acroyear | glad i'm not on time-warner cable...

'Colbert,' 'SpongeBob' may go dark on Time Warner - Yahoo! News:

Media giant Viacom Inc. said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark on Time Warner Cable Inc. at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal is not agreed upon by then.

The impasse over carriage fee hikes would mean "SpongeBob" and other popular shows like Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report" will be cut off to 13 million subscribers, said spokesman Alex Dudley, a vice president at Time Warner Cable. The nation's second-largest cable operator primarily serves customers in New York state, the Carolinas, Ohio, Southern California and Texas.

Viacom has asked for fee increases of between 22 percent and 36 percent per channel, an amount that could increase customers' cable bills, Dudley said. Viacom spokeswoman Kelly McAndrew said the requested increase was in the very low double-digit percentage range.

"The issue is that they have asked for an exorbitant increase in their carriage fees and their network ratings are sagging," he said. "Basically we're trying to hold the line for our customer."

Viacom said the increases would cost an extra 23 cents a month per subscriber — which works out to $35.9 million more in total. It said that Americans spend a fifth of their TV time watching Viacom shows but its fees make up less than 2.5 percent of the Time Warner cable bill.

Though admittedly, this can and will hit all the others as their respective contracts run out...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

eiredrake.livejournal.com

Unfortunately Time Warner and Comcast are butt buddies of some description. We called them and the dude said that it will probably be worked out at the last minute like most corporate deadlocks area.

I certainly hope so because Noggin is the only channel I let Mia watch and I'd hate to lose it. Hell they can loose all the other 98% of their crappy channels that I don't watch and I wouldn't even blink an eye.

From:

acroyear70.livejournal.com

Viacom goes through this with at least one cable operator every 2 or 3 years, with the big scare, the "this channel may end soon if you don't call your cable company" marque (it's on MTV and VH1 Classic right now), etc etc. and yes, there's always a last-second agreement.

admittedly, it's "free market" in action and i'd rather not get in the way, but it's still annoying to have to go through every year.

From:

eiredrake.livejournal.com

No, a 'free market' would require actual competition in the market as opposed to two or three companies controlling 90% of the market.

Personally I just want to be able to pay for the 2% of channels I actually watch instead of the 98% of the BS they pipe into my house that I don't care about.

I'm not a free market guy anyway. I look to the cigarette, oil and pharmaceutical industries as prime examples of why the 'free market' concept is only good for corporations and the consumer gets screwed with a cactus strapon.

From:

acroyear70.livejournal.com

well, bundling is still a part of free-market, and a necessary one. it's just like gov taxes: you pay a bit, you use some of the services but not all, but you support the other services you don't use because they don't get enough money from those who actually use them.

the financial alternative? if only those who watched a show paid for it, it would cost more. MUCH more. and if people won't pay what it would really cost, it goes away. there's reasons i don't watch "new" tv, and the #1 reason is that anything i like disappears far too soon because i'm one of the few that likes it.

now, it would be nice if the rating and advertising system actually paid all the costs and the cable providers didn't need to pay. it should be like grocery stores where the cable company is paid by the networks to carry (yes, the big brands pay the grocery store to stock their stuff on that limited shelf-space - most of their profits are actually in commodity trading - it's a really weird set-up).

From:

eiredrake.livejournal.com

You make valid points. Essentially what you're saying is that cable entertainment is like public roads. Everybody pays for them even though not everybody uses them. These are the same basic points that the cable companies made when they lobbied to Congress to stop the Cable Ala Cart legislation.

But cable TV isn't like public roads. When I go to McDonalds I don't get charged for every item on the menu when all I want are the fries. I don't get charged for every car Toyota makes when I buy a Prius and when I go to the theatre I don't get charged for every movie - just the one I paid the ticket for.

As a consumer, I'm the one that's supposed to be calling the shots in a 'free market'. What I pay for is what's supposed to be kept around and what I don't pay for is supposed to go away. It happens to individual shows, yes ( like most of the ones I like ). But that doesn't happen to channels. If enough people stop watching a the Fox Business Channel basic economics should dictate that the channel go the way of the dodo - but even the fact that they're only watched by about 20,000 or so people nationally doesn't make that happen - they're still being piped into my cable box.

