Come Monday we will be a DirecTV subscriber WITHOUT ESPN. And come Wednesday when we cancel FIOS TV we will be one less "viewer" for them. We watch one sporting event a year, the Super Bowl and have no use for RSN, ESPN, or whatever. Tired of paying those fees - sports should be a separate, OPTIONAL tier just like HBO.
Tired of paying those fees - sports should be a separate, OPTIONAL tier just like HBO.
Unfortunately, those major sports networks (ESPN, Fox Sports 1, etc.) have contracts with the Pay-TV providers that require them to be carried on the most popular programming tier. That way they get the most eyeballs on them in order to achieve maximum ad rates/revenue.
Why cable operators don't have choice to carry ESPN on a sports tier By Steve Donohue, FierceCable - February 9, 2012 »www.fiercecable.com/stor ··· 12-02-09
Then there are also those who argue that if you do that, "the sky will fall":
Placing ESPN On Sports Tier Would Harm Pay-TV Ecosystem: Analyst Needham's Martin Says Unbundling Would Raise Sports Rates, Resulting In Those Subs Dropping Entertainment Packages By Mike Reynolds, Multichannel News - July 16, 2013 »www.multichannel.com/new ··· t/358064
that "live TV" is still desirable, as with "live sports"--no, using OTT like a DVR (hulu et al) is perfectly fine (with no ads--a la Netflix--is even better). Consumer viewing habits have "evolved"; the producers and providers of content (networks and broadcasters) have not.
ESPN's market value is estimated at $7 now. ESPN2 is another $1.
In the Los Angeles Market, the L.A. Lakers have their own TWC Sportsnet channel which sells to cable companies for $5. TWC also wants $5 for TWC Sportsnet Dodgers. In 2012 a deal was stuck with the Angels on Fox Sports West for $3.50 The Ducks, Kings, Clippers are on Prime Ticket (sharing with Fox Sports West) - I don't know exactly how high the costs are here, but based on figures I found in the past, it's somewhere around $1-$1.50 for each of those teams, although the broadcast deal is tied up in a package. Then there is the Pac-12 channel which goes for $1, and several national sports channels. There are also two MLS teams, the newest team starting this summer will be included the next time the carriage negotiations begin for local sports channels.
If you start adding it all op, sports ALONE runs anywhere between $25 and $30 a month in Los Angeles. That is between $300 and $360 a year.
Why do cable companies continue to expect that people who do NOT watch sports pay that kind of money as part of their cable subscription? If you do not watch sports, and wonder why your cable bill is so high..... sports is a really, really big reason.
To put it in an analogy, if you like watching TV but could care less about sports, this is what you do:
You step into a restaurant. The restaurant has 3 "meal packages". One package has steak, tuna, and spare ribs with veggies, another one has steak and spareribs with veggies, and another has steak, veggies, and a delicious desert. You like tuna. You like ribs. You like veggies. You like deserts...... But you cannot stand to eat steak. Yet you are paying for that big juicy fat steak anyways because that is the only option the restaurant gives you, every meal package has that steak! The bigger problem of course is that the steak is 40% of your meal costs! Would you continue to eat at a restaurant like that?
If the answer is no, why do you accept that with cable television?
For the same reason (most eyeballs, maximum revenue) companies like Disney and Viacom will have most of their channels offered as a bundle in a "all or nothing" kind of deal. No, you won't just take MTV and Nickelodeon because those two are the most popular, you will take the 8 other channels of crap we offer, and if you don't take those, you can't have any MTV.
Why does that remind me of a Pink Floyd song..... I want my pudding, but I don't want to eat my meat!
To put it in an analogy, if you like watching TV but could care less about sports, this is what you do:
You step into a restaurant. The restaurant has 3 "meal packages". One package has steak, tuna, and spare ribs with veggies, another one has steak and spareribs with veggies, and another has steak, veggies, and a delicious desert. You like tuna. You like ribs. You like veggies. You like deserts...... But you cannot stand to eat steak. Yet you are paying for that big juicy fat steak anyways because that is the only option the restaurant gives you, every meal package has that steak! The bigger problem of course is that the steak is 40% of your meal costs! Would you continue to eat at a restaurant like that?
If the answer is no, why do you accept that with cable television?
That reminds me of this classic Monty Python sketch: [Substitute "steak" for "SPAM."]
been weaning off pay tv for the last year. Dropped my "Direct" at $140 a month (had all premium), swithched to Uverse (had to to get internet, they won't do just internet will soak me for $$ so I went with the lowest tier) phone and internet 45/5 for $124.don't watch espn and don't watch the Disney channels. Have Roku and Amazon Prime. Do like football but only watch on OTA with my antenna.One of these days the cable, uverse, satelite people will get tired of the shakedown
were you not able to drop to a FIOS tier without ESPN or did you just want to drop FIOS TV anyway? I have FIOS and a couple of years ago dropped to the lowest TV tier, which did not have sports. I did this right after opening a bill and seeing a new, below the line "sports fee" charge.
