Cable subscribers sue for 'a la carte' TV options
To all you cable and satellite subscribers who gripe about writing checks each month for the privilege of receiving dozens of channels you never watch, take note.
A new lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles charges that every major cable and satellite provider--and the entertainment conglomerates that feed them content--form a cartel that deprives consumers of choice and forces them to pay "inflated" prices for services that don't correspond to their desires.
The suit, brought on behalf of cable subscribers in several states, calls for unspecified damages and for a court to decree that consumers can buy channels individually, the Associated Press reported.
The companies being targeted by the suit are NBC Universal, Viacom, Walt Disney, Fox Entertainment Group, Time Warner, Comcast, Cox Communications, DirecTV, Echostar Satellite, Charter Communications and Cablevision Systems, according to the AP.
Attorney Maxwell Blecher told the AP that he has asked for the suit to be certified as a class action. If that happens, he indicated as many as 80 million cable and satellite TV subscribers would be eligible to sign on as parties to the suit.
The lawsuit has the potential to reinvigorate the ongoing debate over whether a government-mandated "a la carte" regime is necessary. As recently as last month, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin reaffirmed his long-standing support for a law requiring that pricing model.
Earlier this year, members of Congress introduced a bill--also endorsed by Martin--that offers a sort of in-between a la carte proposal, designed primarily to target complaints from groups like the Parents Television Council about family unfriendly content on cable and satellite stations.
The cable industry, however, has a long list of reasons why it believes a la carte isn't a wise idea: chief among them that such a system would actually raise costs for consumers. They contend that such an arrangement would not only pile on administrative costs associated with customizing consumers' packages, but it may also require leasing special set-top boxes for each TV. They also claim an a la carte pricing model would cause a rise in overall subscription prices and lessen the diversity of programming they're able to offer. In a nutshell, that's because of the special arrangements they work out with advertisers.
The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, whose membership includes some but not all of the companies named in the suit, declined to comment on the litigation. But NCTA spokesman Rob Stoddard told CNET News.com on Friday that the industry's view on a la carte hasn't changed.
How is that any different then now. Last time I checked satellite
requires a receiver, cable requires a receiver for 70% of the
available channels.
It may be more expensive for someone to get all 150 channels
alla-carte then through packages but most people will be select
~20 channels that they actually want to watch, and that is what
the industry is afraid of.
local/shopping tier, are paying on average tiny amounts a month
toward many channels. If we start paying for channels
individually, then we're not likely to pay for those channels we
currently watch just once or twice a month, especially if it will
cost an additional couple of dollars to keep them on.
As fewer subscribers support those channels, prices for them
will rise, and subscribers will abandon them, and they'll go out
of business. Maybe that is no great loss to anybody, but yes, I
can see how a la carte pricing could reduce the choice we have
now.
I don't use a settop box at all to get the 70 or so channels I
currently have. If they were a la carte, I'd probably need a box
or I'd have to buy a TV with CableCard. I might save $5 (though
I doubt it) by picking out my 20 channel subset instead of
having the package, but that would be offset by the settop box
rental (explicit or hidden fee, doesn't matter).
And then I'd miss the occasional show I see now on Hallmark or
Disney or Animal Planet, which I wouldn't bother to pay for
separately. And the channels I watch that aren't so popular
could either cost a lot or go away, or most likely cost a lot and
consequently go away.
I'm sure the industry arguments are self-serving, but I can see
some of their points and can easily see how I might save a
negligible amount of money (or lose money), and just have fewer
choices, and likely lose some of the channels I do watch.
reality, I only watch one channel associated with the package is a
waste of money. I'm all for the class-action if it leads to the
formation of an a-la-carte menu.
provider's web site. Login then chose your subscriptions from a
menu.
A few years ago I talked with an executive from the local Time-
Warner Cable TV, it was at a social function. I told him I wanted
an a la carte selection and his response as that the current
system subsidizes the less popular channels. I said, "Sure it
does......., why don't you try a test to see just how it would work
out," or words to that effect. He gave me a politician's answer
that they may look into that, then beat a hasty retreat because
other people started chiming in.
I have HD cable and I hate the way that the box does not
remember the last channel I was watching. When I turn it on it is
at #1 and I have to listen to some guy touting "OnDemand."
going on. Well, just as in nature, it should be 'survival of the
fittest'. If the crappy programming that doesn't have the merits
to stand on its own, then it should die a silent death.
