FCC Poised to Act on Regional Sports Blackouts, Prices → I don't believe...

...the FCC has the authority to control price negotiations for content.
This would be a better case if fielded by the FTC or AG/DOJ,
If anything force the cableco's to separate the total cost of the non public sports channels from BASIC tv so that local only SUBS pay NOTHING to the sports cabal that builds team wealth and income on the public dollar, but returns less and less to the host cities every year.
Let the sports nuts pay for THEIR own entertainment.

And I can say that coming from a city with the seahawks, superbowl winners (who I watch some) and the sounders, MLS leaders (who I watch some) the mariners (who stay above .500 most years and I see occasionally) seattle storm and other quality teams. but I can live without paying them one thin dime as long as long as people are homeless, and parks are unsafe, and schools are struggling, and people are starving.

Well I don't watch jesus channels, women's channels, gay channels, hispanic channels or black channel so I shouldn't have to pay for those either then.

+1

Call up the content company and tell them that, or better yet- CBAND still gives you the option to pay for what you want. And yes, they are STILL around.

This. Honestly I hate that if you pay for TV, you MUST pay for these stupid causes.

You don't pay for Jesus channels. They are either free to your cable company or paying your cable company to air them.

I believe you are mistaken about C-Band, but if not you should post the details. I'm aware of what you're referring to, since at one time you could have a big C-band dish and order specific channels ala carte through a national subscription service of some kind. But I was under the impression that those channels went away when everything went to high-definition digital, because the older analog receivers with the VideoCipher cards would no longer receive those signals. And to the best of my knowledge, there's nothing up there in analog anymore, except maybe one or two of the religious channels that no one in their right mind would watch (essentially loops of old analog content that probably hasn't been updated since 1995).

If there were any way to purchase high-def cable channels ala carte, I'm sure that would be mentioned from time to time in the various satellite forums. I realize that the moderators of some of those forums (none of which are in any way affiliated with this site, thankfully) are at times extremely anal about what they allow to be posted in their little online dictatorships, but still I can't believe they would all ban any mention whatsoever of such a service. But if you have evidence to the contrary, please feel free to post it.

No such thing as a free lunch.

Yeah I much rather pay $3-$10 per channel than the 10 cents to 50 cents I'm paying now /sarcsam.

I think that these are mostly a result of the fact that cable came of age in the late 70's/early 80's and back then there were still a few large religious feeds that actually had audiences. But that was before so many of the people behind those networks got caught up in scandals of various kinds, or turned into raving lunatic hate-mongers. Point is that back then, a cable company would carry the religious channels because it was something what would induce the church folk to subscribe to their service, but I doubt that's nearly as true today as it used to be, since most people nowadays (even religious folks) are very turned off by those guys. So now the few channels that remain have to pay the cable companies to carry them, or are carried for free because they've been on that system forever and there are still older subscribers that would drop their cable service if those channels were dropped.

So, Grandma sends a chunk of her social security check to these silver-tongued devils, and maybe they send a small portion of that back to the cable company. The cable company includes that channel in their channel count in their promotional materials. If people had to pay to get those channels individually, I daresay 99% of them would be off the air within a month.

Dont watch tv, there issue resolved

The FCC can't do anything about the contract negotiations per se, but the FCC (or really the states more so, tbh) can regulate how consumers are billed for items like you have mentioned. I doubt most people realize exactly how much of their monthly bill goes to things they never realized they were paying for.

This would initially hurt the sports "industry", but in the long term it will make it a much more healthy, financially.

This is why I became a cord cutter. Why pay for 200 channels if I only watch 10 of them?

No cable company is going to allow a-la-carte, so I beat them at their own game. Why complain about a-la-carte channels, if I can just go all the way and go a-la-carte for programs. I just watch Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and with Smart DNS a whole bunch of international stuff.

Money saved a year: Just under $1,000.

Wasn't a hard sell, that one, to the wife.

I still get all the locals with a roof antenna, and my central media server has a TV card in it so I can record programming off of that. For FREE, what a concept. (And actually better HD quality then what I had on the same channels on DirecTV).

Actually, in the case of religious channels its the other way around. They pay your carrier for carriage, so they don't add to the cable bill. Same with home shopping networks such as QVC.

The BIG money is in sports. And after that, the forced package deals. Want to watch Discovery channel? Great, please pay for these OTHER 12 channels we own too.

Subscription television has become the BIGGEST rip off known to man. But most people are so addicted to their flat screens and would panic to have to entertain their kids in another manner, they will gladly keep on forking over money, often more then $100 a month, to a company that feeds you the same crap television that hasn't improved in over a decade. Oh, we get to watch crap in HD now. Whoop. Dee. Doo.

neither do I but all those together are a few cents, half a dozen sports channels,, some supposedly FREE is what makes the bill $40 plus, let's dump the expensive ones first and see what the cost is.

