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A la carte pricing, please.
1 replies
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Read the comment right above yours.
A la carte pricing, please.
Read the comment right above yours.
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TNT is 5 x industry average? \"We know how to make you pay\"
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As a car guy, perusing this list just reminds me how annoying SPEED TV is.
R.I.P. Speedvision...
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remember when you could watch Dakar and WRC and Baja and all sorts of neat racing commentated in exotic foreign accents?
*SIGH*
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*lights a candle*
Oh, Speedvision.
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Wow, it's like looking at a menu for Video Junk Food.....
Amazing how most of the crap floated to the top.
$5.76 is what it would cost me to get what I want. And even then, with the amount of time my kids leave me to watch TV, I could knock it down to 69 cents and be happy.
Now, to do the math on what Comcast pays for my channels...it looks like (if I counted all the channels right), $1.77.
That isn't at all what it would cost you.
This is what the cable companies give the channels per subscriber. If they went with a la carte pricing, this kind of fee structure would NEVER happen and it would cost you probably ten times this.
if it cost me 10x this I would still be saving money.
I know. I'm just thinking of an ideal world. Perhaps one where a franchise was awarded to a non-profit in a magical land where wire was laid down as a public utility by the local government...
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I think I'd be willing to pay for a la carte pricing if it meant I would have more channels that I like and fewer channels that I don't like, especially those that show nothing but home shopping, cooking, and paid programming, but also get rid of those channels that I don't get, but show up on the guide, so I can see what I'm not getting.
Food Network is awesome.
=(
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I suppose I'm the exception, but I keep some channels active because sometimes there is something interesting on them. I may hate 95% of ESPN, but I'll flip through and they'll have something I find interesting.
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It's time to stop watching Fox News, and switch to MSNBC. I can get all the shouting for less than 1/3rd the price.
It's not the politics...it's the principle of the matter!
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A la carte please.
If the channel is not offered in HD (or at least formatted in 16:9) I don't want it.
And if the original content is SD 4:3?
I would suffice for 16:9 aspect ratio formatting for all channels at the very least.
I see no reason why we should continue to pander to the 4:3 aspect ratio customers when the owners of 4:3 televisions have not committed any money to the CE manufacturers in years.
If 16:9 sets are what is offered new in the stores then ALL tv signals should already be 16:9 formatted.
Don't give me (the broadcasters are not at 16:9 yet) crap because a studio quality video scalar that could connect in to all their equipment costs about $3500.
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As Bix said, what if the content is in 4:3? Are you one of those people who wants it stretched out because you cant tell the difference and \"just want it to fill the tv\" ? well theres a button on your remote for that
Tried to reply yesterday to you both but the comments were down. If all TV is formatted for 16:9 then the stretch issue goes away. As an examply, look to Syfy HD who runs Star Trek and Stargate in 16:9 formatted for 4:3. It works and there is no more stretching needed by your local TV.
And you see now why Disney tries to rape every provider out there and holds ESPN over their heads as blackmail.
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I would definitely opt for ala carte pricing.
I honestly can't believe that this works. I may be in the minority, but I can't remember the last time I watched ESPN. I would gladly give up ESPN, and Fox sports net for $7. Heck, I would split the savings with them, and do it for $3.50.
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to be fair it's a bargain compared to FOXSportsnet. they charge over half as much and give you maybe 5% of the product that ESPN offers.
A la carte pricing hurts independent producers, new stations, and niche programming. See all those people who get barely anything?
All those channels will be canceled. Gone. Kaput. And all those people will lose their jobs.
The producers and filmmakers who might get their work on those channels as they're all struggling and starting up? Gone.
Plain, simple, easy to understand language: a la carte pricing would hurt the people you don't want to hurt, who bring you the interesting and individual programming you like. In the end, you'd only be hurting yourself.
