ESPN Looking for 70% Increase in 2012 Negotiatinos

Watching TV can be as inexpensive as you wish it to be. They still offer free programming over the air.

Kind of. If you live in too rural of an area, sometimes you can't get an OTA television signals. Sometimes the same is true if you have tall buildings nearby or other obstructions nearby. And then even if you get a channel or two, you may not get all the major networks. And network television isn't what it used to be- a lot of sports and sporting events that used to be on "free television" have moved to cable, and many of the slots that used to go to sitcoms and dramas are now low-cost (to the television network) reality television fare that doesn't have quite as broad an appeal.

Really depends where you live, and a lot of people don't have much of a choice in that.

I think the reason everything is so messed up no days with product is because of the general consumer. Even if they have the money they want everything cheap, cheap, cheap. In order for companies to make things cheaper they have to cut corners.

Well, maybe. I'd be interested to see a comprehensive study done of what things cost relative to household income level these days versus the old days. I don't know that everything is really as cheap now as it's perceived to be when all factors are considered.

The other thing is that businesses often use sophisticated advertising techniques (employing psychologists and focus groups and so on and so forth, and making it harder and harder to avoid advertising) to create demand for products, essentially almost brainwashing people to believe they need something, and then turn around and set the price higher than a lot of people can afford. People are whipped into this frenzy by advertisers of "Want, want, want", "Need, need, need", "Buy, buy, buy", and then have to deal with not having the money to satisfy the desires the makers of products have artificially created in them.

Why is Christmas music played in some stores beginning in September or October? It's not because the stores are in the holiday spirit, it's because they've done studies that show that when they put the Christmas displays out early and play the music, people spend more. And it becomes sort of a peer pressure thing. Now people are expected to get expensive Christmas gifts for more people than ever at a greater cost than ever or they're looked at as cheap. Businesses created that culture. The businesses create a materialistic culture and then turn around and blame consumers for being materialist.

It's hard to be satisfied with what you have because we're surrounded by advertising and other things that tell us in a million subtle and unsubtle ways that we can't be happy with less, and have to keep up with the Jones. And it's hard to opt-out of that.

The same companies making these products have to pay employees who need to be paid more and more. In order for these companies to make product cheaper and pay employees less they move them out of the US. Now we have inferior products and fewer jobs. I think it's like a vicious cycle.

Maybe products need to be cheaper because there are fewer jobs and we pay workers less when they can find work. The guy who founded Ford motor company used to take pride in paying his workers a good wage, and when asked about it, he'd say stuff along the lines of "If I didn't pay them a good wage, how would they be able to afford to buy my cars?". Companies move their factories to Mexico and pay their workers 50 cents an hour there, and don't pay a living wage to the workers they do still have here in the US (if any), and then wonder why the market is drying up for those $1,000 television sets back in the states.
 
All very good points. Now the greatest question of all. How do you fix all of this?

When customers are looking at TVs and tell me that they are too darn expensive I like to pull out some of our price sheets from the 80's and show them what TVs cost back then. The prices were about the same except TVs do even more and look better now.

All I know is that it is getting hard to make a profit and keep customers happy. Every month when we send out bills to our customers and we get complaints on how we are screwing them but some how we are barely managing to keep our doors open.
 
All very good points. Now the greatest question of all. How do you fix all of this?

I don't know that it can be fixed, really. It makes me sad. Maybe it's just because due to some health stuff, as an adult I've always sort of being living toward the bottom of the economic food chain, and likely always will be, but capitalism doesn't seem nearly as rosy as it did when I was a kid and listening to everyone tell us how great a system it was. It beats the alternative of communism or whatever, but more and more I think people are coming to the realization that every system out there causes pain to some degree or another. Nothing's perfect.

Every year a certain class of people are asked to get by on less and less, while being told they need more and more, with more people falling into that class every day as the old middle glass starts to think out. It doesn't surprise me we see people in the streets in the form of those Occupy protests. I think there will only be more of them in the years to come.

It does seem like people with a lot less were happier in generations gone by. I think maybe that is because in the old days, it was easy to opt out of media and advertising and materialism in general. If you were fed and clothed and had a roof over your head, you could to some degree stay intentionally ignorant of the wealthier world around you and all the things you lack. And you had a family and peers of similar economic circumstance who were sort of outside that bubble. So, you didn't really know what you didn't have, and it bothered you less.

