
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What happened to user pays? If you want to watch "unpopular" shows, and they cost more, why shouldn't you pay more? Why should I subsidise you to watch some crud I'm not interested in?
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if i
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Lets see...
I dont watch:
sports
Religion
Spanish
News
Shopping channels
Take those off and how many do you have? 10-20...MAX.
and most people can tell you thay watch 10 or LESS channels.
SO, why should I pay for an increase in ESPN?
ABC CBS NBC FOX HISTORY DISCOVERY SCIFI CARTOON COMEDY and thats about it...
Charge me $1 each and I wouldnt mind...By WHY am i paying $50 for 80+ channels I DONT WATCH.
REASON:
Corps will NOT install anything they dont need, and that includes the FUTURE..to a corp THERE ISNT a future, its ONLY now.
they will install the CHEAPEST, most cost effective means to deliver what they have, and NOTHING more.
Corps will only install something IF YOU pay for it...YOU NOT THEM. Even the Phone service they are creating, COST MONEY, even tho its VOIP, WHICH is FREE.
Look at the oil piplines in Alaska, run by BP. they cut the maintenance on them and NOW they are Garbage...WHO is going to pay...YOU.
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How naive!!
How can you of all people believe such a thing?
Bundling enables them to obscure the real costs from the consumer. It makes shopping and comparing impossible.
Basically we never what we are paying for or why, not to mention that it enables the tv companies to add or subtract channels at will.
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Once would of thought
Those are only the thoughts of a very elivated person at 12:30... perhaps you think that way too.... www.tv-links.co.uk =)
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The providers will make their profit, and won't stand for any less then they are making now.
If forced to provide ala-carte, then they will make sure that the minimum charged then is the same as the minimum charged now.
Look at power utilities and telephone companies. Phone companies can't sell long distance services, so they charge a fee for NOT using long distance.
Power utilities promote power efficency, then raise the prices per kilowat when they actually sell less power.
People wanted unbundled internet and cable. Ok, now the providers charge almost as much for a single service as they did for both.
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Re:
Phone companies can sell long distance. Also, they charge you the same fee for providing long distance that they charge you for not having long distance.
I heard the same argument locally before the cable company offered a basic package. In addition, they said there weren't enough subscribers even though there are plenty of non-subscribers in town.
As to the subsidizing, according to my local cable most of the price increases are for several major channels and not the minor ones.
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#6
Efficientcy SUCKS..
SAY you have a small town, and the heaters installed in the town are only 60% efficient.
Someone figures they can save money, so goes and gets one that is 99.9 efficient. and will pay itself off in 2 years(shocking aint it, and YES it can be cheap)
He starts saving 30% of his heating.
After awhile, others see this, and decide to do the same.
After about 20-30% of the town switches over, the company notices that they ARENT making the same amount of money.
So, they raise the price to compensate..
So those that DIDNT upgrade, are being charge MORE, and those that got better units, are STILL paying the same.
The question comes down to WHO notices?
Everyone in the Lower levels gets paid Hourly.
Those that get a percentage of profits, and so forth, will GET LESS. the BOSS/OWNER/CEO/Board members and so on..
I would love to see EVERY working person, getting the SAME wage. from Janitor to CEO...
do you think that would lower COSTS in the USA?
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Re: #6
do you think that would lower COSTS in the USA?"
I believe it would, but there would be more people wanting to be janitors than CEOs or brain surgeons. Why would anyone educate themselves for a minimum of 20 years (school, college, grad/ medical school) when they could drop out and begin making top wage immediately?
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Re: #6
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Fixed overheads
But that's not how it works. It probably costs, say, $30 a month for the infrastructure to get the cable to you, box rental etc. along with a reasonable profit for the providers. (After all, if they didn't make a reasonable profit, why would they bother doing it?)