If it were not for sports you can only get on cable I would go cable-free, the ultimate in a la carte. Without cable I would lose all NHL games, nearly all the NBA, MLB, and College basketball, as well as a good number of NFL and College Football games I care about. It's enough that I almost want to move out of my team's market solely so that I can drop cable and buy the direct online broadcast options through the leagues directly.
It's all about opportunity costs. If you are paying a content producer who should go out of business because they aren't adding value, you aren't paying a restaurant or a retailer that is adding value. It's the same reason we don't stimulate the economy by paying little kids to throw rocks through people's windows, thus forcing them to hire repairmen. Money not spent on one thing is money spent on something else. When you force people to pay for things they wouldn't otherwise, you may be saving one person's job by preventing someone else from getting one in an area that brings a greater benefit to us all.
If they're not putting out programming I want to see then I don't rightly care if they get hurt.....I want all the discovery channels, history channels, cartoon network, and maybe fox which I can get with an antenna anyway. That's it the rest of the channels are chaff.
The If you evenly split the check with your friends at a nice resturant you may think you'd come out ahead because you didn't have the prime rib, but you ate the appetizer all by yourself. multiply this scenario by 50 and you have cable. The ESPN is 4 bucks because more people want to watch it than LOGO. I'd bet that even if every homosexual in the nation was required to pay for LOGO and straight folks were allowed to choose to order it, they would either need to charge 30 bucks a month or go out of business.
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To be honest - If it lowers my DirecTV bill by a considerable amount, I could care less who has to lose their job.
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I understand not wanting people to lose work, but if they programming these production houses and indie film makers produces has no audience then why should we subsidize it. The intent of TV is to make money, it is a business. If you want artistic vision and creative voices then look to PBS and other publicly funded options. With digital distribution if the story is that important to the indie then they will still make it available. TV doesn't make money if people never watch. It is a sad reality, but TV shows come and go all of the time because there isn't a market for it.
If very few people watch some of the niche channels would it be such a bad idea to get rid of them completely and eliminate their high overhead. They could reach their audience in some other way (online being one) on a much smaller budget that is in line with their audience size.
Many of the so-called niche channels these days just repurpose the same crap their sibling networks already play.
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While these are wholesale prices, they seem reasonable, except of course the espn & fox sports channel. And TNT (\"we know drama\" - no you don't; all you know is how to slice & dice a show to put in more commercials and display on-screen text so as to block whatever it is we're trying to watch) is definitely NOT worth $.99 wholesale. The question, though, is what are the cable & directv folks actually charging us to watch these things. I recall that a few years ago direct moved Fox Movie Channel to a higher tier. They really must be jacking up the price since here it shows as sixteen cents.
A sliver of sunshine in my case is that I canceled directv 2 months ago, since I couldn't afford it anymore. So I record to a vcr via my OTA connection. And some shows I watch online. Oh, I have to watch \"24\" later. Thanks for reminding me.
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Cable viewers who don't like sports and exploding things are clearly getting screwed.
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So what I am gathering is that the channels that I actually watch cost the cable companies about 4 dollars a month.
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Those who want a la carte should be careful what they wish for.
I don't see why. The pricing for the A La Carte should be EXACTLY the same as we see it here. The channels are STILL selling advertising ad nauseum so they're making bucks. And as an aside, they should be able to sell their advertising for MORE because they'll know precisely how many subscribers they have, and because the subscribers asked for those channels they can be relatively certain that they're watching more frequently ---> higher advertising rates on the ole Nielsenmeter.
I for one one can't stand sports - I'm a geek and damn proud of it. I could EASILY save myself about $12/month if not more by going a la carte. All the sports, music, shopping, foreign language stuff, and a few others GONE...
Now that said - consider this: If you have net neutrality and a good speed internet connection - why is cable relevant? I'd be happy to pay SyFy their $0.22/month for their channel over the Net... Maybe this is why Comcrap, TW, and the rest of the swine are running shitless toward the FCC and spending MILLIONS AGAINST net neutrality...
I gotta love that 8 of the 10 most expensive channels are channels I would never, ever, watch, ever, and the other two are channels that I wouldn't really miss if they went away.
