Topic 'Re: Why should they?' in forum '' - dslreports.com

Re: Why should they?

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:23:37 EDT

elray posted :

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.

Re: Why should they?

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 13:35:58 EDT

Corehhi posted :

said by morbo:

said by elray:

ala-carte billing, unless she thinks it saves money, which it can't.

Re: Why should they?

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 04:21:40 EDT

Kearnstd posted : The issue they face is if they do not exploit it, the video will go to the net anyway via piracy.

It is completely impossible to keep content off the net.

in the end I think we will see product placement. Which already happens to an extent as for example on CSI I think all the CSI trucks are GMC/Chevy Tahoe.
--
[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports

Re: Why should they?

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:36:13 EDT

rradina posted : 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.

Re: Why should they?

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 21:28:48 EDT

elray posted :

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.

Re: Why should they?

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 21:10:37 EDT

anon posted : This.

The content companies don't care where they get their cash from, as long as they get it. But $8/month won't cut it for them.

Remember what happened with Netflix recently: when Netflix was an 'also' video service companies were scrambling to sell rights to Netflix; when it became an 'instead of' service they started demanding billions for rights or just refused to sell at any price.

I'm sure they'd rather get rid of the cable companies and the affiliates (though the cable companies will just screw us on internet access to make up the difference. It's the affiliates who are screwed in the long run.) But they're not going to buy in unless they see the same kind of money that they get now (which is less than they got 20 years ago, and they're really not happy about that). And every broadcast and cable executive is determined to go down fighting before seeing the market for TV go the way the music industry did -- panic over napster pushed labels to embrace iTunes, which destroyed the idea of album sales in favor of singles.

Re: Why should they?

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 20:40:44 EDT

morbo posted : 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?

Re: Why should they?

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:43:16 EDT

rradina posted : 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.

Re: Why should they?

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:28:26 EDT

morbo posted :

said by elray:

ala-carte billing, unless she thinks it saves money, which it can't.

Why should they?

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:18:54 EDT

elray posted : We've seen what happened with the newspaper, printing, book and music industry. Why would any of the existing media players want to shrink the pie, or allow it to be disrupted, simply for the sake of new technology?

Unless a legitimate case can be made that the current beneficiaries of today's distribution model(s) can make greater profits by switching to a consumer-direct model, each party has their own turf to protect.

These companies exist because of profit potential. Without it, you get Pravda, Bill Moyers, Bob Ross and Masterpiece Theater. Not much else.

We've been "cordless" for years, but not because we're unwilling to pay - we'd gladly pay more, if we were allowed to pick the lineup. But I don't think the average household (Mom) wants to do the math or manage ala-carte billing, unless she thinks it saves money, which it can't.

Islands like Hulu/+ aren't going to work. So long as there are holes in the library, series and episodes disappear in the night, or we're forced to watch non-targeted serial commercials, they aren't going to attract critical mass.