These days, you're going to know about that i-pad or whatever. You're going to be made to want it. And you're not going to ever touch it. You can't sort of tune it out, because advertisements are everywhere, and even non-advertisements like news articles and the like sort of reinforce a materialistic mentality. Like you can't avoid hearing about the latest gadgets no matter what you do. And the people around you are going to be similarly materialistic- you can't really get away from it.

Bringing it back around to what we're talking about. In 1950, the big sporting events were almost always free over the air. By 2000, many were on cable/satellite that you'd get with a basic package. In 2011, some of those things that used to be free, then were on basic (expanded basic) cable, are now on obscure channels you need to go up a tier or two to get (Stanley Cup Finals on Versus, NFL games on NFLN). By 2050, they'll probably be on ppv (and really pricey). So, if you try to get by without, say, cable or satellite, now, you get less than someone without it got 50 years ago, because the assumption is that, now, everyone has cable or satellite. You see what I'm saying? The world marches on.

It's not in 1990, you didn't need the Internet. Now, arguably, you kind of do- certain things can only be done online now. There are jobs that only can be applied for online, for example. Your relatives won't take the time to write you back if you stick a letter in the mail- they expect an e-mail or a Facebook post. So, it's not the same having no Internet in 2011 as it was in 1991.

The world changes, things get more expensive, and we're all sort of expected to keep up. It's not always possible not to get the new stuff without a non-financial cost, because you don't get what you used to out of the old way of doing things.

And, if you're a social animal, there's that dimension, too. If you want to invite friends over to watch the big game, you've got to have the big game (In the past, you always would, now you may not). If you want to get a wife, you need to first find a girlfriend, and to find a girlfriend, you've got to able to take her out to dinner and buy her stuff. Even the things that we think of as free-- love, family, friends, etc.- often come with sort of a hidden price, and are harder to find and maintain the lower your income bracket. There's a price on almost everything now.
 
Most of the Big sporting events are still OTA. In the 50's you didn't have every single NFL, MLB or NBA game on every night. Being I wasn't around in the 50's I don't know, but I would guess there was probably only a weekly game shown and I don't think most people had tv's in the 50's. It was still very much a luxury item. I know that when the NCAA cracked down on televised games in the late 60's thru the 70's you only got a couple of college football games and teams were only allowed on tv a certain number of times, until OU and Georgia filed their antitrust suit against the NCAA.

Hockey just isn't a high viewer sport in the US, hence it will stay on pay tv. This is the first year the BCS championship game and the majority of the Bowl games are on pay tv and not OTA, but there are at least 4 to 5 college football and basketball games on OTA each week. There are 4 NFL games OTA each week. There is a weekly MLB game and the playoffs and World Series on OTA. The weekend rounds of the PGA are still OTA like they have been for at least 30 years.

The problem with pay tv and media conglomerates, is they see $$$ signs and want to provide an individual channel for every single market segment and genre. ESPN, Disney and ABC cost so much, so they can also funnel funds into Soapnet, espn classic, disney xd, abcfamily, cartoon disney etc.... Now NBCU/Comcast has Cloo and Chiller which is just rehashing shows from USA and Syfy. Why does Disney and Viacom need 3 or 4 kids channels. We don't need an individual channel for baby, pre -k's, elementary, pretweens, tweens and so on. Do away with about 30 channels and stop the constant 4 hour blocks repeated 4 or 5 times a day with several hours of paid programming and actually put the various content on the major channels 20-24 hrs a day. I get tired of seeing 6 hrs of ncis on USA or Pawn Stars on History.
 
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I call bull on this one. Yes, the article clearly states that ESPN paid 70% more to carry MNF but it doesn't say that they're asking for 70% more fees from the tv providers.

i agree one item in ESPN's cost went up. There is nothing that says there total expenses went up by that much or that they will seek the same percentage increase from cab le and satellite providers.

heck my parking bill at work just doubled. but that does not apply to my other expenses and certainly does not mean my paycheck will double.
 
Its a game of Chicken if you ask me.

Which provider has the balls big enough to go tell ESPN to go screw themselves and agree to Alacarte.

If the customers would just be understanding, instead of threatening to jump ship and go with another provider we would have lower prices accross the board.
 
If Dish does split sports packages off and charges an additional fee, it'll likely send me and a lot of other sports fans to a competing service. Why pay a premium for sports with Dish if I can get sports for no additional charge with Comcast or Directv or whomever?

Dish makes about a billion dollars a year in pure profit, right? I think they can swallow some channel cost increases and keep package prices the same. They'll just have to slim down their profit margin a little.

