Hey Cablevision, wheres my food network?!

[Hacp]

ABC is pulling from Mediacom here on January 8th. It's crazy how much cable companies pay to carry different networks though. When I worked for Charter Communications, our plant manager said that Charter payed ESPN like $2.50 per subscriber for ESPN.. regardless if the subscriber watched it or not.

espn gets 5

 

[rh71]

Most people who track their usage only watch 5-10 channels. And yes they keep promoting that you can get 500 digital channels. I had 200 digital channels and could have gotten 500 digital channels for more money. So that'd be 300 more channels that I'd never watch.

Pretty much... we even get all HBO & Cinemax free right now and still there's never a damn thing on.

 

[dullard]

The "add-on" channels like ESPN Classic, ESPN-U, etc. will be gone. And many other niche channels will fold as well.

Cable choices will return to a 1980's level... 40 channels and we'll be paying the same amount we're paying now for hundreds of channels.

Or, the add-on channels that no one really likes will fold, dropping the price, and most people will be left with hundreds of channels at a 25% discount (or more) from what we pay now. Remember just 10 years ago cable bills (for ~60 channels) were in the mid $30 range after all taxes. What is your bill now?

Depends on how you do it. Just enable a la cart dropping of up to 5 channels per year. Lets get some consumer voices back into the equation.

 

[MontyMedia]

Has anyone seen this post today? I share a similar sentiment... http://www.newser.com/off-the-grid/news.html

 

[Aharami]

it seems like more and more of these business negotiations are being exposed to the consumer. The business folks at these respective companies are just hoping that the consumer will do it job for them

 

[fatpat268]

A la carte pricing won't work with the model that they have right now.


A channel would have to have a fairly large subscriber base for the channel to remain cheap. Any channels with small subscriber bases will go up in price, much more than you'd imagine. In the end, you'd pick a few channels that you'd really like, but it wouldn't be all that much cheaper, and then the bulk package with all the channels would still be the better deal.

The main problem with TV today, IMO, is that there are too many freaking channels. There are many channels that could be combined into one channel, especially considering the amount of reruns some channels play. It's hard to make any decent advertising money when you spread your subscriber base so thin with so many channels.

I kind of miss the days where basic cable was all you "needed." Now, you have all these channels spread among different tiers and whatnot, having to pay extra fees for a particular channel, and in turn, you get 10 more channels you don't give two shits about.

On a side note: Is cablevision different from Time Warner Cable? The reason why I ask, is that where I live, my cable service used to be called Cablevision several years ago, now it's Time Warner Cable, and I don't have any Food Network or HGTV outages.

Edit: I guess they are different. Reading up on cablevision, they haven't had any particular relationship with Time Warner, but I specifically remember being subscribed to Cablevision ~8 years ago, and now it's Time Warner. Probably just my particular area.

 

[Modelworks]

Don't worry , while Time Warner kept fox, they will increase every subscribers fees $1 whether they watch it or not to pay for it. The rates are out of control for television. It has increased at a rate that makes inflation look like spare change.

I am dropping directv this month because I have just had enough . My bill will go to $80 next month when they do their increase and that is without any premiums like HBO, etc. For that I would get your standard networks, TNT, USA, History, Science, nick, etc. , HD channels and a DVR . Sorry not worth it. I'll use my antenna and pay netflix $9 a month for online streaming.

 

[Zee]

This thread makes me shake my head that there are still blind idiots out there.

First of all Food network and HGTV want to go from like 8 cents and 13 cents to about 1.03 per sub per month. I like everyone around me, dont give a fuck about these channels and given a choice, prefers to have lower cable bill then these two channels. (Shaking my head at the increasing directtv rates)

Second of all, Fios is great and all in theory, though primarily only in their television service but VERIZON is the fucking worst company out there and whoever says otherwise up there is completely daft.

Verizon, with their surcharges, phantom 1.99 fees on top of their numerous existing fees and Constant billing errors that always favor Verizon and their persistent drive to milk their customers for every single cent possible and kill any competition/innovation (Alltel) is out done only by RIAA and MPAA. There's a reason AT&T, Sprint, MetroPCS and Tmobile etc etc has managed to exist with their inferior networks and it's because Verizon is the worst fucking company out there.