Al-a-carte cable--how many cable channels do you really watch (please read before answering poll)

Quote: Pacomartin

NFL Network with Thursday night games is just trying to lay the groundwork. I think some people were a little surprised that the NFL signed another ten year contract with network television. It is highly unlikely that they will sign another one in ten years. By then network revenue will be so low, that there is no way they can afford to sign another contract.

It may even mean the final end to the network television at the same time.

I agree. The only time I ever watch network TV is to see a live sporting event. Once they lose that it is all over. I watch everything on TiVo and skip the ads, and little to nothing I record even comes from the broadcast networks.

In theory I would like a-la-carte channels but it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense given that the world is moving to on-demand. My TiVo is just a way to turn regular cable into an on-demand product. If the market ever gets together to make a place where I can pay to watch anything for a reasonable price, I would do that. Right now I can watch some stuff from Netflix, some from Amazon, Hulu, cable on demand, etc.

The other issue is cost. Cable companies have no incentive to make a change that would cause most customers to pay less money per month. Only competition from on-demand or new competitors could make it happen. The on-demand rental prices right now are not what Paco envisions like a phone bill. They are more like $2-$3 per show.

Netflix is an eat as much as you like on-demand for about $8 per month. I'd like to see them add premium on demand stuff for a few dollars. Then the cable companies will really be hurting.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Why they would choose a channel that is not available to every household with a TV is mystery to me. There are potentially, millions of potential fans who will not be exposed to your institution. Is the future loss worth it?

This is why the "Puppy Bowl" hasn't taken off...hehe.

Yeah, I might have tuned in last night if the game had been on network. Don't care enough about the teams to head to a bar though.

When Monday Night Football switched from ABC to ESPN, my dad was pissed. He's not even a huge NFL fan, but he likes football and watches a couple games on Sunday, and always watched MNF. But my parents have never had cable, save a short experiment before I was born. They discovered the watched too much TV when they had cable, pulled the plug, and never went back. They recently signed up for Netflix instant though...guess you have more time to kill when you're retired :).

If the NFL ever goes completely off broadcast, I'll just pirate the games with firstrowsports.eu and the like even more than I do now. As it is, if Denver isn't on the local CBS affiliate, I go that route or head down to a bar that has GamePlan or whatever.

Quote: jml24

The on-demand rental prices right now are not what Paco envisions like a phone bill. They are more like $2-$3 per show.

The Allvid proposal from the Fcc would probably have a standard coaxial cable for Radio frequency that enters your house


But internal to your house you would have only ethernet and wireless


All signals inside the house can carry internet or any kind of video.

At this point almost any kind of billing will be possible. Including a per minute charge, a per show charge, etc. In this case the billing may look like an old fashioned phone bill.

Warner Brothers is licensing 8 network shows to Netflix as of a few days ago. Right now they are licensing completed seasons, but they intimate that in the future they may sell new shows. It is possible that Netflix will cannibalize ad-supported TV in the future.

More importantly, the brand of these TV shows is shifting to their production house (Warner Brothers) and away from the network that airs the shows.

Revolution (NBC), Political Animals (USA Network), Longmire (A&E) , 666 Park Avenue (ABC) — and The Following (FOX).
Netflix also landed cancelled shows Chuck (NBC), Fringe (Fox) and The West Wing (NBC).

Quote: AcesAndEights

When Monday Night Football switched from ABC to ESPN, my dad was pissed.

Monday Night Football debuted on ESPN for October 23, 2006 telecast of the New York Giants–Dallas Cowboys. Since then ESPN MNF has had 8 out of 10 of the top viewership for Cable TV.

ESPN charges $4.69 per subscriber per month or access to its main channel alone (plus another $1.13 for the rest of its English-language channels). No other cable channel comes even close to that number.

It seems that if individual subscribers who pay $9.99 per month for access to hulu plus, then you could find millions who would gladly pay that much for the collection of ESPN channels delivered to their internet enabled TV or computer.

Quote: Pacomartin

Monday Night Football debuted on ESPN for October 23, 2006 telecast of the New York Giants–Dallas Cowboys. Since then ESPN MNF has had 8 out of 10 of the top viewership for Cable TV.

ESPN charges $4.69 per subscriber per month or access to its main channel alone (plus another $1.13 for the rest of its English-language channels). No other cable channel comes even close to that number.

It seems that if individual subscribers who pay $9.99 per month for access to hulu plus, then you could find millions who would gladly pay that much for the collection of ESPN channels delivered to their internet enabled TV or computer.

If I could pay exactly $5.82/month to get all the ESPN channels and nothing else, I would consider it. But not when you have to pay for the basic package to begin with. Hence the title of this thread...

I would probably pay the same as I pay for Netflix for a similar sports related package, if the sports were major league stuff.

I had to check 10-15. Locally, we used to have four channels CSPAN1&2, and two Local Gvt Channels LG1&2. Both of these went to digital only last year. With elderly parents here, they want their CSPAN/L.G. channels, since not much makes the papers here Toss in 4 locals, Weather, AMC, Turner Classic Movies, CNBC (day), ESPN, FX, and SyFy. So there's 15 and I don;t think I'm missing much around here except Tony Bourdain.

Quote: AcesAndEights

If I could pay exactly $5.82/month to get all the ESPN channels and nothing else, I would consider it. But not when you have to pay for the basic package to begin with. Hence the title of this thread...

My cable company charges $59.99/mo for local broadcast + phone + 25 Mbs internet.
For $109.99 they give you 227 Channels (71 in HD) and TiVo box.

If you had ala-cart presumably you would at least pay the $59.99/mo and then add on to it from there. But if ABC sells ESPN to hundreds of thousands of customers at a time for $5.82/month, it is very unlikely that they would sell directly to individual customers for the same price. I just picked $9.99 as a concept price, since it would include the cost of handling individual subscriptions. Presumably they would be delivered over the internet, so that you would have to have the equipment to view it on your big screen TV.

But what if your CaTV Co. cuts a deal with Intel? Intel might get you that $60 offer for $30. At some point this could devolve into fiber carrying multiple cable services.

I pay for cable including HBO, Cinemax, Starz, a sports package (mostly for tennis & volleyball coverage) and NBA league pass (I also have netflix) I own a dvr so I rarely watch live tv and go with recorded stuff so I can zip through commercials and skip boring segments of a show/game. I record an array of shows from sports, science, news, history and military channels. As for movies and weekly shows (ie Walking Dead) I typically just view them through the Ondemand feature.

I don't know if I'd sign up for an al a carte plan. It all depends on pricing and I would be willing to limit myself to certain channels but I feel that most of the al a carte savings would mostly remain with the cable providers.

I think that the al a carte plan would change the way network television works. You'd probably have a situation where a few networks would dominate revenue and the rest of the channels fall further behind. The development of new shows would probably decline as it would become riskier for networks to make changes to lineups and smaller networks wouldn't be able to produce new content. This may be a good thing as I mistakenly took on a dare and watched 5 minutes of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

Edit: Crap, I voted wrong. I put in flipping through channels though I don't really flip. I assume that means changing the channel every minute or so.