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A la carte lawsuit against cable companies dismissed

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Nov 3rd 2009 at 5:27PM

Generic TV image
Nothing shocking here as a judge has dismissed a lawsuit against cable companies for not offering cable channels a la carte. We always find this whole a la carte issue interesting because in reality customers aren't really asking for less channels as much as they're asking for lower prices. So while we're usually against new laws to regulate businesses, we do think that something should be done to reign in on all the tying that content providers do, as well as other restrictions. So what customers should really be doing is asking congress to prevent ESPN (for example) from holding back on the main offering in order to force programmers to carry the completely useless ESPNews or ESPN Classic. Or maybe, the entire you can't carry our channel unless its on the basic tier silliness. No, no, la carte channels aren't the answer, but real competition is.

[Via TechDirt]

Is internet TV the key to la carte?

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Mar 30th 2009 at 1:00PM Featured Story

Netrflix on Boxee
There's been a lot of controversy over the years in regards to à la carte cable programming, and more recently, Hulu no longer playing nice with Boxee. The two are related to each other because in both cases, consumers think they'll lead to cheaper content. And let's be honest -- both seem appealing because we want to spend less money for the same content. The problem, of course, is that if we're spending less money, then someone is going to lose that revenue; and it goes without saying that any decent business model requires more revenue, not less. So those big corporations collecting all of those subscription fees are obviously going to have a problem with the idea. Now the conundrum comes in when you throw Netflix in the mix. Rather than nickel and diming you to death (much like your cable company), Netflix wants to give you an all-you-can-eat buffet for a monthly fee. The irony here is that while Hollywood loves subscriptions when it comes to cable TV, that's not so much the case when it comes to Netflix. The reason is simple -- we know you see this coming -- it's because the monthly fee is about three times that of a Netflix bill.

Continue reading Is internet TV the key to la carte?

Hong Kong's now TV offering Disney / ABC shows on HD VOD

by Richard Lawler posted Nov 29th 2008 at 4:49AM


Last time we checked in with a la carte IPTV provider now TV, the Hong Kong service had just hit a half million subscribers -- three years later its adding content from Disney - ABC to the high definition video on-demand offerings. Lost, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, Kyle XY episodes and more are available at the press of a button for a $7.70 / month (U.S.) subscription fee. The only question now is when one of the big providers Stateside will let us build our own channel lineup.

Could a la carte mean fewer HDTV channels?

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Aug 27th 2007 at 10:31AM

FCCRecently minority groups have been complaining to the FCC 'cause they feel the a la carte initiative would hurt their programming. They're afraid that without the traditional subsidizing system that there would be less Spanish channels (for example). The same might be said for HDTV channels, and while it would be a short term problem, it might mean we have to wait for the rest of America to upgrade to HD. Technical complications aside, we think it would be nice to only buy the channels we want, but let's be honest, our motivation is money, we want to spend less of it. Most people don't care that there are tons of channels they don't watch, they just want to pay less. Obviously the MSOs are against us giving them less money, and thus against a la carte; but to their point, content providers force packages on them and they're just passing it on to us. We're not saying the MSOs need any charity, but fair is fair -- somehow we don't see the media giants coming along quietly.




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