Cable/Satellite Companies Channel Packages

[49studebaker]

Cable/Satellite companies say they are force to sell channels as a package and they can not provide them a la carte. Different companies own different channels, so why can't the cable/Satellite companies sell those channels in different packages. Fox own channels: Fox News, National Geographic, Fox Reality, etc and Tuner owns channels: TNT, CNN, TBS, HLN, etc. Why don't providers offer packages like the Fox package, Tuner Package, Discovery package, or maybe combine the Fox channels with the Turner channels and offer a package called "News and Entertainment" package and sell it for $10 a month. This would be nice for someone who does not want 100+ channels when he/she only watch 10 or so channels.

Could this be done? I just do not see Fox or Turner saying "You have to bundle our channels with other competitor's channels". Fox News is a competitor to CNN. Why would they want providers to bundle their channels with their competitor's channels?

The price of these channel packages would cost less than the current 120+ channels packages the cable/satellite providers currently provide. The current Dish Network package costs $24.95/month. If someone were to remove the Fox channel or the CNN channels or some other companies channels, Dish Network would have to drop that price since there are fewer channel in that package.

I doubt cable/satellite companies would ever do this. Most people would probably subscribe to a single $10/month package and the cable/satellite companies would lose lots of money. I bet the providers of the less popular channels would not be happy that their channels are not bundled with the popular channels.

Just my thoughts. What are your thoughts? Good idea or a bad idea?

 

[Satellite Lover]

Hello @3dOptics, sound like really good idea for end users. But big companies have a their marketing plan, and I think it'll be not reliable to cut some chanells from the packages.

I like listening online radio, 101.ru. And probably sevral months ago it was avaliable to listen via my WinAmp or VLC player. But they were changed their policy, that you can listening with browsers (IE, firefox, chrome and may be some others) , beacause they receiving income from online advertising.

And they motivate it, that if you listening them into the Multimedia software, they can not make any money from advertising. I have one more thought, that when you do not like watching your favorite channel (if it's a boring show or something like that), you switch your channel. And they made money from adversiser on that channel.

May be not a good example, but it's just my thoughts. I'll appreciate to hear your opinion back as well.