To be honest, I only watch HD programming (yes, I admit I'm a
bit snobbish over quality)...which was great when there were
only 20 or so HD channels and I could use my dish network
remote to filter out all the non-HD programming. Now that
other channels are starting to put out HDesque programming
(SDTV with some additional filters applied), but still sub
standard to any program filmed with an HD camera, the choices
are starting to get mind numbing again.
From my point of view, id rather have a handful of great HD
programming then 400 channels of garbage.
to get the channels I want. It's just as bad as paying for oodles of
stupid channels that I hate. I don't shop from my TV set, so why
must I have 3 shopping channels? I like the History channel but I
get The Hunting and Fishing Network and Speed. I'd pay for
Hallmark but they can keep the family channel. And why is it so
darned hard to get the SciFi channel? I say sue them till they
bleed!
darned hard to get the SciFi channel?">
Seriously! My old cable company had SciFi as standard, like TBS. My new one? I had to upgrade to their Digital Deluxe package for one channel I wanted and seventeen I didn't - so I didn't upgrade and actually cancelled my cable television entirely. It's all iTunes and unboxed and online now - screw cable tv.
needs to be changed. Maybe not "a la carte" per se, but the
packaging system need to be altered. Currently, I subscribe to
digital classic with Comcast. With that package, I get about 200
channels. If I upgraded to digital plus, that would another 80
channels. And I understand the point of popular channels
subsidizing less popular channels. However, I want to know why
non-english programming comes with package! There are at
least 20 non-english channels in my current comcast package.
If comcast can bundle 30 movie channels here for 12 sports
channels there, they ought to be able to over a non-english
package. While I understand your system of packaging and
filters, the list of what gets filtered per package must be
significantly changed.
That being said, I believe a lot of people are getting away from traditional broadcasts and getting specific SHOWS on either DVD, iTunes, Bit-Torrents, etc. The cable company, offering broadcast channels may be the old way of doing things, and getting shows on demand (either physcially as DVDs or electronically over the internet) may be the new way of doing things. Once the TV signals are all digital by 2012 (I believe), cable companies, as we know them, may not exist anymore.
Seriously you have great ideas there. A pay-per-use system, like a pay-per-view system. I do have one concern through. The only way I could see it working is if you selected the content you want to watch and agreed to be billed for it. In it's simplest form that would be great. But how many people sit down, turn on the tv, watch their program in its entirety, then turn it off? Not anyone in my house I tell you. My wife is the clicker in the family. She watches three shows at once. I flip around a lot to find what I want. Oh and the kids. They are all over the place. And then there is the bill. "When did we watch this?" or "I had no idea the bill would be so much." or "I never watched this so take it off my bill." You know it will happen. We will spend so much time answering these calls that other areas of service would suffer. But the idea surely has potential. But it would require a slight change of thinking on the consumer's part. And we all know what happens when cable companies change stuff...
This is not a suggestion I have heard yet from any customers I have spoken to. I am going to bring this idea with me to work tomorrow.
If a channel sells advertising, it should be delivered for free
(included in standard programming). If a channel does not sell
ads, it could be charged for separately. The cables provider
could charge an administrative fee (per customer, not per
channel) for delivery.
Channels which sell ads should not need to be subsidized - and
neither would subscription channels. If the channel does not
make enough in ad or subscrition revenue, IT SHOULD NOT
EXIST! - it is obviously not serving the public interest if no one is
watching or buying it.
The beauty it the system is this - the channels decide for
themselves what revenue model to pursue, and customers would
not be subsidising unwatched (useless) channels to pay for what
they want. Many of the unwatched channels would still be
delivered, but at no incremental cost to the customer, since
those would be ad-supported channels.
impossible. We could just cut out traditional cable all together
and make the entire system internet based. It would work like
this:
When you subscribe to the cable service you get a 802.11n
wireless card and video router for you PC/Mac if it doesn't
already have one. When you want to watch something, you just
go to your computer and select the program on the website or
the select it by the season. It is sent streaming over the internet
to you computer and then to your TV through the n wireless
system.
This is essentially the iTunes model but it could be used by
anyone who wants to deliver content to consumers. And the
beauty of this system is that it will combine several separate
systems into one. That will decrease the overall cost and
improve the reliability of the system.
