Why do we continue to pay for channels..

[stevenl]

Exactly people gripe about cable bills im sure grandma on the fixed income would love to save 10$ a month and still get her faavoritve channels without having to pay for espn and the sports tiers.. Some local sports (FSN) type locals get near 1$ or more per channel as well.. I think specialty type channels like sports tiers or forign languge tiers are worth while . I dont like these channels forceing cable to carry them on their basic packages.. they want to do that for 2 reasons.. Ad revnue (to say more poeple have access) plus monthly income from the per sub.. Cable wants to put them on tier for one reason.. To save its customers who dont want it money. So it can lower the prices.. Beleive it or not cable/;dish and all would prefer the rates to be lower.. So you couly od spend less money on chanenls and more money on extras like more dvrs/hd boxs and so fourth.. thats where they make their money.. Not so much in the programming fees but in the extras.

 

[jdspencer]

I'll give you the fee to ESPN example, but if they dropped their fee then they would have to increase their ad rates. Or increase the number of ads or we see more product placement and ad banners. I think the current method is a good balance.

 

[stevenl]

I'll give you the fee to ESPN example, but if they dropped their fee then they would have to increase their ad rates. Or increase the number of ads or we see more product placement and ad banners. I think the current method is a good balance.

For you ya, you enjoy watching ESPN... and dont think for a second they dont charge the MAX possible on their ad rates... And I see just as many commercials on their as with other cable networks and even the national networks.. But what about the MAJORITY who do not watch ESPN? Wouldnt they enjoy a 5$month DECREASE in cable/dish bills? Heck STD cable in oralndo is about 44.95 so 5$ is a good chunk.

Dont get me wrong this isnt a slam on ESPN but ALL cable networks are quilty of this.. I understand most of them do not get enough viewers to have the ad rev to pay for their productions, so they have to charge a fee but why should it be so excesive as ESPN and most other sports nets?

If a channel wants to charge such a large fee they should be put in their own tier.. Sorta like HBO/show/ so fourth do.. They want a large amount of money for subs so the companies make a seperate tier just for them..

 

[jdspencer]

To go slightly OT:
You basically have made the case on why a-la-carte won't reduce customer costs.

Subscribers are subsidizing all channels whether they watch them or not. Break out the channels and they would have to ask more per month. So, to get your most watched channels, you could end up paying more than you do now. I do think that DirecTV needs to offer, outwardly, a lower priced package that would bring in new subscribers.

 

[stevenl]

I am anti ala carte...

 

[cablewithaview]

In reality, it would not be consumer friendly by no means, less choices costing more money. Programmers will not give up their bottom line for you to save money.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

I am anti ala carte...

as is most everyone who works for a cable company.

i am for it to get rid of some of these POS stations that take up bandwidth and force cable companies, including yours, to limit the HD Bandwidth on stations that people WANT TO SUB TO.

 

[stevenl]

I dont think its "best for the sub" I mean now you get 70-80 channels for 45 bucks.. The cost to offer ala carte service in equipment will have to be passed on to the customers so youll be paying the same price for half the channels.. AT least now you HAVE the option to actually watch those channels you dont want if you are bored.. Id rather have more channels, and pay the same then pay the same or more and have less channels.. I dont watch some channels everyday.. But I think ive at least watched every channel once...

As far as BW goes for channels, in Orlando we are upgradeing our system to 1ghz. Instead of removing channels we are adding more space.. THat will give us about 300mhz more of freq. to use.. Which ya figure 1-5 HD per 6mhz 10 digital per 6mhz... Plus when we can get rid of the majority of our analog tiers.. Thatll fre up 70+ 6mhz spots... MAybe when analog is gone and everyone has digital tvs/digital boxs could I see offering smaller packages.. I could agree with more "tiers" but not ala carte for individual channels.. MAybe sports tiers.. news tiers.. family tiers.. so fourth...

 

[scotsmanron]

Maybe a setup where you have to take a minimum number of channels? I bet I watch less than ten channels for 90% of my viewing. If the D* family setup had FoxNews I would move down to that one.

 

[cobra2225]

I was just wondering, back when TV started in order to PAY for their service they invented commercials.. These ads paid for the station to broadcast and brought nice profit to the station owners.. Now in the days of PAY tv, why do such stations like ESPN, (even some locals in some markets) FSN, MTV, TBS, WE so on name any station.. Why do they get to charge for their signal and STILL have commercials.. To me that seems a bit greedy. First you want me to PAY to watch your station, then you want to fill it full of advertisements.. I bring up ESPN first because it is the biggest culprit in it charges the most for its channel. I would think youd want your channel on more households then possible to earn more ad revenue.. I mean I understand your station sucks and not enough people watch it for you to get major ad revenue (speaking of the smaller networks) so you need to charge the cable/sat company for your channel so you can survive, but CUT the commercials then. Stop being greedy. Local networks especially, quit chargeing subs for your channel sd/hd either or.

The same can be said for movie theatres today running commercials.. Granted they come on before the show and entertain you while you wait for the showtime but dam, is EVERYTHING going to be for sale?

i agree 100% with you,no if or butts about it.

 

[cobra2225]

Fee enterprise ROCKS! Some aspects of it can be annoying from time to time but it still rocks. Personally I do not favor laws that forbid ads on cable. But if you want to stop watching those stations that is another story. Just my two cents.

since all stations run adds, your 2 cents worth would have everyone
just stop watching t.v. and since i can watch all my local's "with ads"
free, i should i have to pay cable/sat for them? yet we are forced to.
in your words that rocks,in my words thats being ripped off.

 

[cobra2225]

I can understand people's frustration with having commercials on tv when you have to pay for your television service. This is what DVR is for, to skip the commercials. When most people will eventually have DVR's they will have product placement on the shows and probably start advertising during the show. I can see this happening but I hope by this time a lot of tv will be available on IPTV which will have advertisements during the playback of the show.

time warner refuse's to make their dvr's with the skip feature, best i can do is ff though the adds

 

[bytre]

I would gladly pay a buck or two per channel I watch if I could do it ala carte. Heck, I could pay $5 and maybe even $10 per channel I watch and save over what I'm paying now.

I am irked and offended when I see commercials on a premium channel, like on Discovery HD. I don't hold the "bulk" pay channels to that same standard, though.

 

[kb7oeb]

I actually only pay for 4 channels that have ads, tnt-HD,discoveryhd,HDNET and ESPN-HD. I also sub to ad free HBO, Showtime and Voom and HDNet movies. I get the networks for free OTA

To me basic cable is way overpriced for what you get.