said by amungus:As others here have astutely noted, it's mostly ESPN (/ Disney), and now "versus" who demand the most $$$
Sure, some want every sport channel that exists, and that's fine.
Some don't want any, and the current situation is kind of like a compromise, but it could be better.
With the advent of digital "tiers" of service, the "expanded basic" package should be re-examined, and I think TW is looking at this with such a perspective...
Expanded basic should no longer be forced to include these "packages" that result in costing so much, esp. more and more each year...
Unfortunately, the list of channels that they own or are part owner of is kind of scary... »
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_as···y_DisneyDisney channel (obviously)
ESPN
...ABC...
Lifetime
A&E
The History Channel
Biography Channel
Military Channel
Even then, if the "whole package" were flat out refused, they'd be forced to consider breaking up the package(s) so that cable could assign smaller groups of channels to their own "tiers" and thus let the customer choose which ones they want...
It may not be "a la carte" but further sub-division would enable a better choice for customers...
A full "sports tier" would include all the ESPN's (the ocho anyone ?
). The "variety" would get the history channel etc.
"expanded basic" would start to shrink obviously, but if it means you could just pick a "tier" that best suits your likings, so what?
If cable's going to go all digital (besides basic basic basic package), why not set up more relevant and intuitive "tiers" so that you don't have to get 100 channels you DON'T want.
...It may even end up costing LESS for those who don't want these inordinately priced "packages" and we'd really see how bad it is... If it cut what would be "expanded" services prices down by 1/4 of the total, lots of people would be happy. Lots more would still buy the sports tier, but Disney'd probably still make quite a nice profit from the "variety" sub-tier or whatever it'd be...
It makes sense to me anyawy. If we can't do full a la carte, start grouping things tighter and let customers choose to either save about 1/4 of their total (based on the now current rate), or pony up for "the ocho"
Let people see the ugly truth of these prices and decide for themselves. Divide the channels more clearly into meaningful "tiers" instead of forcing a huge chunk into "expanded" lineups. Heck, they could even say "expanded plus" for people who don't want (are too lazy) to change it up
in Canada you can buy channels like that.
