miscDude
join:2005-03-24
Hendersonville, NC | reply to skuv
Re: ironic said by skuv :
Yes, the cable companies have to pay for these packages of channels PER SUBSCRIBER, no matter if they watch the channel or not. As long as they are receiving the channel, the cable company must pay. Even if they are on digital cable and can tell EXACTLY which channels the customer watches, they still have to pay for them to receive all the channels.
This is also one reason we are seeing some MSO's try to teir their programming like with Comcast's Sports tier. By limiting the subscribers with access to the channel via the tiering, They can then not only charge just the customers who want the programming, but they can also tell the content provider "even though we have 50,000 subscribers in our system, only 100 are subscribing to your channel so that's all we are paying you for."
That's one reason the content providers like NFL and BTN complain so much about being put into a special sports tier. Not only can they no longer fudge their viewship numbers for advertising sales, but if you are charging per sub, but not getting access to all the subs you thought you'd get access too, you make less money. I believe this is one reason we saw BTN cave and finally get carried on the networks. They lowered their pricing because they realized something like $.30 /sub for expanded basic subs would result in more income than $1 per sub for sports tier subs. |
