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John McCain Introduces Cable A La Carte Legislation To Stop Bundling

RollWave35

RollWave35

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Figured I'd put this in here instead of Tunnels because it's something that's been talked about in here a lot - the idea of a la carte cable services.

John McCain wants to unbundle cable and to stop broadcasters like CBS and Fox from moving their stations to pay TV. The Arizona senator right now on the Senate floor is introducing The TV Consumer Freedom Act of 2013 (read it here). The legislation is intended to “allow the consumer, the television viewer who subscribes to cable, to have à la carte capability. In other words, not required to buy a whole bunch of channels that that consumer may not want wish to subscribe to,” McCain said moments ago. The former GOP Presidential candidate also went after broadcasters like CBS and Fox who have said that they could move to cable if they lose in the courts against Barry Diller’s Aereo streaming service. “We’ll also establish consequences if broadcasters choose to downgrade their over-the-air service,” McCain told the Senate. His legislation would also eliminate the sports blackout rule “in events that are held in publicly financed stadiums.”
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Full story: http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/john-mccain-cable-legislation-a-la-carte/

Also came across this chart of channel prices (although it's 3 years old).

cable-sub-fees.png


So if you got to do this, which channels would you pick? Or would you keep them all?
 
I personally can't live without Caracol TV, Retirement Living TV, Wedding Central, and the Africa Channel
 
ESPN is the only thing I'd keep. Everything else don't care.
 
Nice job, John. A little big gubmint here, but it's going to take something to crack the regional monopolies that these companies currently have.

Of course this is never going to work...the cable companies will spend millions and millions of dollars to make sure this never sees the light of day.
 
This is the best part of the bill: His legislation would also eliminate the sports blackout rule “in events that are held in publicly financed stadiums.”

The a la carte model wouldn't save anybody any money. ESPN is subsidized by people who don't watch it. The value of ESPN to those who want it is much more than $4.
 
PhDeac said:
This is the best part of the bill: His legislation would also eliminate the sports blackout rule “in events that are held in publicly financed stadiums.”

The a la carte model wouldn't save anybody any money. ESPN is subsidized by people who don't watch it. The value of ESPN to those who want it is much more than $4.
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I could pay $10 a month, and be fine with my package.
 
If this WERE to happen though, Apple would be skipping all the way to bank. They'd strike content deals and offer channels as Apps on AppleTV. Pro sports leagues could cut Fox and ESPN and the others out all together and just offer their games through their own apps. This would change everything.
 
You could triple that cost of ESPN and I bet 90% of sports fans would save money.

That subsidized cost thing is cable company propaganda. ESPN isn't going to cost 50 dollars by itself and most people only need a handful of other channels.
 
Deadbolt said:
If this WERE to happen though, Apple would be skipping all the way to bank. They'd strike content deals and offer channels as Apps on AppleTV. Pro sports leagues could cut Fox and ESPN and the others out all together and just offer their games through their own apps. This would change everything.
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I would love to have Apps for my favorite networks and be able to watch their shows on any device, anytime I wanted. That's the way technology is taking entertainment content
 
Deacfreak07 said:
I could pay $10 a month, and be fine with my package.
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That's the thing. ESPN would be more than $10 if only the people who wanted it were paying for it. Add in the rest of the ESPN family of networks and we're well beyond $10.

How about HD vs. SD pricing? Would HD cost more?

http://www.bna.com/mccain-working-cable-n17179873831/

Under the current system, cable and satellite companies such as Comcast Corp. and Dish Network Corp. pay programmers such as ESPN for carriage, and ESPN charges on the basis of total subscribers, whether those Comcast and Dish subscribers actually watch ESPN video content or not. If, for example, ESPN now charges Comcast and Dish $7 per subscriber per month to carry its programming, in an a la carte system that fee could end up being much higher. (If only 25 to 30 percent elect to watch ESPN a la carte, ESPN could decide to increase the cost charged per subscriber to an estimated $16 or $17 per subscriber per month to keep their revenue levels the same. The cable and satellite companies would then, in turn, pass on that increased cost to customers in the form of higher monthly bills.)
 
Deadbolt said:
If this WERE to happen though, Apple would be skipping all the way to bank. They'd strike content deals and offer channels as Apps on AppleTV. Pro sports leagues could cut Fox and ESPN and the others out all together and just offer their games through their own apps. This would change everything.
Click to expand...

BeachBumDeac said:
I would love to have Apps for my favorite networks and be able to watch their shows on any device, anytime I wanted. That's the way technology is taking entertainment content
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This is ideal. Temporarily jacking up the rates isn't a necessary step to getting there.
 
If 16 or 17 dollars is the high estimate for ESPN then that is great. People are already cutting the cord without the option of paying that for ESPN.
 
the best part is if their is a show you want or a game to watch, sure ill pay the $.75 it costs to watch that game today.
 
Fuck Your Couch said:
If 16 or 17 dollars is the high estimate for ESPN then that is great. People are already cutting the cord without the option of paying that for ESPN.
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Yep. I currently pay $30 a month for cable, and get no HD channels. It's such shit. I was at like $150 a month before that with HD, DVR, etc.
 
How do you manage without DVR? Do it through your computer?
 
PhDeac said:
How do you manage without DVR? Do it through your computer?
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Hulu+ through the PS3 in the living room and the Roku in the bedroom. It sucks to not be able to pause and rewind live TV, but it just wasn't worth the cost. If there are shows not on Hulu like Mad Men, Walking Dead, etc. then I just buy individual episodes from Amazon. If it weren't for sports, I would cut cable entirely.
 
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