Maine’s Cable A La Carte Law Challenged

[osu1991]

Maine's Cable A La Carte Law Challenged - TV News Check

Comcast, joined by Disney, Fox Cable and NBCUniversal, is seeking a temporary restraining order to delay a Maine law requiring cable companies to offer channels on an a la carte basis.

 

[Claude Greiner]

A la carte is NOT the answer.

The problem you would have is people taking a lower tier package and then adding that one channel from the higher tier package.

Streaming has already hurt the cable industry already, the last thing they need is for people to go to streaming and buy from the cable company what they can’t get online.

If the politicians want to start somewhere, let’s start with the ability to remove locals, and sports channels from base programming packages.

Just getting rid of locals, and sports could cut a customers bill easily by $20/mo

 

[navychop]

I can't see how this law could take effect. The cablecos still must buy groups of channels to resell. Is Maine going to order ATT, Disney etc to sell to the cablecos a la Carte?

Maybe they should pass a law setting Pi equal to three.


Sent from my iPad3 using the SatelliteGuys app! Only because can't get Tapatalk to work on such an old device. I'll shift to Chrome on this, too, eventually.

 

[SamCdbs]

ALC is about the most anti-consumer idea ever. The end result is a complete cable line up of maybe 30 channels, all of them much more broad than currently (think USA Network c. 1990).

 

[harshness]

Maybe they should pass a law setting Pi equal to three.

This seems more like declaring that r=1.

 

[Howard Simmons]

A la carte is NOT the answer.

The problem you would have is people taking a lower tier package and then adding that one channel from the higher tier package.

Streaming has already hurt the cable industry already, the last thing they need is for people to go to streaming and buy from the cable company what they can’t get online.

If the politicians want to start somewhere, let’s start with the ability to remove locals, and sports channels from base programming packages.

Just getting rid of locals, and sports could cut a customers bill easily by $20/mo

You must think everyone can get their local channels OTA. That's not the case in a lot of places, mine being one.

 

[osu1991]

You must think everyone can get their local channels OTA. That's not the case in a lot of places, mine being one.

That's not what he said. He said locals and sports should be removed from the base bundles and made optional. If you need them, then pay for then, if you don't then don't pay for them and get them OTA. Locals and sports are what are driving the prices higher and only a small percentage of viewers actually need locals from the MVPD or watch sports.

Dish is leading the way on this front, making locals an optional add on. More providers need to follow this. I don't need to pay Cox $10 for locals and $4 for RSN's that I get just fine for free OTA and RSN's that I never watch, but I have no choice but to pay for them if I want any other subscription programming through Cox. Even more annoying is it is a below the line item for locals and the RSN's so they are an additional cost above the bundle programming price, yet I can't opt to not subscribe to them.

 

[osu1991]

Maine Challenges Court's Blocking of A La Carte Law

Maine Challenges Court's Blocking of A La Carte Law

The state of Maine is appealing a District Court judge's decision earlier this month blocking the imposition of a first-of-its-kind state law that would have required Comcast and any other cable opera

www.multichannel.com

The judge granted a temporary injunction, saying Comcast et al. had made a good case that the law violates the First Amendment’s prohibition on speaker-based regulations, since the law did not apply to satellite or other MVPDs, but also suggested that cable pricing could be a reason for treating cable differently when it comes to unbundling.

said Attorney General Frey, "this issue merits appellate review. We continue to contend that the First Amendment does not give cable companies the right, as a business decision, to force customers to buy dozens of channels they don’t want just to get the two or three they actually watch. The First Amendment is about protecting freedom of expression, not protecting business strategies that harm consumers.”