Canadians To Get Unbundled Cable TV Channels 195
Jerry Rivers writes "The CRTC, Canada's communications regulator, has approved changes to the way cable companies bundle programming to allow the purchase of selected channels while dropping others they do not want. However, the customers won't necessarily be paying any less. 'The flipside is that the fewer channels that are subscribed to, the more expensive each will become, people familiar with the matter said, asking for anonymity because details of the decision are confidential. The decision is a small step toward an "à la carte" model long talked about by regulators — and longed for by consumers — but resisted by TV channel owners and distributors for fear of undermining the economics of cable television, which have come to rely on subscriber fees from those channels.'"
What I'll pay (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.
If it comes with extra, that's fine, but I'm not going over that amount (adjust for inflation).
Content bundling (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.
If it comes with extra, that's fine, but I'm not going over that amount (adjust for inflation).
But suppose Viacom won't sell dishnetwork Nickelodian but wants to bundle Nick their AMC channel. The cable and dish networks are not the only bundlers. If the cable folks stop bundling shows, the content producers may start bundling their channels, leading us right back to where we started.
The difference is that it's been proven that the content producers are much more powerful than the cable and sattelite providers in dictating terms.
Re:What I'll pay (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.
Remember when the SyFy channel actually showed SciFi programming?
Re:Just wait (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, if you want to be technical about it...
My Grandmother had Cable TV because she lived in a valley with big ol' hills on all sides of her. Cable TV was once "Community Antenna" TV and the idea was that you put a big ol' antenna at the top of the hill and then distribute the programming to the people in the valley.
So what it meant was that she could get all the broadcast channels--ABC (Channel 8), NBC (Channel 4), CBS (Channel 3), and PBS (Channel 11) stations--and the picture looked great whereas if she stuck an antenna on her roof, she'd be lucky to pick up anything. But she still saw all the advertisements.
Later on, as I understand it, the companies that did this also mixed a satellite dish in there and gave people HBO for an extra amount. You could also get WTBS out of Atlanta and other "super stations"--but you still saw the advertising.
Now if you had your own satellite dish, you could skip the local advertising. Years ago, the company I worked for had a satellite dish and I remember watching Monday Night Football directly from the ABC satellite. You saw the network ads and then you were treated to several minutes of broadcasters chatting, shots of attractive women in the stands, and anything else that caught some producer's eye.
Re:What I'll pay (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What I'll pay (Score:5, Interesting)
The obvious model is to follow POTS: you pay a base fee for the physical line & equipment, then pay "per. use" and pay extra for additional features.
POTS doesn't work like that, unless you have a payphone installed. For a base fee POTS gives you a physical line and basic services. You have to buy the equipment, and if you want long distance, you either pay their fees, or contract with another long distance provider.
I'd rather have things work like this: One company runs the cable and maintains the infrastructure. Another company puts a signal on the wire. Separation of content provider and infrastructure provider.