FCC Supports A La Carte TV Pricing

Rob Updegrove 30 Nov, 2005 at 9:20am ET Article published in Tech

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has stated that the FCC will soon be releasing a report stating that customized channel packages per customer will be economically feasible and in the best interest of consumers.

But cable TV companies have argued that pricing individual channels would result in fewer choices for all consumers. They believe that a la carte pricing would make it too expensive to offer less-popular channels that presently are bundled with popular channels.

Martin said he doesn’t plan to push the industry to adopt a new business model, but he suggested that more restrictions on basic cable programming be added if the industry doesn’t offer consumers more choice.

Source: CNET

Comments

30 Nov 2005 ~ 9:25am Garg It'd be good for people like me who only watch 3 or 4 channels, but it sounds like people who watch a lot of different channels will be paying signifigantly more. I read somewhere that marketing and equipment costs would raise the price by up to 30%.
30 Nov 2005 ~ 1:51pm MiracleManS I'd have to say the most ridiculous thing here is the idea that we should restrict something that is paid for by the consumer. It's not public broadcast, it's not free. It'd be like censoring porn (in general) when a person buys it because a younger person might see it.

I like the idea of being able to only buy channels you'd like, but at the same time, I don't want to be forced to pay some exorbant price for it either...
30 Nov 2005 ~ 2:21pm GHoosdum

MiracleManS wrote:

I don't want to be forced to pay some exorbant price for it either...

You're not 'forced' to buy cable at all. I don't have cable or satellite, and I do just fine.
30 Nov 2005 ~ 5:27pm MiracleManS Eh, as is it's hard to get decent news coverage from a local outlet (at least that's what I've noticed). That's one of the few things I actually pay attention to durring times I'm at school.
30 Nov 2005 ~ 7:06pm profdlp The Cable companies are all going to whine bigtime. After all, their monopoly has been working great - for them.

I have every last dad-blasted channel that Adelphia offers. The reason? My GF wanted HBO & Showtime and once you buy those you might as well get the premium package. When I lived in Charlottesville, VA, (Adelphia there, too), I called to cancel all the crap that neither of us ever watch. When I was done pruning out the dead weight they informed me that the bill was actually going to increase by about five bucks.

At least I still get the Oxygen channel...
1 Dec 2005 ~ 5:03pm ryko ha ha ha...maybe the death of tv is finally upon us. i can't wait untill there is no more programming schedule...just release dates for new shows. if fox is "airing" the show you like, you go to fox.com and dl it. and it needs to be available without drm crap and in the normal .avi (xvid/divx) format. untill the tv giants wake the f*** up i'll continue to dl my tv like i have been doing for a while now...

i mean this a la carte cable pricing would have been brilliant 10 years ago before people started dl'ing tv. now it just seems like too little too late.
3 Dec 2005 ~ 12:07am danball1976

Gargoyle wrote:

It'd be good for people like me who only watch 3 or 4 channels, but it sounds like people who watch a lot of different channels will be paying signifigantly more. I read somewhere that marketing and equipment costs would raise the price by up to 30%.

It would raise prices by up to 30% because instead of buying filters that filter a range of frequencies, they would have to buy filters that filter out specific frequencies as well as buying new equipment that would have to support several filters for each connection to a house.
3 Dec 2005 ~ 11:13am profdlp danball, nearly all filtering these days is done electronically. The last few times I've needed to alter anything in my service I was told to wait twenty minutes, then reset the cable box (and/or cable modem). It's not in the cable company's interest to have to send a guy out and climb a pole every time someone adds or drops a channel.
13 Dec 2005 ~ 7:11pm danball1976 The thing is, your on digital cable, thats totally different than regular cable that doesn't require a cable box. This is the area that I was talking about.