I understand that ala carte pricing would make the individual channels much more expensive. But one day, just out of curiosity, I priced buying entire seasons of the shows I actually watch from iTunes. I realized that if I used an antenna for all the network shows, used the $8.95 Netflix membership for movies and older stuff, and bought everything else ala carte, as it were, it would cost me about half as much as I'm paying now.
I don't watch sports, though.
Better thing to look for than sports or makeovers: Foreign language programming. Totaling up all the obvious non-English channels (I gave 'Si TV' the benefit of the doubt, along with others), it reaches almost $4. This isn't just TV that you aren't likely to watch, this is TV that you more or less literally cannot watch as most people do not speak Spanish.
I don't watch any music channels/makeover-centric channels, or sports on non-broadcast networks other than ESPN for various NFL + college football games, but it pisses me off a lot more to pay for television I neither want to watch nor can watch than to have sports shoved down my throat.
So glad I got rid of cable. Now if I could just learn to live outside and stop eating, I'd have some money left over at the end of the month.
am i the only one that thinks it's ridiculous that Discovery and A&E, channels that are actually watched by many, have been around for decades, and produce good quality original programming get paid the same as TyCSports international, and WAPA-America, whatever that is?
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Wow, that does piss me off. I watch zero sports, yet they comprise the most of my cable bill?
I added up all of the channels my wife and I watch regularly (and a few we barely watch), and came up with about 25 channels, and my total was $6.11. Currently I pay about $135 a month for cable (including 6mb internet that runs about $45 a month, and DVR, which is about $15 a month).
Call and threaten to cancel. They'll give you an introductory rate, slicing a good chunk off your bill. We do that every year, and this year we got $30/month shaved off our bill, and they threw in a year of HBO/Cinemax for free.
Or actually cancel and save the entire amount.
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If you actually believe that a la carte cable channel pricing will ultimately harm consumers, please, by all means, continue to pour your ill-managed money into your cable providers bottomless pockets.
However, there are several excellent articles posted here, at the Consumerist, that instruct you on how to remove yourself from the cable game all together. (Sorry Sports Fans, there's no easy answer for you. You're currently subjects of a monopolistic industry, with no light at the end of the tunnel.)
If more of us cut the cable, and started watching content online, the fat cat cable companies would be forced to come back to the bargaining table, and eat some humble pie.
Well, since the cable companies are often also your ISP, they could just jack up the rates of broadband to compensate for the loss of TV subscribers.
I love the idea of cutting paid TV out of my life as well, but know the days of hard data caps and limited online content aren't far away. Eventually they will figure out people are ditching TV for Hulu and find a way to get the revenue back.
Hopefully almighty GooG will save us.
Actually, sports fans have hope, at least for college sports on ESPN -- ESPN360.com programming is free (so far), and CBS now puts March Madness online for free. 15 years without cable or satellite here -- and it's gotten much easier in the last few years.
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This is just more incentive for me to bite the bullet and get rid of cable altogether. I can't bear the thought of my money supporting all that crap, when I actually watch about four channels -- none of which is anywhere near the top of that list.
The problem here isn't the lack of al a cart (though it would help a great deal), the problem is that channels of a similar genre are scattered all across different tiers. I'm tired of buying the high tier to get BBC America/World News and ending up having to pay for N channels of hockey and basketball. Why can't they sell packages by subject matter instead?
That would be awesome
Additionally, quit making it so difficult to get common international channels. I shouldn't have to beg just to have the chance to buy CNN International, BBC World or Al Jazeera English. What ever happened to serving the customer?
If selling your product to the people who actually want it isn't sustainable then perhaps you need to move on to something else.
Sure, if you had a la carte pricing some channels would fail, BUT that could include the most expensive channels too! Sounds like most people here don't really watch ESPN, myself included. If we had the option of cutting them out of our bill their revenue would drop just as much as any other channel that people didn't want.