Why the heck should my monthly cable bill be forced to subsidize the Christian Broadcasting Network so Pat Robertson and his merry band of miscreants ( who are already richer than god ) can stay on the air despite the fact that I have never watched it and will never watch it and find a lot of what that goon says to be personally offensive anyway. It is my right as an American to walk away from constitutionally protected methods of expression when I wish to - I do not have to remain a captive audience. Now, nobody is forcing me to click on CBN or FNC and watch their drivel. I am merely extending the concept further. As an American I should have the right to stop their drivel from entering my home entirely. As a consumer I should be able to buy what I want.

All things being what they are, the large majority of their customers aren't going to suddenly go ala carte and will continue being passive couch potatoes the way they have been for years. What I am I saying that people should be forced to be ala cart - but the option should be there for people who want to do it. Currently the cable companies are kicking and screaming and throwing millions of dollars at Congress to keep the legislation from going into effect. Money that would be better spent improving their service over all.

The people that like a show can pay for it with a portion of their cable bill and with the products they buy just as they always have. I don't believe that it will effect either the entertainment industry or the cable monopolies as much as they claim it will and in the end - we the consumers will get better programming as a result. The reason why HBO generally doesn't suck is because people pay for it individually they opt in or out of it as they wish and as a consequence it is not subject to the normal bullshit FCC rules.

I'm willing to pay $2-3 a month for decent Science and sci-fi channel programming. I'd be perfectly if all I had was Discovery, Science Channel, History Channel, Military Channel, Comedy Central, and maybe a few movie channels. I'm not willing to pay $175 a month for 900 channels full of crap that aren't interesting, and don't get used or watched.

From:

acroyear70.livejournal.com

I don't get charged for every movie - just the one I paid the ticket for.

Ah, see there you're making assumptions the industry doesn't (and can't afford) to make.

you ARE paying for other movies. For every blockbuster that turns in a 1000% profit, that has to account for the 10 other films that are either expensive flops (Australia, anyone?) or are the art films that are award winners and well crafted, but will never make a profit.

it's part of the diversification that is absolutely necessary in the entertainment business to keep from falling out completely when your one blockbuster product suddenly turns into nothing. woe would be warner, for example, should the potter craze suddenly disappear after movie 6 thanks to the fact that there's no more demand for the books.

keep in mind, under an ala carte system: you would never know about any new channels, because nobody would ever need to be told of them. you picked your channels and that's that: do you REALLY think you're going to go through that process all over again? no. you're never going to change your selection until you change cable companies after a move.

this, therefore, stifles innovation and creativity because the price to market for a new channel becomes too high, even for the firms that own several.

under that system, there would be too few subscribers for Discovery networks to have bothered building up The Science Channel 6 years ago. even animal planet would have been a tough sell. under the current system, they can force cable companies to pick it up in exchange for better rates on the others they already had, and people find out about it and eventually embrace it.

like democracy - the system is broken and doesn't work, but it really is better than anything else because anything else will result in the LOSS of channels and the lack of innovation for those that are left (struggling to hold onto the few subscribers they have, finicky as they are) and the impossibility for a new channel to enter the market.

think about all of the things you might not know about except by the complete accident that you happened to have flipped to page X or stumbled upon flipping through to channel Y. most of the cool stuff we (geeks) have is a result of accidental discovery and word of mouth, and not by an active advertising campaign. we get lucky that the cool thing seeps through the current system.

now when the only way the cool thing can get to us it through advertising to our demographic that actively rejects any attempts to market and goes out of its way of putting ad-blockers everywhere? NOTHING gets through, and that's that, we'd be stuck in the life of boredom of the status quo that the rest of the country is so content with.

From:

eiredrake.livejournal.com

I think the easiest way to fix that "you'd never know about any new channels" issue is to make it like pay per vue. They already advertise other channels - that's how I found out about the Science channel in the first place. I was watching Dirty Jobs and there was an advert for 'Wreckreation Nation' (or something like that) on the Science Chan - they were going to drop an 'ex marine' into what looked a lot like a Darkon scrimage. That caught my attention and I actively sought it out. Now, if I had to call some operator and place an order for the channel and have my bill increase next month I might not have bothered. But things don't have to be that complicated.

