A la Carte?

[pabeader]

i don't think I pay too much. i pay what i feel i can afford. i just hate all the crap channels like the shopping stuff that take up such a limited resource as bandwidth. so i don't want more i want less. just a better, less.

 

[Hall]

Okay, but...

How does one FORCE ESPN to negotiate from a basic pack to a sports pack?

Hehe, Greg, this is one of the few times I agree with you. In this scenario, Canadians are lucky. Here in the US, in how many cases has ESPN/ABC/Disney allowed carriers to split up their channels as the carrier sees fit ? I'll go out on a limb and answer: NONE

As soon as I saw Iceberg's post about a themed package and ESPN Classic and no other ESPN channels, your comment about regulation makes it perfectly clear. The Canadian gov't must have basically told them "no forced channel bundles".

 

[Jim5506]

If you want something really screwed up, ask the government to help.

 

[Greg Bimson]

Hehe, Greg, this is one of the few times I agree with you. In this scenario, Canadians are lucky. Here in the US, in how many cases has ESPN/ABC/Disney allowed carriers to split up their channels as the carrier sees fit ? I'll go out on a limb and answer: NONE

That is because the carriers are given bulk discounts to order the programming on channels in a certain fashion. That is why ESPN and ESPN2 had been book-ended by ESPNews and ESPNClassic on most systems. On DirecTV, they are channels 206-209.

ESPN also allowed a swap of ESPNU with ESPNClassic last year. But you are correct; it is the programmers that basically dictate the terms, especially for the most viewed programming.

Anyone see what Dish Network offers a la carte? Need an idea of what you'll pay for certain programming in an a la carte world? When Bloomberg is a $3/month add-on you'll note that most channels would at least be in that range. Baby First is $5. Disney used to be on that list and I think it was somewhere near $10. It gets expensive rather quickly.

A la carte will not happen on cable and satellite systems until there is some form of competition from something else. The governmental and regulatory stakeholders won't touch it.

just hate all the crap channels like the shopping stuff that take up such a limited resource as bandwidth. so i don't want more i want less. just a better, less.

Dish Network owns the licenses which they use to transmit programming. I think Dish Network, which is in the business to provide programming to their customers, is in a much better position to allocate bandwidth based upon the needs of their customers.

 

[mike123abc]

The only way a la carte will work is if Congress gets involved. They would also have to force companies not to bundle up their own programs (i.e. Disney only sells ABC/ESPN/Disney as a single block). I do not see any way for this to happen. These huge conglomerates wield too much power in Congress and there is no vocal opposition to them.

 

[Curtis0620]

i don't think I pay too much. i pay what i feel i can afford. i just hate all the crap channels like the shopping stuff that take up such a limited resource as bandwidth. so i don't want more i want less. just a better, less.

Since others would want these channels, how would bandwidth be saved?

I vote to get rid of all the duplicate Premium channels. That is a true waste of bandwidth. How many channels do we need showing the same movies over and over.

 

[MikeD-C05]

A subsidy is usually a form of financial assistance. These networks are receiving money from cable and satellite distributors based upon contracts they've signed; no "financial assistance" necessary.

I cannot buy Choice Plus on Dish Network nor AT120 on DirecTV. They are packaged offerings of their respective companies. The programmers negotiate for their placement in these offerings; consumers purchase based upon those offerings. DirecTV doesn't offer a Dish Network package, so why is it all the programmers fault when these cable and satellite companies make their own packaging decisions?

Again (and this isn't directed at TalonDancer) if anyone wants to see ESPN in a package other than the lowest, basic package, simply come up with an idea that generates more money for ESPN than the current scheme. Otherwise, Disney will not wilfully move ESPN out of basic. Which of course, means most are suggestig a "subsidy" from the government in the form of a mandate moving ESPN out of basic channel packages.

After all, the cable and satellite companies signed contracts which put ESPN into their most-viewed packages.Then why are there three different carriage contracts with three wildly different start dates?

