Intel to offer a-la-carte TV channel subscriptions

Do all of the waste-of-space infomercial channels on cable & satellite pay the providers to be part of the bundle helping to subsidize our cable or satellite bill?

There are so many channels that seem worthless... I can't imagine anyone having any desire to watch them.

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Originally Posted by SwirlingFloater

Do all of the waste-of-space infomercial channels on cable & satellite pay the providers to be part of the bundle helping to subsidize our cable or satellite bill?

There are so many channels that seem worthless... I can't imagine anyone having any desire to watch them.

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Yes, those channels pay to be carried and do subsidize the bill.

As for the talk of the big 10 network being screwed by ala carte, b10net is part owned by fox. Fox will just bundle it with the rest of its content.

We will never have true per-channel ala carte. The best you'll hope for is the ability to choose just to buy disney's bundle, or fox's bundle, time warner's bundle etc, and there's no guarantee itll be cheaper in the end, especially if you want one or two from each of those bundles.

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Originally Posted by SwirlingFloater

Do all of the waste-of-space infomercial channels on cable & satellite pay the providers to be part of the bundle helping to subsidize our cable or satellite bill?

There are so many channels that seem worthless... I can't imagine anyone having any desire to watch them.

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I agree, but apparently there are a lot of people who watch Bunny Hoo-Hoo, Real Sluts of Madison County, and Who Wants To Screw My Sister?

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Originally Posted by aeroclone

I'm not sure that it is going to be that simple. At some point, price elasticity is going to come in to play. I would love to cut back my cable package because I don't want much of it, but my motivation is going to be price. The idea that ESPN can charge $20 per month to the people that actually watch it to make up for the 75% that drop it assumes that the watchers are willing to pay that. ESPN may be on my list of channels to keep, but at that price I may think twice, or I may just pick it up for football season and drop it the rest of the year. I view ESPN as a must have, but I don't view it as a must have all year , nor would I pay that much for it by itself. I have a feeling there are many of us in the 25% that feel the same way.

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Or even all parts of the week or day for that matter; there's a reason the networks used to stop broadcasting altogether after a certain time every night. With ESPN, I almost only watch it on Saturdays or for Baseball Tonight in the summer, and that's it. The ideal setup for me would be an on-demand/pay-per-view system given how little and infrequently I watch TV.

There's just so much waste in the current structure that I don't see how it can be sustainable. There's a lot of power with vested interests in the current model, sure, but I don't see why that can't be overcome.

GREAT idea. But like everyone else said, won't actually happen. The owners of the channels won't be behind it, and the cable providers who are ISP's will just start to throttle you.

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Originally Posted by klamath632

I agree, but apparently there are a lot of people who watch Bunny Hoo-Hoo, Real Sluts of Madison County, and Who Wants To Screw My Sister?

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Need pics to know if I should be watching this one or not.

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Originally Posted by aeroclone

I'm not sure that it is going to be that simple. At some point, price elasticity is going to come in to play. I would love to cut back my cable package because I don't want much of it, but my motivation is going to be price. The idea that ESPN can charge $20 per month to the people that actually watch it to make up for the 75% that drop it assumes that the watchers are willing to pay that. ESPN may be on my list of channels to keep, but at that price I may think twice, or I may just pick it up for football season and drop it the rest of the year. I view ESPN as a must have, but I don't view it as a must have all year, nor would I pay that much for it by itself. I have a feeling there are many of us in the 25% that feel the same way.

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True about the all year thing for sure. I could cancel ESPN from the point the NCAA tourney starts until the point football starts and not miss it. Of course they could always have it be a year contract sort of thing with an ETF if they wanted to.

Just wait for the networks to pull your favorite show and put it on a separate new network or PPV.

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Originally Posted by DistrictCyclone

There's just so much waste in the current structure that I don't see how it can be sustainable. There's a lot of power with vested interests in the current model, sure, but I don't see why that can't be overcome.

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That's part of the reason I cut the cord. It was ridiculous to spend so much money on a product that is mostly waste. Do I miss ESPN & FSN? Sure, but I'm also not contributing to their ever increasing fees. (I also thought that most things I would watch would be on ESPN3, but that changed quickly over the summer) If enough people protest, cancel cable, then it would force the a-la-carte thing a little more.

I see ESPN just bid a boatload of money for the new CFB playoffs in the next few years. Guess who is paying for that? Your increasing cable bill. Remember when most major college football games & MNF were on ABC? Well now that ESPN has cable subscribers held captive, they can put all sports on cable, where they can get the same advertising $$ as well as cable subscribers $$, and Dancing With the Stars can play on ABC.

What's that you say (insert cable/satellite company here)? You don't want to pay ESPN more for our product? OK, we'll you can lose subscribers to (insert competitor's name here). This is also why CBS/NBC/FOX sports networks need to thrive, to increase network competition, and prevent a monopoly on sports programming.