The digital cable boxes are capable of a whole hell of a lot more than what they're used for now. There's no reason why they can't do channel adverts or have preview times where you get a sneak peek of some content - say a minute or so to hook you. If you then want the channel you then just click 'Buy' or something and it's added to your bill for 30 days or something.

To continue your democracy analogy, just because it's broke doesn't mean we have to just accept the fact that it's broke now and not do anything about it. If we do that, nothing would ever change because nobody's trying to force the issue. Innovation is one of the things that makes this country great - and it's something I give both corporations and government cred for - a lot of innovation comes from. Nobody wanted HDTV or Blueray when it first became available ten years ago because it was too damned expensive for one - but nobody saw a utility for it. A lot of people didn't want digital cable either - now the regular OTA channels are going digital and your old school rabbit ears style TV's are supposed to stop working in February.

Things can change and they can change for the better. All it takes is motivation and that's part of the problem. I think what is stifling innovation is not the price to start a new channel - hell a college student with a decent enough mac can create his own channel on one of the live streaming services for free and have ten million people watching his show a year. That's the kind of coverage that networks dream about. What stifles innovation is that there is no actual competition between content carriers so the same people offer the same BS year after year. Since there's no real competition between carriers content creators can create thirty seven versions of the same bullshit. All the decisions on what shows to carry and cancel end up being made by the same cabal of idiots in a boardroom based on their own prejudices and preconceptions. The same thing happened in the auto industry.

I give you exhibit A. Reality TV.

How many "eat gross shit" shows do we really need? How many 'dancing/singing B-lister' shows do we need? How many "drop some dork into the jungle" shows do we need? How many meat market pseudo dating shows do we need? How many 'Top Model' or 'Top Chef' shows do we need? How many asshole drunken celebrity family shows do we need?

You may say "They make them because they're popular", which was true in the beginning when you only had a few. Now the market is so diluted that the market share of any one content provider is shrinking rapidly. It's like being McDonalds and then having McHuges', McDade's, McDougals and McDonough's all opening up in the same market. With the market so saturated people are starting to get sick of it so they're turning out. But people are still making these stupid shows.

Another possible solution is to offer more packages. Instead of just "You get a choice of HBO, Cinimax or Starz", you pick a package of "Discovery, Science, Military, HBO and The Crappy Reality Show network along with the local channels for $40 a month". I could deal with that, they'd just need to provide a package closer to what I like. I could take 10 or 15 extra spam channels to get the 20 I want. But what I'm getting is 870 spam channels (a good many I can't even access if I don't pay an extra fee anyway) for the 20 I do want and I'm being reamed on the price as a result.

Edited Date: 2008-12-31 11:49 pm (UTC)

From:

eiredrake.livejournal.com

I understand what you're saying I just don't think it needs to be quite as static as you're making it out just to keep the whole system from collapsing under it's own lameness. I also think that if you make it something you have to opt into - the majority of people will just stay with their existing overly expensive lame pans out of sheer laziness. The majority of these stations are supported primarily by advertising revenue anyway and not the money from cable bills anyway so I don't think it would be as big an impact to have my extra .000001 cents not go to CBN to keep the telepreachers in hookers and crystal meth

Unfortunately cable providers and broadcasters are aging dinosaurs. With the advent of online content providers and the ease with which any local goob with a macbook and some costuming know how can make his own weekly show the cable companies aren't going to be able to maintain the lock they once had. If they don't adapt, they're going to die out. In my opinion if a company can't make it in the market it either needs to change their ways to adapt or go out of business. I don't consider that anti-corporate or anti-libertarian. I see it as a pro-consumer.

From:

uncle-possum.livejournal.com

I'd have to disagree here, in part. At least where I am, there is no free consumer market--rather a controlled monopoly. There is one cable company, which has negotiated with local government to get the exclusive license. (Of course, in the broader sense, I could get one of either of two dish networks, or ATT). Now, I know why this happens, but the freedom would be between the suppliers of programming and the cable companies. Another example of why Adam Smith isn't always relevant anymore.

The same bundling happens with library-market suppliers of periodicals (paper and electronic), and for the reasons you state. But there, at least, there are several dozen aggregators from which the library (or other institution) can select; and the library could still have separate subscriptions to any set of periodicals it wanted.