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JefferMC wrote:

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oufanindallas wrote:

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I retired from the Navy in 2007 however nothing in my post suggests anything remotely related to socialism or communism.  I'm saying that with ala carte pricing you'd see the majority of the networks go away.  The problem is the "fair" price would cause the bill you have now to go much higher than it is now.  Since networks bundle channels together, I have the option to watch ABC Family since it's included with ABC.  If I had to pay to watch, I wouldn't since it's not a channel I watch regularly.

It's the same with HGTV, Food Network, DIY and the Cooking Channel.  They are all Scripps Network and are included in the same contract with providers.  Same with all of the Discovery Channels, and all the premium channels.  It's also the reason that when AT&T and Crown couldn't reach an agreement, Hallmark and Hallmark Movie Channel were removed.

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I haven't seen anyone in this thread discuss the other part of the bundle vs. a-la-carte issue.  It's not just that ABC/Disney brings you a bunch of channels, it's also that when AT&T signs a contract, they sign up to pay the per-subscriber-rate for each subscriber who gets that channel.  So all of the U-200 subscribers are counted for each U-200 channel, not just the ones that watch it. This is true for all the channels across all the content providers at a tier. 

A simple example: if you take the 4.00 figure for ESPN and say that (to pick a number out of the air) 2,000,000 U-verse subscribers have U-200.  Thus AT&T would pay Disney $8,000,000 per month for ESPN.  Assuming that about 20% of homes would subscribe a-la-carte if offerred, then to make that same $8,000,000 the price would have to be $20.  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be one of the 20% if the price were $20/month.  So what percentage would pay $20?  How about 10%.  Well, that's too bad, but because if only 10% take it, the price would have to be $40/month.

 

Yes, you subsidize the channels you don't want to get the channels you do want.  And so do I.  And we avoid the shopping channels that help subsidize the content channels for all of us.

 

This is what our quasi-free market has come up with, which is probably better than the federal government could have imposed.

 

 

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man im glad the monopolistic, bullying and price gouging  pov's being expressed here havent been allowed to spread elsewhere in the economy

can you imagine the grocery stores were allowed to conspire like this?

you go there because you want  some lettuce for you sandwich, and they say "oh no, we cant just sell you a head of lettuce for a dollar. if you want lettuce, youre going to have to have to buy a $25 salad. and for an extra five bucks, we can add bacon bits and boiled eggs"

because if they dont do that what would happen to the beet farmer, tomato growers and dressing makers. 

networks are showing programming because the shows are popular enough to be shown, not vice versa

if FSSD were to fold tomorrow, padres games would still be televised, just by some other network or local station

i do agree not many ppl would be willing to pay $40/mo for espn networks. so they'd prolly have learn to tighten their belts and quit overpaying for garbage like the longhorn network if they had to compete in a market economy. maybe the'd have to put stuff like nascar, mnf and the bcs bowl games back on abc to regain advertising revenue, instead of using them as leverage for their outrageous sub fees.

likewise, if ESPN couldnt survive a la carte and went belly up, other networks would be tripping over themselves to bid for college football, mlb, etc...

all i want is comcast sportsnet california and bay area and cbs sports net. the rest i can get OTA or online and  i could care less about financing channels that yall dont want to pay for yourselves. sorry if thats sounds rude, but if you think about it yall are asking other consumers to pick up your monthly tab and when you get down to it thats pretty rude too