John T
@verizon.net
| reply to Rob
Re: I get 99 channels...
said by Rob  :I get 99 channels right now. I watch at most 10 of those. The others are 'fillers' to keep my (rising) cost of TV service down. I doubt, seriously, that if A La Carte was available, that my 10 channels would be any cheaper. Everyone watches 10-15 channels. However, those 10 channels are different from person to person; for example, my mother watches the Soap Opera Network, which of course I never watch. Lifetime is always one of the top 2 or 3 rated cable networks, and I never watch that either. The "cost per channel" idea pushed by the cable networks has a lots of flaws, since with the more channels the time spent watching each channel declines. That said, I usually appreciate getting an additional 10 channels even if I only watch 1 of them, since we all don't like the same 10-15 channels.
A decent number of channels are offered to the cable provider entirely free. Certainly a few channels are priced incredibly high, particularly ESPN, ESPNHD, NFL Network, and some others. The cable providers are not entirely at fault; the content providers have their own sort of monopoly over certain content, particularly exclusive sports content. A la carte would probably not reduce the costs; it would certainly reduce the chance of stumbling upon a show or network that you like (particularly if you have TiVO.)
What a confused post by me. The short form is that none of the players are really being honest or straightforward, but it still seems to me that none of the proposed solutions would actually help things, and might make it worse. |