Up here in Canada Rogers Sportsnet is offering a streaming option for their sports channels in a $25/m bundle for everything except Sportsnet World)
That includes the following:
Sportsnet Pacific/West/Ontario/East/360/Sportsnet 1 for $25 a month + taxes, a bit high for my tastes.
Sad part is they offer six channels but none of them have any sports properties that I don't either get elsewhere OTA or as part of a streaming package directly from the sports league involved.
Now if TSN up here would do it at that price with the sports properties they have then I might be interested assuming they put together an iOS or AppleTV app (but since they're owned by B(h)ell they won't do it at any price)
were you not able to drop to a FIOS tier without ESPN or did you just want to drop FIOS TV anyway? I have FIOS and a couple of years ago dropped to the lowest TV tier, which did not have sports. I did this right after opening a bill and seeing a new, below the line "sports fee" charge.
According to their bundle builder (we're out of contract on Wed) I would save $0 by dropping my package. Calling Customer Service they said the same thing.
Tired of paying $150 to Verizon for 3 TV's and Internet, and phone. Dropping phone brought it down to $139. AT&T's offer to bundle our cell (we have them) + 3 TV's, DVR and the lowest package (fine for us) will be $40/mo for TV + our cell bill. FIOS Internet will be $65 so I'll be paying $105 for 2 years!
that "live TV" is still desirable, as with "live sports"--no, using OTT like a DVR (hulu et al) is perfectly fine (with no ads--a la Netflix--is even better). Consumer viewing habits have "evolved"; the producers and providers of content (networks and broadcasters) have not.
Yep. This.
The sad truth is that wired tv subscription companies such as through cable, telco copper or fiber, can EASILY put on their own fully on-demand infrastructure that can rival Netflix and Amazon. If they had done that 5+ years ago, they would have been losing a lot less customers.
The problem really is this:
1) Customers don't want to remember to DVR things. They just want to watch something when they want to watch it.
2) Customers don't want to be locked to the same hardware anymore.
3) Customers don't want to be locked to the same location anymore.
The world of watching video has changed. The only reason linear TV is still holding on is because of a joint effort by media and cable companies to keep it alive, but the reality is that 90% of programming that is out there can be viewed on-demand. Sports, News, and special live events are the only ones that still need to be shown at set times.
I foresee that cable and satellite will actually go back DOWN in channels to maybe around 40-50 in total, instead of the 200 we have now...
For the same reason (most eyeballs, maximum revenue) companies like Disney and Viacom will have most of their channels offered as a bundle in a "all or nothing" kind of deal. No, you won't just take MTV and Nickelodeon because those two are the most popular, you will take the 8 other channels of crap we offer, and if you don't take those, you can't have any MTV.
Why does that remind me of a Pink Floyd song..... I want my pudding, but I don't want to eat my meat!
Netflix Originals and netflix Movies are an "all or nothing" kind of deal. Cable 2.0 has large forced base bundles as well. Nothing is changing.
DirecTV's Select package drops ESPN (as well as NFL and MLB, and your RSNs). The price difference from Choice to Select is about $25, plus whatever your RSN junk fee is.
ESPN's market value is estimated at $7 now. ESPN2 is another $1.
In the Los Angeles Market, the L.A. Lakers have their own TWC Sportsnet channel which sells to cable companies for $5. TWC also wants $5 for TWC Sportsnet Dodgers. In 2012 a deal was stuck with the Angels on Fox Sports West for $3.50 The Ducks, Kings, Clippers are on Prime Ticket (sharing with Fox Sports West) - I don't know exactly how high the costs are here, but based on figures I found in the past, it's somewhere around $1-$1.50 for each of those teams, although the broadcast deal is tied up in a package. Then there is the Pac-12 channel which goes for $1, and several national sports channels. There are also two MLS teams, the newest team starting this summer will be included the next time the carriage negotiations begin for local sports channels.
If you start adding it all op, sports ALONE runs anywhere between $25 and $30 a month in Los Angeles. That is between $300 and $360 a year.
Why do cable companies continue to expect that people who do NOT watch sports pay that kind of money as part of their cable subscription? If you do not watch sports, and wonder why your cable bill is so high..... sports is a really, really big reason.
To put it in an analogy, if you like watching TV but could care less about sports, this is what you do:
You step into a restaurant. The restaurant has 3 "meal packages". One package has steak, tuna, and spare ribs with veggies, another one has steak and spareribs with veggies, and another has steak, veggies, and a delicious desert. You like tuna. You like ribs. You like veggies. You like deserts...... But you cannot stand to eat steak. Yet you are paying for that big juicy fat steak anyways because that is the only option the restaurant gives you, every meal package has that steak! The bigger problem of course is that the steak is 40% of your meal costs! Would you continue to eat at a restaurant like that?
If the answer is no, why do you accept that with cable television?
Because CableTv is so inexpensive. It only cost me around $70 a month in a bundle on FiOS. And then if I even went the route of going where you select the channels it would only save me around $5 a month. And then I would lose dozens of channels. Not worth it for a $5 savings.