Two things will have to happen to make this possible. First, the
n standard will have to be finalized and second, the bandwidth
used for internet will have to increase dramatically. The first will
happen in the next year or two and the second will be possible
with relative ease if the traditional broadcast style is removed
from the lines because that would reduce the amount of
information sent overall. There would no longer be a need to
send extra information out.
In addition, with a little bit of work, it would be possible to
shove much of the usage for subscriptions to off peak hours
such as the very early morning and the early afternoon when
most people are at work.
I think that this is the most logical system to replace the current
one. It will require a lot of initial overhead but, as we are
already moving in this direction with on demand services, why
not just pick up the pace and get it done.
While it may be nice to get just the channels that I like, I have other options and the way competition works is that when one offers it, and it's a great idea everybody else will offer it soon to keep their customers.
What we really have here is a Lawyer working to make hay.
Nicely put.
This would happen to a very, very large amount of channels people watch.
Say there's 10 people. They all watch Channel 1 and Channel 2. Therefor, that channel is safe. However, each of these people also watch 3-10, albeit only 2 of them to any one channel. Eventually, these channels are gone due to the slippery slope I described above.
The consumer suffers in the end.
Is it one you don't watch? Is it one you find useless? Is it one that has a following of just a few, and therefore should be cut off?
Me me me me me. Think about other people with different intrests. Since you have a closed mind you probably don't watch National Geographic or Discovery. So therefore they must be crap. But back up there. Those are the two channels I watch the most. Am I less important? Who are you to decide what is crap?
Yeah the CRTC does invoke some clout in forcing certain content. You obviously don't agree. But a lot of customers do enjoy the networks and programming. You are insulting them personally if you say the channels they enjoy are crap.
you obviously don't understand why cable companies package their channels the way they do. So instead of being beligerent, how about contacting your local cable company and politely asking for an explanation. You are a customer. You have a right to know how certain things are done. Not everything. But when it comes to the content you pay for you have a right to know why things are done a certain way and also have the right to be heard. I suggest being polite and open minded. You will get faster service that way.
What is proposed is allowing people to buy _any_ channel, as just that one channel. No package. At all.
As in, I could just pay for the playboy channel and nothing else. A dream option that we'd all love, sure, but it hurts everyone in the end.
local broadcast network channels and something called LOCAL
Origination channels (someone's living room kind of channel).
Then I have the same group of network channels for the spanish
speaker, even though they are broadcast in English. Then I have
most of those channels in HD. Also, I have a large group of
"channels" that are music only or subscription, which I have
never listened to nor paid for. Does anyone really need 20
different HBO's? In fact I don't really have that many "original"
channels at all. Of the channels I actually watch with some
freqency, I am left with maybe 50. So, why am I paying for 900
channels? Would 50 be cheaper? If not why not? If so, why can't I
just pay for them now? If I can get 20 HBO's I can get 20 other
channel too.
are set up, then the reverse is also true.
They could BLOCK all channels, and only filter thru channels that
subscribers pay for.
Yes this would require most folks to either rent or purchase
some type of set top box, but I refuse to believe that a la cart
can't be done for technical reasons. .. thats just BS
When I decide to add a tier of programming, no one comes out
to my house to apply or remove a filter of any kind. As a matter
of fact, I bet you can make program changes online 24/7, and
have them take immediate effect. There is no reason this
couldn't be applied on a channel by channel basis.
And if my choice of not subscribing to a right wing religious
channel means some fear mongering preacher goes out of
business somewhere.. then I'm even MORE for it!
However, I'm also aware that my favorite channel may be
someone elses's "right wing religious channel" to them.
Look.. it's simple..
EVERYTHING.. ALL CONTENT will be delivered via the web.
Sooner or later, broadcast and cable TV as we now know them,
for better or worse, will cease to exist, replaced by the ability to
watch what you want, when you want, and where you want.
You-Tube is popular for just that reason, and no doubt has
network and cable execs shaking in their boots.
"When I decide to add a tier of programming, no one comes out to my house to apply or remove a filter of any kind."
The filters for house-type structures are located outside the home, sometimes not even in your yard or property. So you are right. No one comes to your home to do it. They do it outside and almost never even come to the door. The do it and leave.
