Joe Clayton talks about a la carte

[rapidturtle]

Exactly.
Also let the people who want all those way over priced sports channels pay for them.
Never mind how much space we would have for the rest of the channels.

For those of us that do like the Sports channels, let us do away with some of the other junk channels. My kids are grown, so I don't need Disney and Nick, I don't watch Oprah, Baby channel, Golf channel, outdoors channels, E, religion, shopping, etc.... Which leads us back to the whole ala carte option, which isn't going to happen, at least in the near future. When I make a favorites list for easier surfing, I am amazed at how many channels I eliminate from it.

 

[Aidan8et]

Decades back I was a C-band user. I paid $75 a year for my package. A la carte was great. Now they tell us that so many channels would go off the air if there was an a la carte option. Really. I don't watch 75% of the stuff I am overpaying for so why should I care if some crappy network goes off the air due to lack of interest? The market will create the successful networks and get rid of the bad ones that should be off the air now. It is kind of like making me buy a car that is poorly made just because they need some to be sold to stay in business.

With the way the channels write their contracts w the service providers its more like going to buy a car but the dealer making you buy that yugo scooter as part of some feigned "deal". Sure you get a break on the individual prices, but a higher cost overall.

Sent from my SCH-I800 using SatelliteGuys

 

[NotMe546]

For those of us that do like the Sports channels, let us do away with some of the other junk channels. My kids are grown, so I don't need Disney and Nick, I don't watch Oprah, Baby channel, Golf channel, outdoors channels, E, religion, shopping, etc.... Which leads us back to the whole ala carte option, which isn't going to happen, at least in the near future. When I make a favorites list for easier surfing, I am amazed at how many channels I eliminate from it.

Add the sports to that list and I would be good with that.

 

[harshness]

The whole point of the welcome pack is to help hide the fact they are bleeding customers.

Are you talking about DISH or DIRECTV? DIRECTV is the one that most recently posted a quarter of net minus customers.

The cancellation fee is $17.50 for every month remaining, they tell customers all day long to downgrade to the welcome pack at $14 per month and ride out their committment instead of paying the entire cancellation fee upfront.

This is as compared with DIRECTV's fewer package choices and $20 ETF?

I'm not suggesting that DISH is entirely wonderful, but when it comes to flexibility, they seem to offer a much better value and a greater number of options than their competitors.

 

[fhsucade07]

For those of us that do like the Sports channels, let us do away with some of the other junk channels. My kids are grown, so I don't need Disney and Nick, I don't watch Oprah, Baby channel, Golf channel, outdoors channels, E, religion, shopping, etc.... Which leads us back to the whole ala carte option, which isn't going to happen, at least in the near future. When I make a favorites list for easier surfing, I am amazed at how many channels I eliminate from it.

Now that we get the Pac-12 network I'm up to a total of 11 channels in our list.

 

[GaryPen]

Dish already offers a la carte, and it ain't pretty.

Commercial accounts ONLY have a la carte options. But, the way the content is contracted, it isn't true per-channel a la carte. They are grouped mostly by content owner, not by theme. (Although, there is occasional mixing, depending on pack.) So, even though they have a News package for $12/mo, it doesn't include CNN or FNC. For those two channels, you'd need to sub to the Turner package (Variety B) and the Fox package (Variety C) for $12 each. So, in order to get all three major news channels, you would need to spend $36. That is in addition to the $20 Core package, which only includes locals plus shopping/religious/PI. So, now we are up to $56/mo without any sports or general cable stuff.

You want the Viacom channels? That's the Entertainment pack for $12/mo. The Discovery-owned channels? $12 for the Learning pack. The Comcast/NBC channels. They're split into two packs, Lifestyle and Variety A for $12ea of $24 for both. Non-premium Movies? $12 Kids pack? $12. Premium channels are additional. of course.

Sports? Those prices are insane. Although, these are commercial account prices, which take into account that the sporting events will most likely be viewed by large groups in sports bars and such, where this programming is used to produce revenue for the subscriber. But, it still gives you an idea of how much ESPN adds to our residential bills. The ESPN pack, consisting of ESPN, 2, Classic, New and U is $20 per month by itself. CBS Sports and NBC Sports are in two different Sports packs A & B for $12 each. (The former is arguably more desirable, as it includes the league channels, MLB, NFL, etc.) Many RSN's are at an add'l $12/mo, as well!

Now, a lot of this ridiculous pricing has to do with Dish, and the way they've chosen to sell these packages. But, the basic issue of channels needing to be grouped together by content owner, with many unwanted channels still required, is the fault of the content owners and their insistence on requiring carriage less desirable channels bundled with their popular ones.