Cable/Broadband a la Carte - Just Censorship Disguised
Like the FREE IPOD deals, they sound good on the
surface but ultimately, you'll pay more than you would with your time and
money.
Cable ala carte may have worked 20
years but not now. If you look at the Top 50 cable networks ratings, about 48 of
them are owned wholly or partially by Viacom, NBCU, Disney, Fox, Warner, Comcast
or Hearst.
What does that mean? ESPN ala
carte? $24.99 a month. Why not? There's no rule that says pricing now (about $2
a channel) gets converted to ala carte pricing - just like at a restaurant - you
get 30% of the meal for 80% of the cost. But they'll be deals. If you agree to
take ALL the other ESPN channels, the bundle deal is $17.99. But wait it gets
better - if you take Disney & ABC - that's only another $7.99 a month or you
can buy each channel separately for $9.99 a
month.
So, two scenarios. We will
probably pay $10 more a month to end up with slightly fewer channels or you will
pay about $100 to get about 10 cable channels.
This is EXACTLY what happened the last
time government decided to mess with the industry - we ended up with cable
re-regulation and what happened - monthly rates dropped a little but if you
wanted a cable guide - $10. If the service call was your fault - $35. Wiring
insurance? $5 a month, etc, etc ... so ultimately we ended up paying essentially
the same but anything non TV reception related, we were suddenly paying about
300% more.
I am not defending the cable
companies but merely stating what is going to happen in the REAL WORLD. You will
not be able to cherry pick 10 channels for $2 a month. You will still get the
home shopping channels (As a special thank you, QVC & HSN Free FOREVER!) or
the non-English channels that are MUST CARRY local
channels.
What will happen is if you want
ESPN, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, E!, Bravo, A&E, etc ... you will pay around
$10 to get each channel or you can pay about $15 to get their 10 "sister"
channels. We will be right back where we started but the cable companies will
make even more money. Want to make a change - that's $10 EVERY TIME. To prevent
you dropping out after football season, ESPN will sell you a year starting in
August for a set fee or it's $49.99 a month if you sign up in September through
December.
Part of the reason the
censorsorship groups want this is that they cannot control their own kids and
want us to do so and they just think they should speak for us. Just because they
don't want to watch certain channels, they want no one else to ... never mind
that some people don't want religious channels or preachers who advocate
assasinations - that's the braod spectrum of America but of course, anything
they don't want - they don't want for the rest of
us.
America is the ONLY country where
there are 300+ channels. Let's not go and ruin that just because some people
don't know how to appreciate other channels. There is literally something
intersting, educational, and fun on EVERY channel. You should start watching the
other channels and exploring instead of tightly just doing one channel over
& over. When you get a newspaper or magazine, you will get articles or
sections you do not read - should be getting your money back for those pages you
don't read also?
Ala Carte will not work
on many levels from the reality of the details (you will pay more for less -
mark my words) to it's just a ploy by censorship mavens to the Bell companies
trying to mess with cable companies to messing with the only system and country
with 300+ channels.
Do NOT let the FCC
make your decisions for you.
Posted: Fri - December
2, 2005 at 12:00 PM