 morboComplete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000 | reply to elray
Re: Why should they? said by elray:ala-carte billing, unless she thinks it saves money, which it can't.
This statement is completely untrue. A la carte can be a success if implemented correctly. That means it cannot be shoe horned into the current model. Customers respond to value - they would love a true la carte model if providers are willing to offer it. |
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rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Just to be clear, what we really need isn't a la carte channels but a la carte episodes. If a show is good, we pay for it. Otherwise we don't. What we have today is like all the "of-the-month" clubs. (Fruit, cookies, wine, whatever). Rather than every month looking at the available stuff and ordering what we want, we pay up front and then hope the periodic delivery we get is something we like. |
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morboComplete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000 | A la carte episodes is even more unlikely than a la carte channels. You can sort of do this with Amazon now - buy individual episodes. Do you do it? |
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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | said by morbo:A la carte episodes is even more unlikely than a la carte channels. You can sort of do this with Amazon now - buy individual episodes. Do you do it?
Ala carte should allow lease in any increment, be it per- channel, episode, series, season, hour, week, month, annual, or perpetual.
There might also be cost variables for simultaneous and parallel ("social") viewing, density options, guaranteed delivery / priority bandwidth / full-double-buffering, 3D, screen size, numbers of viewers, type of viewer account (individual, family, disabled, commercial, office, bar, etc), and dozens of other factors not yet imagined.
But again, its quite unlikely any of this will happen. |
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rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | reply to morbo
There are lots of reruns where we may only want to watch specific "classic" episodes. I shouldn't have to subscribe to various collections of content services just to get access to all the content I might want. I should be able to pick what I want and pay for what I want. I'm not talking about purchasing them for infinite viewing. This is pay per view. If it only costs something like 10 cents per rerun (some more expensive than others), I can watch a whole lot of entertainment for a lot less than the monthly cable bill. |
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| reply to morbo
said by morbo:said by elray:ala-carte billing, unless she thinks it saves money, which it can't.
This statement is completely untrue. A la carte can be a success if implemented correctly. That means it cannot be shoe horned into the current model. Customers respond to value - they would love a true la carte model if providers are willing to offer it. The real problem is profits with al a carte. Let's say the cable company makes 20% in profits, if you bill is $100 a month they end up with $20. If your bill is $50 they end up with $10 in profit so it helps them to have a bunch of channels you never watch. Numbers are made up but that's the idea. They have fixed costs which won't change whether you have a bunch of channels or just a few, another problem as far as offering al a carte. |
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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | said by Corehhi:said by morbo:said by elray:ala-carte billing, unless she thinks it saves money, which it can't.
This statement is completely untrue. A la carte can be a success if implemented correctly. That means it cannot be shoe horned into the current model. Customers respond to value - they would love a true la carte model if providers are willing to offer it. The real problem is profits with al a carte. Let's say the cable company makes 20% in profits, if you bill is $100 a month they end up with $20. If your bill is $50 they end up with $10 in profit so it helps them to have a bunch of channels you never watch. Numbers are made up but that's the idea. They have fixed costs which won't change whether you have a bunch of channels or just a few, another problem as far as offering al a carte. Nope. There is actually much greater profit potential in ala-carte. Simply put, if people have the choice of assembling their own content packages, they will buy more volume.
The cable industry isn't resisting ala-carte. As a last-mile distributor, they would make the same or greater margins for transport, delivery, and servicing the accounts.
It is the content owners who are reluctant to part from the status quo, who are afraid to let their wares compete for customers, even though many would make greater profits doing so. |
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