Sports is exactly why I cut the cord almost two years ago now. The surcharge on the bill for a regional sports channel that never shows anything but old recorded sporting events that nobody cares about and combined with the fact I couldn't care less about any sports in general was the last straw. Only a few months prior to that they started the local broadcast surcharge and then added a sports surcharge of $4 a month! I was paying a combined total of about $12 a month in surcharges just to have the smallest cable package and that didn't even include things like ESPN or movie channels, just basic cable plus some premiums like discovery etc. I'm not paying $144 a year to support the people who do watch sports, which even then most of the sports fans I know have satellite anyway. So I cut the cord went to antennas and get all the broadcast channels free, and no surcharges. $100 spent on antennas once and done.
Because CableTv is so inexpensive. It only cost me around $70 a month in a bundle on FiOS. And then if I even went the route of going where you select the channels it would only save me around $5 a month. And then I would lose dozens of channels. Not worth it for a $5 savings.
Yeah, if you WANT all those channels, feel free to pay for them.
I myself have about 100 free channels over the air (40-45 in English, 20-ish in HD), Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, and my monthly entertainment bill is 25 bucks a month.
Please tell me for which SPORTS I pay with Netflix.
Everyone knows that when you subscribe to Netflix or another streaming service, that you buy access to a large catalog of movies, half of which you probably will never watch or have no interest in. But unlike cable, where you pay for every single channel you have on your lineup, whether you watch it or not, the Netflix pricing is based on what the average viewer actually watches, and they often remove content that has a low viewer percentage to replace it with content that might be watched more.
Also, it's not just about content. Netflix can be:
- Watched anywhere you have a (3 Mbps or more) internet connection. (SmartDNS required if traveling outside US). - Watched on a large variety of devices, ranging from cell phones, tablets, smart TV's, streaming boxes, computers, gaming consoles..... - Can be cancelled at any time when you don't need it. Without the need of returning equipment.
Previously, you were saying that no one was actually "cutting a cord" because they still had internet because you did not realize that cord cutting was merely a TERM for those who had cancelled subscription TV. (Or you did know that, and acted dumb....) - Now you have come up with this "Cable 2.0" which really doesn't fly, and it is obvious you have little understanding of streaming services as you seem to focus on the same old argument in every post.
Because CableTv is so inexpensive. It only cost me around $70 a month in a bundle on FiOS. And then if I even went the route of going where you select the channels it would only save me around $5 a month. And then I would lose dozens of channels. Not worth it for a $5 savings.
Yeah, if you WANT all those channels, feel free to pay for them.
I myself have about 100 free channels over the air (40-45 in English, 20-ish in HD), Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, and my monthly entertainment bill is 25 bucks a month.
I have all of those too. On top of what I receive from cable. For me it's about convenience without paying a ton of money. Which i don't.
While I do have TiVos connected to OTA, I use them as a backup to my Tivos on FiOS. Since all the locals channels and sub channels are available on FiOS. And I regularly use Netflix, Amazon prime, Hulu, Vudu, and other streaming services.
DirecTV's Select package drops ESPN (as well as NFL and MLB, and your RSNs). The price difference from Choice to Select is about $25, plus whatever your RSN junk fee is.
That's the one we're getting. We watch 0 sports other than the Super Bowl. I do wish I could get some of the other channels though but Netflix will fill in the gaps nicely.
I just renegotiated my Dish bill last night. ESPN, sports and junk channels are packaged into my bill while the better quality channels are only available in the top tear packages. I basically told them all or nothing for the package and negotiated a credit for the DVR fee and Dish protection plan.
All in all I could've ask for more, but why push it after being a customer over 20 years. IMHO These sports channels need to be reserved for people who want sports. These content providers/distributors shouldn't try to subsidize subscribers who enjoy sports channels by skimming it off the backs of those who don't want the content.
ESPN has sports docs on Netflix. Where do you think that comes from?
That's how netflix used to operate. A nice large, eclectic collection of really good library of streaming titles. Today? Disney content, a handful of token hits, Netflix content, and the rest garbage padding.
------ "The company had already lost some 7 million subscribers in the last three years due to cord cutting, cord trimming, and the rise of the so-called "skinny bundle" which offers users a pared-down bundle of channels that in many instances won't include pricey ESPN." ------
Did you even read the summary to see how bastardized cord cutting has become today? Now people are finally admitting what is truly happening. "Cord trimming" and "skinny bundles" are now part of the vernacular.
If you want to blindly defend a faceless corporation for being comcast-lite, go right ahead. Just don't expect others to agree with you.
Netflix would be equivalent to a TV channels, not a cable company. You have a choice of channels (hulu, netflix, amazon prime, HBOnow) with various types of programming. The equivalent to cable would be if you could only get hulu if you also paid HBOnow and netflix.
FiOS bundles are only good if you cancel when your deal is up and put service in another household member's name to get the new customer rate. If you already have the ONT then service is really cheap. My sister is paying $50 per month for 50/50 and local tv. Its just a pain to do it every 2 years.