So, for the sake of simplicity, lets assume for the moment that all channels cost the same to the provider. That would mean that when you were getting 100 channels they would be costing you 20 cents each after you removed the cost of getting them to you. Ten channels would thus cost you $2, plus overheads, or $32 a month instead of the $50 a month you pay for 100 channels. That's without any form of "channel subsidies".
So, instead of apparently paying $0.50 per channel, it suddenly looks like you are being charged $3.20 per channel. Everybody gets up in arms and the class action lawsuits start.
My suggestion: Every package should be bundled with a mandatory "Remedial economics channel". :-)
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Re: Fixed overheads
Generally speaking, cable boxes are a separate line item on the bill so that cost is not part of the infrastructure. Depending on your cable company, most of them have tons of "extra charges" which they often pawn off as being govt. fees. Some are govt. charges, but most are not.
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Companies don't like change much unless it's on their end in their best interest.
Few consumers understand that.
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I really do not mind channel bundling
To base my argument for non-bundling I have talked extensively to high ranking employees of cable companies. If they don't think your a nut case many CEO's are quite approachable.
Here is my conclusion. It is not the bundling, but the packaging that we hate.
I have a two year old and recently decided to subscribe to the "Family Package" of our cable system. Here are some channels we do not get:
Secondary Discovery Channels (Discovery Kids, Discovery Science, etc.)
Secondary Disney Channels (Toon Disney, Disney Kids, etc.)
National Geographic Channel(s)
HIstory Channel
These are just a few. However, we do get such child aproprate channels as:
Monsters (a channel devoted entirely to monster movies)
Kung Fu Channel
and we now have access to Here! on Demand (a very "R rated" gay and lesbian channel; as well as the Playboy and Playgirl channels.
If we want addional family channels we have to subscribe to an even higher tier.
Bundling is not so bad if the cable companies would bundle appropriate channels. Family channels should not have access to channels that show R & X rated programing. Conversely, when one subscribes to HBO they should get HBO, and not Starz,, Encore, the Sundance film channel, the Independent Film Channel.
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you have it backwards
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Re: you have it backwards
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Second, I don't get the parental BS. And yes I'm a parent. You can control what your child sees, it's called PARENTING! Shocking isn't it? Companies and the government, read for this...ARE NOT responsible for RAISING YOUR CHILD. YOU ARE! Wow! Increadible eh? You even have tools to lock out certain channels to help you.
In short I have failed to grasp any angle in this.
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Re:
In the parenting part, I am glad someone gets it! Instead of assuming responsability, many people are always pointing fingers. They are your kids... so take action.
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As for all you economics buffs I ask: how much does it cost to provide all the crap channels we don't watch? Why produce them if we don't want them? For the few who do want them, why should the rest of us pay for that?
That's more like selling a bag of m&m's with 9 out of 10 flavors most people don't want & making all the rest of us buy the whole assortment when only a few ppl want the other flavors...
I'm so tired of Comcast jacking up their prices so much when everyone is dealing with financial problems. They are greedy predators & I'm here because I'm researching how to get out from under their grip-and I'm finding answers! Apparently the digital switch is going to make tons of channels available by rabbit ears! And good quality too! Between ears & Netflix (an example of what it REALLY costs to deliver media-unlimited streaming movies to your tv for as little as 8.99 month!)I am going to be done with being bent over the bedrails every time I want some nice mindless tube!
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Re: Re: Re:
An interesting article not too long ago was how the Internet was making cable TV obsolete. I don't have cable and I can get most of the shows I want through Hulu, Surfthechannel, or similar free online websites. There are a handful of shows I can't get that way, but it is not worth $65+/month for them.
http://www.vistanews.com/3479V8/081106-Pay-TV
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Cool Idea
The first channel I would get rid off would be G4TechTV... what a piece of *beep* that is! I still long for the old TechTV days...
Actually, I guess my ideal tv package would only have the following:
History Channel
Discovery Channel
Cartoon Network
Animal Planet
FoxSports
ESPN
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And I should have to pay for the other 96 channels I don't watch...why?
