NIELSEN: 1.5 MILLION CUT THE CORD IN 2011

[Darth_vader]

Yeah, see, I can get standard and widescreen "higher-definition" programming from hundreds of "channels"* for nothing per month. Granted, I'd need to get a DVB-S2 attachment for my box if I were to receive that or MPEG4-format higher-definition programming, but still no monthly giving-up-of-money to actually receive them after all's said and done.

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* Not actually "channels" in DVB parlance since a "channel" is the transponder itself; they're called "services", or less frequently, "streams". This, despite the fact that people will sometimes go blue trying to tell you they're one and the same thing.

[KeithE4]

I'd like to go to the low number of channels, but there are about 9 or so that I would miss, so I don't. If they do ever go A-LA-CARTE I believe my bill would be lower because I would take off some the ones I rarely watch.

This subject has been debated to death, but to sum it up:  If cable/satellite TV went a la carte and the only people who paid were the viewers of a given channel, all would be out of business in a year unless the fees per channel went up 5-10 times what everyone's paying now.  That means $25-50 a month for ESPN, assuming that 10-20% of all cable viewers watch the channel enough to want to pay for it individually.  Game rights fees are expensive, and that's why ESPN charges so much.  HBO and Showtime may charge less, but they don't pay $Billions in rights fees per year to the NFL, MLB, NBA, and the big college conferences.  If ESPN were able to charge what HBO charges ($15 a month now?), they might get away with it.

[quadraphonic]

If cable went a la carte and jacked up the subscriber fees for ESPN, Disney would figure out something. They'd actually have to cover the smaller markets that way, I guess.

[carolinaradio]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, this may not work for them, but they should remove the sports and kids channels from the main packages and include them as "add on" packages.  Restructure the pricing. 

[nomadcowatbk]

I'd like to go to the low number of channels, but there are about 9 or so that I would miss, so I don't. If they do ever go A-LA-CARTE I believe my bill would be lower because I would take off some the ones I rarely watch.

This subject has been debated to death, but to sum it up:  If cable/satellite TV went a la carte and the only people who paid were the viewers of a given channel, all would be out of business in a year unless the fees per channel went up 5-10 times what everyone's paying now.  That means $25-50 a month for ESPN, assuming that 10-20% of all cable viewers watch the channel enough to want to pay for it individually.  Game rights fees are expensive, and that's why ESPN charges so much.  HBO and Showtime may charge less, but they don't pay $Billions in rights fees per year to the NFL, MLB, NBA, and the big college conferences.  If ESPN were able to charge what HBO charges ($15 a month now?), they might get away with it.

maybe big sports would move back to free TV

[landtuna]

This subject has been debated to death, but to sum it up:  If cable/satellite TV went a la carte and the only people who paid were the viewers of a given channel, all would be out of business in a year unless the fees per channel went up 5-10 times what everyone's paying now. 

I disagree and history is on my side.  When the BUD (Big Ugly Dish otherwise known as C-band) market was alive and well ala carte programming was the norm.  There were many independent programmers and most offered tier packages for things like sports, family, news etc but you could also buy virtually all single services (with the notable exception of ESPN) by itself (although the single-channel cost would be a bit more per channel than if in a package). 

This market was not as huge as the pizza-pan and cable services of today primarily because of the up-front cost of equipment and the need to tweak the equipment every so often to stay viable. 

Enter the cable and satellite monopolies and suddenly the ala carte model disappears.  There is only one reason and that is that the monopolies could and did control the availability of their  services and could structure their pricing any way they wanted.  Lack of competition.

My point is this.....ala carte services may not be in the best interest of programmers but they are definitely consumer-friendly.  But it is because the program monopolies have a stranglehold on their markets it is unlikely to change except by federal law.

[TexasTom]

If cable/satellite TV went a la carte and the only people who paid were the viewers of a given channel, all would be out of business in a year unless the fees per channel went up 5-10 times what everyone's paying now.  That means $25-50 a month for ESPN, assuming that 10-20% of all cable viewers watch the channel enough to want to pay for it individually.  Game rights fees are expensive, and that's why ESPN charges so much. 

