 cdruGo ColtsPremium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:7 | In an alternate reality... It would be interesting to see what the pricing would be on a purely a la carte basis for the channels people most commonly watch. Viacom may charge $X for Y channels, but the price per channel is not $X/Y. My guess is a couple of those channels are 90% of the cost and all the rest make up the other 10%.
I guess I also don't see how anti-trust issues come into play. Viacom isn't leveraging it's monopoly of content as it has no monopoly of content. It's no different than Comcast forcing me to subscribe to locals when I wanted internet-only, or Frontier to require me to have an emergency line service for my internet-only connection. Viacom has a portfolio of channels that they sell as a group. If cable companies don't want it, don't carry them. |
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| The only thing I can think of is if they are going to claim that several programmers, including Viacom, have gotten together and agreed to all bundle their channels. While Viacom is getting sued right now, there may be other suits yet to be filed.
But the cynical part of me thinks that this is just a way for Cablevision to get some leverage with the programmers. What they want to do is either lose the niche channels or move them to a separate tier. As for us poor slobs, we'll be paying the same price for fewer channels. |
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cdruGo ColtsPremium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:7 | said by ISurfTooMuch:The only thing I can think of is if they are going to claim that several programmers, including Viacom, have gotten together and agreed to all bundle their channels. While Viacom is getting sued right now, there may be other suits yet to be filed. If that was the case then the other programmers would be party to the collusion and would be named in the suit. You can't have collusion if there's only one party.
Even if it was just a industry practice to bundle your channels, it's not like it's a new practice. Network bundles have been around since BUD were the way to get channels. Other industries also have requirements that if you carry a particular brand, you need to carry an entire brand. You don't see Corvette-only dealerships, you see Chevy dealerships where the Corvette is one of many available models.
But the cynical part of me thinks that this is just a way for Cablevision to get some leverage with the programmers. What they want to do is either lose the niche channels or move them to a separate tier.
As for us poor slobs, we'll be paying a higher price for fewer channels. |
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| said by cdru:said by ISurfTooMuch:The only thing I can think of is if they are going to claim that several programmers, including Viacom, have gotten together and agreed to all bundle their channels. While Viacom is getting sued right now, there may be other suits yet to be filed. If that was the case then the other programmers would be party to the collusion and would be named in the suit. You can't have collusion if there's only one party. Even if it was just a industry practice to bundle your channels, it's not like it's a new practice. Network bundles have been around since BUD were the way to get channels. Other industries also have requirements that if you carry a particular brand, you need to carry an entire brand. You don't see Corvette-only dealerships, you see Chevy dealerships where the Corvette is one of many available models. but they don't force you to buy all the models as the end user. |
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