Correct. The people that donate to those television churches end up footing that bill. Believe in Jesus, and donate half your salary! Amen.

If I remember correctly there isn't a true HD option for 4DTV and you need at least a 7.5 foot dish which is not feasible in many places.

for once we agree on something. I don't even want whole channels, I want JUST THE INDIVIDUAL SHOWS that I want to watch, nothing more.

Make the pilot EP and give it away for free, if theres interest, make and sell the series, if not trash it.

It's not the causes, it's the broadcast channels, over a year there are only a total of 12 shows I watch spread out across 9 channels that I'd have to pay $75/month to have those shows if I didn't just pirate them because unless one of those shows has a new episode on the TV sat off.

I have no issue with buying my shows directly, but I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars for the actual months when theres absolutely nothing I want to watch on TV and thus never turn it on.

tell that to the multimillionaire televangelists and their religious tax exemptions, which they constantly violate the terms of by preaching about who people should vote for.

the "church" is getting a free lunch on not paying taxes.

Hear, hear!

Jim

ah yes, they are, and they charge $159.99/yr for sports. »www.skyvision.com/progra ··· l#sports and they only have a handful of a la carte channels, ($6/mo for crapfy? really?) »www.skyvision.com/progra ··· rte.html

50 cents? really?

Broadcast Basic ....... 27.00
Local Broadcast Channel Surcharge ...... 2.57
HD DTA - Primary 1.99
Subtotal .......... 31.56
Taxes, Fees & Surcharges
Franchise Fee......... 1.89
Regulatory Fee ........... .09
Local Sales Tax ........... .15
State Sales Tax............ .20
Subtotal ......................... 2.33

Total......33.89

$33.89 for 29 channels 33.89 / 29 = $1.17/per channel (rouned up to nearest cent)

and look, i get these AMAZING channels.

2 ShopHQ*
3 WALB (NBC 10) Albany*
4 WFXL (FOX 31) Albany*
6 WSWG (CBS 43) Valdosta*
7 WSWG-DT2 (MyNet 44) Valdosta*
8 WABW (PBS 14) Pelham*
9 WALB-DT2 (ABC 10.2) Albany*
11 WSST (IND 55) Cordele*
13 QVC*
14 HSN*
15 Religious Access*
16 Local Government Access*
17 Local Access*
18 The Weather Channel*
19 Educational Access*
21 WGN America*
23 ION*
24 WSWG-DT3 (CW) Valdosta*
26 WALB 24/7 Weather *
28 C-SPAN*
85 Local Religious Access*
87 C-SPAN 2*
88 C-SPAN 3*
90 3ABN*
91 WFXL-DT2 Bounce TV*
94 EWTN*
95 TBN*
97 INSP*
230 Mediacom Local Sports*

90% of those channels you can probably get for FREE using a roof antenna. (and probably a lot more, too such as all the sub channels that you don't get on cable) C-SPAN is available online for free, and the only channel you may not get.... is that Mediacom Local Sports channel.

Now unless that Local Sports channel is really worth almost $400 a year..... I suggest you get a roof antenna, disconnect the incoming cable to your house, and connect the roof antenna to it, and save yourselves a shitload of money you could use for other things. Like a Netflix account.

Just a hint: In the Los Angeles market I get over a 100 channels for free out of the air. About 40-45 are in English though (the rest in Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Mandarin, Japanese and a variety of other languages, its a melting pot out here).

Thats a shitload of channels that never air anything I want to watch. Sell me the individual sesies I want and nothing more.

It'll get there eventually, but I doubt it will be much cheaper, most of those channels are free or actually pay to be on, probably hits break even for the must carries after the BASIC "cable reaches your door fee" (base price) anything interesting is going to be noticeable pricy per channel (can't see most channels wanting to go full ALA CARTE down to the show/episode level. their is only so far that is practical for BROADCAST.
IPTV is happening more and more but think towards a $10-15 movie, $2+ episode for most, a lot higher for some, and several subsriptions (Netflix/amazon) for the rest.
fine grain individual choice is a more expensive service option.

considered it, im legally blind so i have to have some one come out and install it (and the realty place requires they be licensed/insured so cant just hire some neighbor kid to string a cable).

and of course, if i drop basic they raise the internet by $15/mo (an "internet only fee") which i could rant for hours about. (not to mention the data cap that would rule netflix out unless i paid out the rear for a higher net tier)

in all honesty the only reason ive kept basic is for dad (72, and dont like change) other wise id drop it. because out of "all" of that i personally only watch walb (local news) and maybe wgn or ion if im in the mood for a "repeat marathon until you memorize the script" kind of mood...

i dont think ive even watched "primetime" in 5+ years, its all reality tv junk.