Can you imagine what it would be like to pay a la carte? You're subscribed to NBC because they have a good lineup, then there next season sucks and you hear ABC has a good show, but you're not sure if you'll like the ABC show, but you'll have to pay for a month just to see it once. You wouldn't be able to test out new shows, and you'd have to make monetary decisions every time that you considered looking at something outside of your current subscription. Just watching TV would be more complex. Eventually you'd pare down what you watch to two or three channels, which would mean that the cable company would have to raise rates, because they've got a lot of infrastructure to maintain, and then you'd get a netflix account and quit cable altogether.
This whole argument is based on the assumption that it costs cable companies extra to give you more channels and that they'd save money giving you less and could pass on the savings. It's just data, data that you don't even use all the time. I don't see it costing a damned thing.
Also, how much should they charge. The government would have to regulate what they should charge for each channel. If I was them I'd say fine, you can have basic, or you can have a la carte, $10 a channel. Then you'd go back to your basic. Even with a fair pricing system, you wouldn't pay for things you watched occasionally, even though you may enjoy some shows once a month. How many occasional, but not dedicated viewers do some channels have? Suddenly the dedicated viewers would be saddled with the entire cost, which would knock out the cheap ones, raising costs further.
Does anyone stop to think that the present bundle system was the cable company's way of getting the most bang for it's buck, spreading out the cost of occasional viewerships across many occasional viewers, so instead of paying for one channel that you watch occasionally, they're getting you to pay that price for 10 cable channels that you watch occasionally. You don't watch any one enough to pay for it, but you do get a channels worth out of all of them combined.
This whole lawsuit would ruin television as we know it. Who's ponying up the cash to get it started? I suspect someone nefarious and evil behind this movement.
me to buy their service. If I want to make a contribution to the
Republican party, I'll send it in myself.
Cable companies should allow "a la carte" TV so that consumers
can get the service and the companies can get the higher prices
they always wanted.
For example, why not charge $15 for each basic channel?
Three TV channels = $45/month.
Also, charge $20/month for the special receiver that can get "a
la carte' TV.
For the cable companies, this makes a lot of sense.
For providing 3 channels to a consumer, they can charge $65/
month.
Plus, for premium channels, such as HBO, they can charge $45
to $200 per month!
Wow! Think of the higher revenues that cable companies can
get!
Instead of charging $35/month for 50 basic cable channels, they
can charge $65/month for 3 basic cable channels - and even
more for consumers that want the premium channels.
Hurrah! Cable companies can now charge even more! Hurrah
for choice for consumers! Consumers can now get the
individual channels they want. Of course, they have to pay for
the unsubsidized cost.
It's like cell phones. You can buy a $50 subsidized cell phone
with a 2 year commitment. Or you can buy a $500 unlocked cell
phone with no commitment, plus pay higher cell-phone fees.
You can get what you pay for.
True about the contect and kids. I could bring up the ideas about parental responsibility and monitoring what the kids watch. But that is not what this discussion is about.
This is currently, already, possible... both at the TV itself (via the, already federally-mandated, "V-chip" which is in every single television sold), and also, at my "service box" (which not only allows me to block "by type of content", but also allows me to block any individual channel, or any group of channels, that I choose... whenever I wish).
So... the "objectionable content" argument seems pretty spurious to me.
- Opinion
- by stevenv1999 September 21, 2007 2:03 PM PDT
- You are the one who is insulting. I also was in the cable industry for 7 straight years. I understand about STB's and you can take an analog signal and filter it electronically, instead of using in-line filters? As an example, the STB's (for the in-store network)that the Wal-mart stores are using is an analog signal and they are filtered based on the specific stores needs. The manager can choose which channels they want transmitted to their in-store network. Digital is just more profitable and this is the only reason they would need a special digital decoder STB on every TV. Also, I understand the progress of updating the infrastructure and just like any new technology, some people will have to wait for it. You are referring to current limitations that can be changed if approached correctly. It is just like our current spoke and hub airline system. It doesn't work anymore, hence, poor service, delays, etc...
- Reply to this comment
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- A valid opinion
- by kingsnoofer September 21, 2007 6:44 PM PDT
- What you say about STB's is true. They can filter an analog signal. It is possible to do. If you will notice, I never contradicted that fact. What I did mention was that the majority of cable subscribers in North America are analog only, without STB's. So for the type of filtering you are suggesting these millions of homes will have to be upgraded with STB's to make that choice of service available. But since you had seven years in the cable industry you knew all of this already.
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