On Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 1:39 PM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > This is an interesting question, but not sure your answer is correct. > Unlike cable, streaming doesn’t have channels, but consumers are still > asked to pay for a lot of content they will never use. For example I signed > up for D+ yesterday (free for 1st year, but likely will continue) because > my adult kids want access to Marvel and Star Wars content, not all the > children’s programming. I can imagine a world in a few years where > consumers are bitching about this, and demanding “a la carte” options to > only pay for programming that appeals to them. > > Also, if cable systems begin to go down, how will consumers feel about > losing access to specialty channels altogether that are no longer > sustainable, or having to pay high charges for direct access to ESPN or > Nickelodeon? >
Back when this list was young we used to have discussions about a la carte cable quite often. One poster, who is no longer in the group, made the case that in order to implement a la carte a cable company would have to change its accounting from account name and tier to account name and a string of all the channels with yes/no flags attached to each. Then they would have to make a system for the consumer to change which channels they want and figure out how to bill for changes between billing periods. Not only could they not raise rates to pay for designing and implementing such a system, the result would be lower monthly income. The choice not to even think about a system like that made sense - the PR people from the cable companies might have blathered that the tier system was there because that's what people want, but there wasn't enough pressure to change and they didn't. As internet speeds increased and TVs became smart TVs streaming looks to be the future. I don't know what percentage of US homes are accessible to cable and not to broadband internet and that might be enough to keep cable viable even as people with broadband cancel their cable subscriptions. Streaming is not channel dependent and outside of live events can be all on demand. The transition of the business model from networks and cable companies to a subscription model will be hard and the companies that will end up losing income will fight it in every way they know how but streaming on demand programs will be the future. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiHXkk77zz5WfuzF5AEj0UNO2FJhpwYnZJ-eE%2BALxf3FHw%40mail.gmail.com.