To stay in business, a channel like ESPN would either have to increase their price to the point where the reduced number of subscribers would cover their costs, OR lower their price to the point where a larger number of people would be willing to pay for it and not complain. I suppose option 3 could be to discontinue the channel entirely.
I think in the end it would work out to the advantage of every consumer. People get only what they are willing to pay for. Niche channels like quilting or whatever surely would need to charge more, but the people who really want that are likely to pay more for it. Same thing applies to ESPN.
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I'm looking at $11 worth of channels I'd want to watch, and some I don't.
I'd be willing to go 3-4x the prices if I got the channels I want to watch. Not a $60-70+ dollar package just to get G4. But I'm fine with my $45 roadrunner with turbo boost and Hulu. I get to watch most the shows I like and it is much cheaper.
Looks like my channels come up to $4.27.
I will remember that tonight when I pay my $95 DirecTV bill.
Everyone can tell me how much Ala carte would hurt the smaller channels, etc. But how much would they suffer if I drop DirecTV because it costs too much?
I'd much rather pay more for the channels I like. TruTV. I love that channel, mainly for Hot Pursuit (best police chase show ever) and Smoking Gun Presents... and it's definitely worth more than a dime (A DIME!???? per month). But they can keep ESPN. Never want that.
Where is the porn?
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So now that Comcash is going all-digital and using addressable cable boxes, can we make them offer à la carte deals? Personally, I'd like to spend that 5 cents extra to get BBC World News and CNBC World.
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Wow, my entire selection is $3.14 - less than ESPN.
You wont get the channels for that price with ala cart. Many of these channels are owned by ONE company, like CBS or Viacom. They sell them in packages of 10 or 15 channels to the cableco.
ESPN has already said if they are pulled out the lineup , they would be like HBO a premium and charge 15 to 20 dollars per month just for them. So would a lot of the other popular ones.
In fact you will likely end up with a Higher bill with ala cart.
I don't see a problem with that.
Awesome--you want ESPN, pay the 15-20 bucks a month. Don't see the problem with this.
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Okay, then you can pay $15-20 for BBC America. Deal?
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What if there were smaller packages? Like for 20.00 a month, you can pick 3 from one list 5 from another list and 10 from obscure channel list? Then, I could pick and choose which of those channels I want but theres still a minimum I have to purchase, but I can decide which programs would prefer. Then you can have packages for people who want more for 30.00, 40.00
If I don't have kids, I don't pay for disney and don't speak spanish why am I getting mtv espanol- but i like crime dramas, so I can pick tnt, usa, amc, investigation channel. I can reach my total by picking nothing but channels I watch.
Maybe they can even make pre-sorted offers like sports lovers (which would take into account sports channel pricing), seniors, spanish, womens' interest, and family packages. That way, we still get a variety of programs, but we're not paying for stuff we would NEVER watch.
Wow, the channels I used to watch when I had cable cost under $2.00 total.
I'd pay $35 a month for the HD versions 6 or 7 channels I actually did watch. But $60+/month for a few channels is just too damn much. Maybe I'd do $100/month for 15/15 sustained data and an IPTV stream.
Content providers need to embrace the internet instead of fear it.
30 channels and 5.29 covers everything I ever watch. =(
I understand some of these are \"subsidized\" by others, so I'll offer paying 5 times these prices for a la carte. My bill would drop to 53.80 and I would still have 21 channels, more than enough to keep me occupied when teamed up with a Netflix membership.
Actually, if ESPN costs $20/month, I think I would probably drop them. Thats a lot of money for watching a few games a year. I don't care for their other \"content\" anymore. I'd rather tack on MLB Network or NHL. So my bill would be closer to $34 a month.
Verizon probably wouldn't lose too much either, since I would be more apt to up my internet speeds with my cheap TV bill.
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At these rates, I would only need to pay $15/month for the channels I want to watch, instead of the $80 DirecTV charges me.
I would be quite happy if i could swap a handful of those I don't care about for a handful that I do. I refuse to pay Comcrap another $16 a month to get ONE channel on the next tier that I really want.
