Companies Throw Support Behind Cablevision's Viacom Suit > Ruling

Ruling

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

What we could also have is,

Courts: "ok guys, bundling is illegal"
Cable companies: Fuckin' A!"
Networks: "Ok guys, $10 per channel, but you get a discount if you bundle."

reply to OwlSaver
Like the forced bundling of local channels..

My outdoor HDTV antenna design works perfectly for my area.

Advantage, I receive all the locals from two DMA's using one of these antennas. I just wish I could unbundle the high cost locals from my SAT package. (same goes for Cable/ATT/Verizon)

Additionally... I would also require that Sat/Cable co's breakout the monthly rental cost of all equipment.. (I own all my SAT hardware and don't think it's fair I should pay the same price as leasers.)

reply to OwlSaver
There is enough competion now that unbundling at the content provider level would allow for unbundling of some sort at the consumer level.

Technology is not an obstacle any more. If unbundling was forced on content owners, I'd guess we'd see providers offer all of the no/low carriage fee channels at a decent enough price and allow us to choose which high carriage fee channels we want.

Who cares if they bundle all the cheap/free channels, the networks can make their revenue off of ads? Just allow us to pick and choose which expensive channels we want.

$7 ESPN needs to be treated the same as HBO. There is an absolute floor on what the MSOs can charge for a basic package when they are forced to have every subscriber paying over $20 for sports networks. The backend bundling is what is screwing us right now.

reply to OwlSaver

reply to nfotiu
the irony is that if companies like HBO weren't so stupid, people would be falling over themselves to have HBO content.

$10/mo just for HBO by itself, via streaming and commercial free? I'd pay for that in an instant.

reply to Crookshanks
...but we should already be purely digital. I know Mediacom has transitioned my town to it. You have to have the little digital converter box for any TV you want any channels on.

reply to tkdslr

reply to Crookshanks
Well, it's vestigial then in an all-digital world as of the last couple of years (and one that's been all-digital on DirecTV since 1994).

FYI, in case you've been living under a rock, most cable systems in the US are all digital. TWC was one of the first, now Comcast and Verizon are, and I think others are as well.

reply to Steve Mehs
Outside of prime time(8pm to 11pm EST).. the programming often has significant differences between affiliates of the same network.

reply to fifty nine
It won't be $10/channel. However, I would fully expect the price for the main channels (at least Comedy Central, MTV, Nick) to be about the same price as what they are currently paying. So if cablecos pay $3/sub for the 11 or so different channel brands, I'd expect Comedy Central, MTV, and Nick to each be a $1/subscriber, with the other channels costing a fraction of that, say $.10/channel. In the end, Viacom gets richer and cable companies just pass on the increase in a more frequent quarterly price increase.

If they stayed the same price, a large number of junkish channels would die off. That would probably be a good thing. I'd envision the price being at least double what they are now per channel, but if you could drop 90-95% of the channels...

reply to tkdslr
Like what exactly? 5-6:30PM is typically local news that repeats the same stories over and over. 6:30-7:00 is national news. 7-8PM is Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and the ET type shows. 8-11PM is primetime. 11-11:30 is local news the repeats the same crap you heard at 5. From 11:30-12:30 you have those lame late night shows that are supposed to be funny. Then you have a few hours of infomercials that lead into the early morning national news, that leads in early morning local news that leads into more national news shows like Today and Good Morning America and by that time you’re looking at 9 AM. Then it’s time for a few game shows and talk shows that lead into the local news at noon. After that a few soap operas, or what’s left of them. Then a few nonsensical shows like The Doctor’s and before you know it we’re back to the 5 o’clock news. That right there is the Monday-Friday schedule for ABC, NBC and CBS in pretty much every single one of the 210 DMAs in this country. For the weekends, add some sports with a lot of infomercials, kiddie shows on Saturday morning and talking head news shows on Sunday morning.

A little bit of the above applies to Fox, The CW and whatever the hell MyNetwork TV is supposed to be. Only add in a bunch of syndicated reruns of Two and a Half Men, The Simpson’s, Big Bang Theory and a few others and a bunch of judge shows.

What are some significant differences between locals from two adjacent DMAs? And no, I don’t mean the ABC affiliate in one market has Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy while the CBS affiliate carries those shows in the other market.

This is the reason why OTA TV is useless. So much wasted spectrum out there, do we really need 210 ABC stations showing The View, and 210 CBS stations showing The Talk, or can we just get rid of OTA TV altogether and use that spectrum for something more useful. Make ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and CW national cable networks and get rid of the outdated affiliate system.
--
Dale Jr, Riding Daddys Coattails Since February 18, 2001!

reply to cdru
No, I said if they stayed the same price PER CHANNEL, then a lot would die off, and the overall bills would go way down. What I'm concerned is that the price would go way UP PER CHANNEL in order to make up for lost revenue, although I think in that model, people would end up dumping a lot of channels, and only a relatively few strong channels would survive.

Something is going to happen in the multichannel video market, as the current system isn't working. What exactly that is isn't clear yet.