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Cable? What's that?
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Two Things
2) Lawyers, attempting to ruin society, one lawsuit at a time.
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As an aside to j0k3r (#7), Time Warner owns Roadrunner.
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I only shop for a few things at Wal-Mart. I want to start a class action to lawsuit to not have to wal through all the other rows to get to the rows of product I'll actually buy there.
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Kids
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Re: Kids
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I dont watch:
sports
Religion
Spanish
News
Shopping channels
So now we know that you are a racist idiot poor nerd who is going to hell, what do you watch? Just kidding, its Friday :)
Why not pay per show?
If you think this type of pricing would lower costs, it wouldn't. What would be needed is either IPTV (which isn't there yet) or set top boxes.
Another issue is that if this is brought in, what does it do to contracts that are currently in place. MLB and NFL pretty much try to force cable companies to have the games on basic cable. Do they just change those contracts?
It is a fact that even though there are a bazillion channels out there, most people actually only watch 20 channels. If you pay per channel, a lot of those channels will just go away. Don't think your shopping network shows go away, they won't, they make money. You wouldn't see 50 food channels, 50 National Geographic channels. Choice would be reduced.
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#10
And if they would just bundle those...
THEY used to do that YEARS ago...$10 per month for the basics.
Want sports? Add $10.
Want history discovery and cartoons, ADD $10
THEn you could have all the house holds wired and ready to go..
ALSO, you must understand something...
CABLE is restricted...They DONT WANT to setup lines in the country, only in cities and towns...
After the lines and such are UP, it costs NOTHING except installation, WHICH if each house Already had Basic lines UP, wouldnt cost much.
Like the Phone company Does NOW.. Insted of new wires they just hit a few switches, and you get the features.
But cable dont want to ADD BETTER/Current tech.
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PS..
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Dumb
Here is why the logic is flawed: If they offered a la carte programming, you would be paying a LOT more for cable. You wouldn't be able to pick just History, Discovery, ABC, CBS, etc. It would be like it is now for the movie channels ($22 for HBO, etc). So you would pay (obviously more for popular channels) $20 for CBS and it's subsidiary channels, $25 for Fox, etc. In the end you would spend WAY more on channels than if you just bought a bundled package.
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To me it isn't about the money
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if it...
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also..
PS my last post has typos ( no police please )
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Re: also..
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A-La-Carte is offered on C-Band
Maybe big cable and the small dish satellite companies need to take a lesson from their older C-Band packaging counterparts.
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Just a note...
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-263741A1.pdf
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bundling can be proven not to lower overall costs
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A "Basic" fee
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Re: A "Basic" fee
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How about if the cable box you have let you set up your channels so that it only goes to the channels you watch and also only showed you those channels would you be happy then? because you seem to only watch those channels and never , ever anything else. ( which by the way I find really hard to believe) . Even I find myself watching channels I thought I would never have any use for once in a while.
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With a la carte some have said that they would charge more for the channels everyone wants. That would probably be true. However, competition would arise due to lesser channels competing, and making shows that people actually wanted to watch. Would you pay $70 for 200 channels, of which you only watch 20, or $70 for only those 20 with fewer comercials, and better programming? I would choose the latter.
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Re:
FWIW, I have not had anything but OTA since end of 1999 and I don't miss it but the occasional game or the Discovery/Nat Geo stuff once in a while. I chose to pay for broadband back then when each were comparable @ $50/mo instead of sat TV.
When and if affordable ala carte programming is available, I may buy a handful of channels OF MY CHOICE (excluding premium obviously) @ say basic service fee of $9.95 and $1.50-2.00 per channel.
They could offer packages of X #of channels for $X that you get to choose (again, excluding premium). Sell them in 5, 10, 15, 20 channel packages with a price break per channel as you buy more channels and then move into full channel bundling like they do now for those with higher # of channels desired. No service fee once you go into the higher packages like we have now (or line item it out of the existing fee). Win-win situation. Cable gets more subscribers, fans of existing packages get to keep what they have, customers who want ala carte get what they want.