If cable/satellite went a la carte, those game rights fees would drop dramatically whenever the next set of contract renewals came up.  The current business model for cable/satellite allows cable networks to bid up the rights to these events and then pass the end cost on to cable/satellite subscribers without those subscribers ever really knowing who is to blame for the resultant price increases.  A la carte would put an end to that practice and might bring some sanity back to the marketplace for sports rights.

[nomadcowatbk]

If cable/satellite TV went a la carte and the only people who paid were the viewers of a given channel, all would be out of business in a year unless the fees per channel went up 5-10 times what everyone's paying now.  That means $25-50 a month for ESPN, assuming that 10-20% of all cable viewers watch the channel enough to want to pay for it individually.  Game rights fees are expensive, and that's why ESPN charges so much. 

If cable/satellite went a la carte, those game rights fees would drop dramatically whenever the next set of contract renewals came up.  The current business model for cable/satellite allows cable networks to bid up the rights to these events and then pass the end cost on to cable/satellite subscribers without those subscribers ever really knowing who is to blame for the resultant price increases.  A la carte would put an end to that practice and might bring some sanity back to the marketplace for sports rights.

maybe games would go to a pay per view format

[Bob1370]

A couple things happening here.

First, the expense is getting outrageous compared to the quality and variety of programming offered, especially for wired cable services from providers like Time-Warner, Comcast, Cox, etc. and people can't afford it--so they downgrade and drop the premium tiers to opt for standard service so they can keep the bill under $100 a month.

Second, the technical quality is declining. We all know about occasional atmospheric-related outages on satellite, which are annoying. What we're now seeing is a growing number of technical problems even on wired cable services--like a server crash which literally shut off Time Warner service to over a half million homes in western New York for the better part of two days just this past weekend. That's unacceptable.

Third, reliance on over-the-air TV, assuming you have good signal coverage from your local stations, is less of a sacrifice now that stations are starting to use their digital facilities to air multiple channel streams over their transmitters. It's possible for a market with five or six full power stations to be able to pull 15 or 20 program services off the air now. As those secondary streams are brought on line by more stations, cable becomes less necessary to get programming variety.   

[KeithE4]

If cable/satellite TV went a la carte and the only people who paid were the viewers of a given channel, all would be out of business in a year unless the fees per channel went up 5-10 times what everyone's paying now.  That means $25-50 a month for ESPN, assuming that 10-20% of all cable viewers watch the channel enough to want to pay for it individually.  Game rights fees are expensive, and that's why ESPN charges so much. 

If cable/satellite went a la carte, those game rights fees would drop dramatically whenever the next set of contract renewals came up.  The current business model for cable/satellite allows cable networks to bid up the rights to these events and then pass the end cost on to cable/satellite subscribers without those subscribers ever really knowing who is to blame for the resultant price increases.  A la carte would put an end to that practice and might bring some sanity back to the marketplace for sports rights.

The leagues/conferences dictate the rights fees, not the networks.  The networks pass those fees along to us, which is why their subscriber fees are so high.  As long as the leagues/conferences demand $MultiBillion, they will get it from somebody.  If ESPN et al were to go a la carte, their revenue would decline 50-90% unless they charged that $25-50 per month I mentioned earlier.

I'd love to see the networks - all at the same time - tell the NFL to shove their multi-billion dollar rights fees and say "We'll give you $10 million per season, take it or leave it" the next time the contracts are up for renewal (10 years from now?).   Too bad it won't happen unless viewership and advertiser money drops like a rock.  And even if it did, the networks would be in court on a collusion charge faster than you can say "Roger Goodell."

File this under "Fat Chance."  Despite the player bounty and concussion issues facing football right now, the NFL is still a license to print money and the networks want their piece of that very large pie.  It's basic supply-and-demand.  As long as the NFL supplies a good product, the viewers will demand it, the league will get those huge rights fees, and the networks will pay them.