What I'd like to see is the tiers come in groups that are equal in cost to Comcast. Then do something where tiers could be \"pick 5 from this group of 30\" or \"pick 15 from this group of 30\".
Or even more logical groupings would be nice. Why not just lump all the specialty sports channels together, or all the discoveryish/travel/science/history together? All women's networks? I'm infuriated that I have to pay for Big 10, but I can't get NFL without upgrading to the sports tier? wtf. I love Discovery, but i can't get Science Channel without upgrading to the premium tier. Instead, I get half a dozen spanish channels I couldn't care less about.
ARGH. The whole thing is just infuriating. I hate you, Cable Industry.
What's more annoying to me is that the guide shows me channels that I am not subscribed to. That's annoying. I wish that cable companies could figure that one out, or at least you set up a list of favorites. I seem to be unable to do this with Verizon FIOS TV's HD box still, but my cable box has a dumb Twitter widget. Seems that I need the HD DVR service in order to create favorites. Lame.
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The problem with all of the talk about a la carte is that the channels you don't subscribe to would probably still get your cash from your cable company. The cable company would charge you a lot more (per channel) than it costs to get that one channel ( kind of like they do now anyways) so they can afford to keep the channels that don't demand as much viewership.
This sounds kind of odd until you realize that the cable companies probably have to maintain a minimum number of subscribers before the costs of piping the signals from the studio becomes prohibitive. It's similar to that whole cost-profit margin thingy you might have learned in high school economics class.
If this didn't make sense to you (the individual reader) I apologize. I am doped on cold meds and scraping by with what little of three hours of sleep actually mattered. Happy hump day!
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So based on this alone, the channels I watch that are on this list that we actually have offered by my local Comcast, it costs Comcast $11.55 a month for the channels I actually watch... but my cable bill is $75 a month and includes tons of channels I never set my eyes on.
And here's another interesting thing. Comcast does carry Logo channel in some markets but not mine.. yet I'm having to finance it.. but can't get it even though I do want it.
but you still have to consider the cost of building/maintaining infrastructure, the cost of customer service and technitions, the cost of all the other employees working for the cable company, the cost of supplies, buildings, and other overhead, and the profit margin. Oh, and don't forget that cable uses satellites for some of their transmissions before it ever gets to your house. After all that, I'm not sure what the price would be, but my guess is still significantly higher than $12.
I believe the point that overall these prices would average out is wrong. If the prices were all the same, or if channels costs were proportionate to their popularity, then this averaging theory would be correct.
But there's no way there are as many sports viewers as are in the proportion of these prices.
It won't be the first time said that the majority of subscribers basically subsidize the sports subscribers.
If the channels were broken down in groups, it's pretty clear that if pay-per-channel were enabled, sports fans would pay substantially more (for the same coverage) and those who don't watch sports would pay less.
IS IT ANY COINCIDENCE THAT CABLE COMPANIES HAVE BOUGHT UP SO MANY SPORTS TEAMS?
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I'd pay double those listed prices for a la carte.
Here's a novel idea -- make the channels justify their existence by earning their total revenue through advertising.
Actually, it's an old idea. That's what shows on the networks had to do back in the days when consumers received everything OTA.
Cable/satellite companies could charge a monthly fee to cover their operating expenses.
It's ridiculous that the consumer has to pay the channels for the priviledge of suffering through endless ads.
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Here's how I imagine a la carte COULD work:
Using the channels priced at or under the industry average of $0.20--figure that the actual retail price per channel is ten times that amount--roughly $2 or less per channel.
I can see many channels I'd 'settle' with just to get a relatively cheap cable bill. Let me commit to buying a minimum of fifteen of these channels (minus my local network affiliates, which I'll pull in free and in HD with an antenna). That's roughly $30, plus reasonable equipment fees and taxes--let's say my bill is $45. Much better than the $70+ I pay now.