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With Ala-carte: $50 for the first channel, $5 (or whatever) per channel after that. and get all the religious and shopping channels for free!! thats right, with one channel we will GIVE you all those channels which make US money, and that you don't want anyways!!!
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# 44
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Re: # 44
I agree. Beside I am not sure the cable company directly profits from advertisements. I mean, when you want to air a local commercial you have to call up the local ABC or FOX office, not the cable company. Maybe they get a percentage off of the ads, but definitely not the majority of the money.
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AND
The cable company KNOWS what we are watching... AND not guessing.
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Re: AND
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What if...
What happens if enough people don't pay for a channel because they don't like it? Will the cable company stop offering it?
Suppose I like a "niche" channel like Discovery Sciene. But suppose not many other people in area watch it. Will I stop getting it because it's not "cost efficient" for my cable provider to carry it?
And what happens if the "market" starts to dictate the types of channels that a cable provider provides? Will cable companies in Florida offer 50 Spanish channels and nothing else because that's where their profit is?
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Feeble little sheep (PUSH vs PULL)
And I argue it would be less expensive, since people might start to GROW A CLUE and realize that charging a subscription to a channel that has COMMERCIALS is not only unreasonable, it's also pretty scummy.
Ala carte would also expose nasty practices that ESPN, Turner, etc. use to sell thier worthless channels.
But wait, here's a though let's toss the stupid idea of pushing content and establish more methods of pulling content. On demand, Youtube, etc are a start, but that technology was available for some time and it still hasn't really taken hold.
Why you ask, same reason the ala carte is FUDed by the astroturfers, content owners can exploit the push method much more easily the allowing customer choice.
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Monopolies!
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$60 just to get the 2 channels I want?
Yes, subscribing to individual TV programs is the future -- but at the current $2/episode, or forced to watch commercials on a little PC app??!?
All this has made illegal downloading so attractive. The video quality of the Divx files are far better than cable and satellite home feeds, and some files are in high definition.
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I can't believe ala carte will increase prices
If you haven't flipped through all your channels, then you're missing one very important detail: Channels you don't pay for are blocked.
Think about this for a second. I don't see any feasible reason why a cable company would increase the price for ala carte programming when they can just as easily block channels we don't pay for.
Now, I do see a possible increase in per-channel subscriptions which would indeed increase the overall cost of cable service. This increase would be done solely for the reasons of retaining revenue.
Cable companies push ads and with those ads being dropped, the revenue must be made somewhere. If I had to guess, these ad revenues would appear:
- In the cable menu listings. Not just small ads, but huge ones. Definitely to make you notice.
- Increase in price for ala carte services. Why offer less than $1 per channel (when most aren't watched) when they can charge $5 per channel ala carte. The cell phone industry does this on a daily basis. Try getting a cell phone ala carte and compare phone bills.
What really ticks me off is the availability of HD channels with cable. There are only a few, especially when new channels seem to pop up daily. As an HD subscriber, I feel as though I'm paying for analog channels I can't stand to watch.
Sadly, this lawsuit won't do anything but destroy the industry if the case is won.
Oh, and I do have to say I do believe the day of the "channel" is indeed dying. What I can't understand is why it's taking so long to implement. On Demand is gaining in popularity as well as DVRing shows. Now, if only the on demand lineup included more shows.
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Cable/Sat TV lawsuit
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Most people only want about 15 or less.
The Spanish Channels say you want us you must make us part of a package.
It is not fair that everybody has to pay for what they never watch.
If people were to pay for only wat they want sat tv could do with less satellites because what nobody wants would be gone.
I say if a channel cannot pay for itself it is not needed and should not be on.
Dish wanted to drop a channel nobody watches and because it is owned by CBS they had to keep it or lose other channels people want.
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cutoff cable,directv,fios etc.
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