The fact is ESPN and the ABC owned-and-operated stations are pretty much tied together, while the Disney suite and ABC Family are negotiated separately.

The reality is that many say they want a la carte, but what they actually want is the ability to pick a package and then get rid of channels they don't want from that package and expect their bill to decrease. I'm sorry, that's not a la carte. And that will never happen. EVER.

They don't allow a company like Directv or DISH or cable to only carry say ABC, without taking Espn channels or DISNEY channels. I said in my earlier post that many contracts can start and end at different times for different channels like Espn coming due in 2013, I think I remember reading on this board. But the fact is, as a company neither DISH or DIRECTV can take one channel and drop the others. Their contracts are negotiated to be like that. OR as some call it "FORCED BUNDLING".

Many times DISH has asked the lawmakers to force these companies to un-bundle their channels so they can keep from having their bills hiked to carry one channel. So far this has been ignored or the lobbyist have paid more to not allow this.

 

[MikeD-C05]

The only way a la carte will work is if Congress gets involved. They would also have to force companies not to bundle up their own programs (i.e. Disney only sells ABC/ESPN/Disney as a single block). I do not see any way for this to happen. These huge conglomerates wield too much power in Congress and there is no vocal opposition to them.

EXACTLY!:up

 

[Hall]

Anyone see what Dish Network offers a la carte? Need an idea of what you'll pay for certain programming in an a la carte world? When Bloomberg is a $3/month add-on you'll note that most channels would at least be in that range. Baby First is $5. Disney used to be on that list and I think it was somewhere near $10. It gets expensive rather quickly.

Damnit... Two times now... That's what people fail to grasp. Too many think they can take the current package they have, for example, ~120 channels for $29 (or let's say $39). Do the math, $.24 to $.33 per channel.... Yeah, that's what channels will cost each. Haha !!

The other thing is, when channels are in a "package", the network can demand "x" cents or dollars per subscriber (of that package). For some channels, it's almost free money because not every subscriber (could be next to nothing for some channels) watches.

 

[TheKrell]

The other thing is, when channels are in a "package", the network can demand "x" cents or dollars per subscriber (of that package).

Do we know this for a fact? It means that ad men have a near perfect vacuum between their ears since they pay for potential eyeballs rather than actual. It also means we might get a la carte w/o legislation if ad men wake up and pay only for actual eyeballs.

 

[Greg Bimson]

The other thing is, when channels are in a "package", the network can demand "x" cents or dollars per subscriber (of that package).

Do we know this for a fact? It means that ad men have a near perfect vacuum between their ears since they pay for potential eyeballs rather than actual. It also means we might get a la carte w/o legislation if ad men wake up and pay only for actual eyeballs.

Let's go backwards 30 or so years.

Ad men were paying for potential eyeballs rather than actual. There is no way to figure out how many people are going to watch a program on X night. That's looking into the future, and it isn't easy...

So there are predictions based upon viewership.

If channel X is only available in half the homes as channel Y because channel X is in a digital-tier or on a higher satellite package, the viewership for channel X is already a much smaller pool.

Besides, there are rebates given to advertisers if the ratings don't pan out.

For example, one can bet Versus will get a higher ad rate this year for their NHL hockey package, because Versus received its highest ratings ever on their NHL package.

 

[Greg Bimson]

And then it dawns on me what TheKrell is talking about...

hall wasn't talking about ad rates. hall was talking about carriage rates from distributors.

When channels are in a package, a discount is given for the amount of viewers. That discount is given to the multichannel provider.

For example, let's take Bloomberg. Within a package, your provider pays $0.06 per subscriber for it (on average). How much is it a la carte? $3.00 on Dish Network. That's a markup of...

5000 percent.

Wait until channels with a current package rate of $0.20 per subscriber go a la carte.

 

[Bob Haller]

When buying cookies milk MUST be bought with it. and if you want milk cookies are required even if you dont want them and must toss them in the trash....

