NPR's David Folkenflick reported Friday on the continuing campaign to change basic cable TV from flat-rate to "a la carte" pricing. He explained Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin's efforts as an attempt to impose conservative "family values" restrictions on cable, removing from basic services anything that might offend.
In the "strange bedfellows" department, left-leaning filmmaker Robert Greenwald also wants the FCC to do away with flat-rate basic cable. Again, it's an effort to get rid of "offensive" content; in this case it's Fox News.
As I've said before, unbundling basic cable is a bad idea. A la carte subscription models will not work. Cable TV makes for a clumsy, ineffective marketplace. In order for a marketplace to work, consumers need to know what's available. This requires an ability to examine and consider and sample. A la carte pricing would place such a barrier between consumers and content that people would never discover long-tail, niche and fringe content. Serendipitous discovery? Fuggetaboutit.
Consumers have a strong preference for flat-rate pricing, especially in telecommunications. Internet access has gone from metered by the minute to "all you can eat." Ditto for long distance. Under pressure from consumers and competition, even the mobile phone services are moving to flat-rate in areas such as text messaging or in-network calling.
People don't want cable unbundling. The real backers of a la carte pricing have political motivations, on one side or another, and those motivations have no business being injected into the cable regulatory process.
I don't need a la carte pricing in order for me to make up my own mind about what I want to watch.
Comments
I've always thought having
I've always thought having an a la carte option would be a good idea, mainly because I don't watch much TV and would probably watch about 20. And, most of the channels I'd buy would include some sort of offensive content or another, like Showtime, IFC, and Sundance. There's something wrong with offering a bare-bones package or jacking up the price and making consumers purchase 100 channels they never watch, just so they can watch the channels they like. However, I think consumers should be able to buy the bundled option of they don't care enough to hand-select their channels.
I thought the reason it's
I thought the reason it's not done is that there's no accounting program available yet which could handle this.
I mean, what happens if people decide to drop it after a month?
Maybe they would have to sign up for certain stations for a year?
I'd really like the option of paying for what I use. And the market will set the price in the end, won't it? They can charge more for the popular channels?
Or what about offering different packages, possibly semi-custom?
There's a lot of different options.