If Dish raises rates, they'll likely blame it on ESPN, but it'll really just be because they think they can increase their profit to expenditure ratio by charging more- they raise rates every year or two almost like clockwork regardless of channel costs (Not singling out Dish here, the same is true of their competitors).

The assumption people make is that if Dish drops ESPN's family of networks, they'll dramatically slash the price they charge to the end customers, but I don't think that's really what would happen. Dish drops local sports networks all the time and keeps the prices the same for people in those areas. Because ESPN is so high profile, they might cut prices $5 a month or something, but that's not hugely consequential relative to the value that end consumers will lose if they don't have those channels. And if they split the ESPN channels to a separate package, you can bet it's not going to be a situation where they cut the regular packages all by $5 and charge $5 extra for sports- they'll likely keep the regular packages the same price wise and charge $15 or more extra for sports.

Call me cynical, but I just don't buy that Dish wants to split off sports as separate packages as a service to sports fans. If they do it, it'll be to make sports fans pay out the wazoo.

Not that ESPN is innocent here attempting to hike their rates to television providers, but in the end it's important to me to have ESPN on my television at a reasonable cost. If Dish wants to charge me out the wazoo for ESPN by making it a separate package, or drops it completely, than it'll probably make more sense to call Comcast or Directv.

But even others carriers will be charged more. So leaving Dish will not help.
 
Claude Greiner said:
Its a game of Chicken if you ask me.

Which provider has the balls big enough to go tell ESPN to go screw themselves and agree to Alacarte.

If the customers would just be understanding, instead of threatening to jump ship and go with another provider we would have lower prices accross the board.

A la carte will never happen.... Disney won't allow it. Dish can always use the money they are saving from New York City area subscribers (we pay the same price as the rest of you and have ZERO RSNs (they have never had YES and dropped MSG and SNY in the last two years) to pay the difference....

I don't know how E* can survive without ESPN....
 
Just saw this today:
Angry About Your Cable Bill? Blame the Cable Industry, Not the NFL - Forbes

"Angry About Your Cable Bill? Blame the Cable Industry, Not the NFL"

I read the article and I don't think it really made the point that it is the cable companies fault that bills are increasing.

First while lots of people want ESPN many don't and many others would give it up if they could reduce their cable bill by $4.69.

Second ESPN and many other channels insist on placement on the lowest tier. What is the incentive for ESPN to let cable and satellite operators offer the channel ala carte or in a sports tier? ESPN's advertising revenues depend on them being able tell advertisers that they are available in 100 million homes.
 
I would like to see a poll on how many people want sports programming and how many do not want sports programming. I think the numbers would be in the sports favor. Just look at some of the most watched programming on TV. There is more than one reason why it's expensive, tons of people want to watch it.

As for the cable companies being at fault, I believe he is talking about how certain cable companies own a lot of the channels we watch and they are responsible for how they are priced.
 
Going For Broke - 2011-12-05 05:01:00 | Multichannel News

Looks like Comcast is looking at aversion of ala-cart like the Canadian companies. You buy the starter package and then add the additional packages you want.


Code:
MyTV Choice: Comcast

Price: Starter package starts at $24.95/month
What You Get:
• 45 basic-tier channels (including 17 broadcast stations)
• 32 additional cable channels (including Discovery Channel, TBS, AMC, A&E Network, Comedy Central, Lifetime)
• Music Choice music channels

Starter Plus: Sports
Price: $10/month in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 11 sports channels (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, regional sports networks, Golf Channel, Versus, BBC America, CBS Sports Network)

Starter Plus: News & Information
Price: $10/month in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 21 additional news & information channels (including CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel)

Starter Plus: Kids:
Price: 10/month in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 11 additional kids’ channels (including Disney Channel, Disney XD, Nickelodeon Nicktoons, Sprout)

Starter Plus: Movies
Price: $10/month, in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 16 additional movie channels (including Encore, Turner Classic Movies, Sundance Channel, IFC)

Starter Plus: Entertainment & Lifestyle:
Price: $10/month, in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 31 entertainment and lifestyle channels (including MTV, Bravo, G4, E!, Oxygen, TNT, Logo)
Code:
 
You can do that with Dish now. It's their Commercial programming packages. It can be reasonable if you don't need many channels but it gets real expensive when all your favorites are in different packages. They get you one way or another.
 