Heck if you were able to buy them seperately they would cost more...

cant have that

 

[falkor]

Has anyone here ever used the old C - Band dish ? If so , you know that a la carte does work . At least it did . The problem now is there are basically only 2 providers so programming is expensive . Back in the day ( 16-20 years ago ) there were sooooo many providers and a la carte was great . And you would get a discount if you bought a certain channel along with another channel and so on . You could buy small packages with a " make your own " to already bundled packages . There were so many to choose from . Even Dish offered C-Band sat channels a la carte and small packages to large ones . Those were good days . When you have 2 providers , you get screwed . I am surprised there are no more satellite providers out there offering what is available . Very sad and we pay the price for the luxury .

 

[Bobby]

and the majority of the population live in large metropolitan areas and can't use C-Band....

 

[TheKrell]

hall wasn't talking about ad rates. hall was talking about carriage rates from distributors.

Well, I didn't read it that way at first. But upon further review, I think you are right.

So how about that 2nd revenue stream? Are ad sales strictly a la carte?

 

[cband]

and the majority of the population live in large metropolitan areas and can't use C-Band....

Which means exactly what falkor is saying. Ala carte worked with C-Band and it was great. Those who live in big citys have Cable and are clueless about what REAL satellite tv was and still is. It was fun to see in the paper or in the news that Cable was raising rates again because of rising programming costs. If you had C-Band you would be able to see the ala carte prices and they never went up. DTV and Dish have lobbyists that pushed congress to not pass the bill to require them to have ala carte. When I had C-Band my bill was $20. a month plus I added whatever channels I wanted ala carte for way less than if I added them in to my programming package. Now with Dish I have to get their 250 channels just to see 4 or 5 channels I want. True, if you went all ala carte it would be more expensive than a package. But why should we be forced to buy the most expensive package to get just several channels?

Jeff

 

[Hall]

As suspected, I was NOT referring to ad rates. If you were a network, would you want to count "all subscribers of package 'A'" or use actual viewers to determine your rates ? They want numbers based on potential viewers, not actual. It's automatically in their favor this way. Of course, when a channel asks for a number that's out of line, nowadays the providers, i.e. Dish, DirecTV, cablecos, all have hard numbers from their set-tops to counter with.

 

[Greg Bimson]

When buying cookies milk MUST be bought with it. and if you want milk cookies are required even if you dont want them and must toss them in the trash....

Heck if you were able to buy them seperately they would cost more...

cant have that

Because the multi-channel providers generally won't offer it in that fashion...

Now with Dish I have to get their 250 channels just to see 4 or 5 channels I want. True, if you went all ala carte it would be more expensive than a package. But why should we be forced to buy the most expensive package to get just several channels?

Then let's go to one channel that was no longer available on both providers for a similar period of time...

Versus.

DirecTV's recent spat was over channel placement. DirecTV finally relented, keeping the channel in the package just above the basic pack and after about six months the channel was back on.

Dish Network's spat a few years ago was when the network was called OLN, the first year that the NHL was available on the channel. Dish Network pulled the channel and they were able to secure rights for packaging the channel in one of the higher tiers. To this day it is still only available to AT250 customers, although there have been some freeviews to customers with smaller packages.

Versus is on AT250 because that is where Dish Network wants it. Dish Network wants to drive revenue by forcing people to a higher package.

Has anyone here ever used the old C - Band dish ? If so , you know that a la carte does work . At least it did .

If it "no longer works", doesn't it mean the marketplace is broken? That is, a la carte failed.

Yet we ae here discussing this again.

 

[Carl B]

Government intervention to require a la carte as an option and prohibit "all or nothing packages" from the content providers would allow a la carte as a viable, low cost option to the consumer. However, revenue and profits for the content and service providers would drop substantially so their lobbyists will never let this happen. Government serves the big business lobbyists, not the American consumer.

It's really the content providers that are driving the constantly increasing cost of pay TV. I sure irks me to endure a rate increase so Disney or CBS can force feed a bunch channels that have daily average audiences that seldom exceed 4 digits.