If I want TNT, USA, ESPN, CNN, etc--I'll pay CableCo Incorporated a fair 'middle premium' price for them relative to HBO, Showtime, et. al. At the very least, putting aside exclusive/original programming, there are lower priced 'alternatives' for basic news and sports coverage, along with channels showing movies, reality shows, and some of my favorite broadcast TV reruns.
I know I've forgotten to account for multiple room usage and the real premium channels, but still. I don't think a la carte is SO unworkable as the pipe industry says it is.
OK, here's the thing - those prices clearly account for the amount of people who actually WATCH them.
So you don't like paying for AMC, History, Syfy, SPEED, Spike TV, Bravo and VH1 when you spend all your time watching Lifetime. But you're not accounting for the fact that 9 other people are paying for your Lifetime even though they're not watching it.
A la carte SOUNDS like a great idea until you realize the prices would not be the same with a la carte pricing. Your Lifetime channel would cost $4. You'd end up paying the same amount, but you'd get fewer channels.
Ummm no, and why on the \"channel would cost you $4.\"
They should be regulated to prevent gouging customers for paying more than the channel is worth and just to get what they want.
if a la carte pricing was 1000% the above, I would still save money compared to what I pay now.
And I would happily pay 1000% the above for a la carte.
Right now I don't pay anything and don't get any cable channels. It's not worth paying $40 per month or more when there's only a small handful of channels I actual want. If they offered a la carte pricing, I would be more likely to subscribe to at least something. Heck, if they're paying 3 cents per month per subscriber for BBC World News, I would gladly pay ten times that rate.
You're completely missing the point. People who want fewer channels would pay less, people who want more channels would pay more. Otherwise just like it is now.
The thing is, I got rid of my cable because I didn't like having to pay $50/month when I only watch a couple of cable channels. If it meant I paid $10/month for two channels through a la carte pricing, I might very well splurge.
Fine, i might pay almost as much, but why dont you let me choose if i want to pay almost as much for fewer channels, or go with a bundle and pay for lots and lots of crap i'll never watch? Maybe i want to stick it to fox news and dont want to pay them for their \"news\".
OR, networks that don't have enough viewers/revenue without being subsidized would fail, which is what should happen in a free market. If the only way the Quilt Channel can survive is by being subsidized, then maybe the world doesn't need a Quilt Channel.
I don't think it is quite that simple. Last I read some channels with a relatively low number of viewers will often collect a great deal of money from the cable company. More than far more popular channels because they allow the cable provider to run more of their own commercials. Thus the prices aren't determined just by consumer popularity, but value to the cable company.
If you watch only Lifetime then you clearly value that channel at the current price you pay so reducing your options while keeping your channel is completely fine.
This is a complex issue.Networks created channels because the could not because they should. By bundling their channels together they can offer advertising packages touting a broad reach. The affect should be to get networks to cull the channels that are not operating with a profit. More choice doesn't do anyone any favors if the choices are not good.
Consumers are not getting a good deal in this mess. Networks want to get paid and Cable ops want to get paid. We have the money. Until we break our self-inflicted dependence on cable for entertainment the issue will not go away.
Ya know, I would be okay with paying more for each individual channel, even if it meant I could afford fewer channels.
I don't watch 80% of what is on that list. Let me pay the same amount for the ones I do watch and not subsidize crap (IMHO) like SPEED for others.
Knowing this will never happen, I have simply programmed my cable to skip those lousy channels so I don't have to wade thru them when browsing TV.
Brilliant point, much appreciated
\"You'd end up paying the same amount, but you'd get fewer channels.\"
I'd be OK with that. Including the HD and music and PPV channels we've got over 1000 channels to trudge through, and sure we can go through and spend hours creating favorites lists that only show the channels we actually want, but every software update wipes that out and we have to start over. So if my bill stayed the same but I only got the channels I wanted I'd be perfectly happy. I hate sports and while sure on an individual basis the channels would get more expensive a la carte, *as a proportion of the bill* I'm paying a ridiculous amount for something I don't want.