I agree and the companies are going to package it so that there is always a popular channel in a package most wouldn't normally want. Like that Comcast list, why is BBC America in the sports package.
 
I agree and the companies are going to package it so that there is always a popular channel in a package most wouldn't normally want. Like that Comcast list, why is BBC America in the sports package.

I also noticed that TNT, which has a lot of NBA basketball games (And possibly also some NASCAR? Don't recall), is in "Entertainment and Life", so a lot of sports fans would wind up having to get both the sports package and the entertainment package on top of the choice package (My guess is that the channels that carry wrestling- which appeals to a similar demographic, are also in the entertainment pack).. Then you toss in the news package or something, and it's not far from the normal cable bill people pay, but with less total channels coming back your way. Don't forget the children's package if you want the adult oriented sitcoms on Nick-At-Night (I'd pass in that type of situation, but some wouldn't). That's about what I'd expected something like this would look like.

Plus, if it becomes widespread, you can bet channels will randomly pick up stuff that doesn't fit their profile just to get people to subscribe to the package that has their channel in it. You'll be left with such paradoxes as "Why does SyFy have a major league baseball game of the week?" and "What's ESPN doing with a movie night?".

I get the appeal of customers getting to make these choices, but I could see it backfiring and putting customers in a similar or worse situation overall. And a lot of situations with roommates, boarders, and even people spending weeks or weekends with friends and relatives where, because they don't have control over the TV package, basic things aren't there that they expect to be able to find. Situations like- "Hey, I'll catch up on the news while so and so is in the shower- wait, no news channels" or "Woo, I got here in time for the big game- What no sports?", "Where's my favorite show?", etc. I'd also feel for all the children who are sports fans growing up with single mothers or in homes who otherwise have no interest in sports and don't have any of the sports packages.
 
Its a game of Chicken if you ask me.

Which provider has the balls big enough to go tell ESPN to go screw themselves and agree to Alacarte.

If the customers would just be understanding, instead of threatening to jump ship and go with another provider we would have lower prices accross the board.

EXACTLY!!!!! DISH needs to be the FIRST in the industry to say it!
 
Going For Broke - 2011-12-05 05:01:00 | Multichannel News

Looks like Comcast is looking at aversion of ala-cart like the Canadian companies. You buy the starter package and then add the additional packages you want.


Code:
MyTV Choice: Comcast

Price: Starter package starts at $24.95/month
What You Get:
• 45 basic-tier channels (including 17 broadcast stations)
• 32 additional cable channels (including Discovery Channel, TBS, AMC, A&E Network, Comedy Central, Lifetime)
• Music Choice music channels

Starter Plus: Sports
Price: $10/month in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 11 sports channels (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, regional sports networks, Golf Channel, Versus, BBC America, CBS Sports Network)

Starter Plus: News & Information
Price: $10/month in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 21 additional news & information channels (including CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel)

Starter Plus: Kids:
Price: 10/month in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 11 additional kids’ channels (including Disney Channel, Disney XD, Nickelodeon Nicktoons, Sprout)

Starter Plus: Movies
Price: $10/month, in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 16 additional movie channels (including Encore, Turner Classic Movies, Sundance Channel, IFC)

Starter Plus: Entertainment & Lifestyle:
Price: $10/month, in addition to Starter Package charges
What You Get:
• All channels in Starter Package
• 31 entertainment and lifestyle channels (including MTV, Bravo, G4, E!, Oxygen, TNT, Logo)
Code:


Sounds like the Canadian Satellite ala cart packs. Works well up there, I don't see why Satellite down here can't adopt the same thing.
 
EXACTLY!!!!! DISH needs to be the FIRST in the industry to say it!
Except that this game of chicken is like a Jeep facing up against a steam roller. Say no to ESPN, Disney will pull all of their other sports and non-sports channels as well. Extortion at its finest.
 
It will take a big player like Dish to break the strangle hold, but ESPN will give in to prevent it. What I mean is that ESPN will work a deal to keep a major player like Dish/DIRECTV/Comcast/etc in the fold. If they lose one of them they will lose them all. ESPN may withhold for a while, but once it looks like the FCC or congress is going to get involved they will compromise on a price package that will prevent the government action. The only reason a la carte worked on C Band is that congress passed a law saying they had to make the channels available a la carte and they had to charge a resonable amount (i.e. similar to what they charge cable companies).

Unfortunately federal action is probably the only way to break up the programming cartel. That is why these companies have so many lobbyists.
 

About canceling Dish network service because of moving

interactive weather channel

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