Why do we continue to pay for channels..

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stevenl

stevenl

SatelliteGuys Master
Original poster
Jan 2, 2006
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Disney World
I was just wondering, back when TV started in order to PAY for their service they invented commercials.. These ads paid for the station to broadcast and brought nice profit to the station owners.. Now in the days of PAY tv, why do such stations like ESPN, (even some locals in some markets) FSN, MTV, TBS, WE so on name any station.. Why do they get to charge for their signal and STILL have commercials.. To me that seems a bit greedy. First you want me to PAY to watch your station, then you want to fill it full of advertisements.. I bring up ESPN first because it is the biggest culprit in it charges the most for its channel. I would think youd want your channel on more households then possible to earn more ad revenue.. I mean I understand your station sucks and not enough people watch it for you to get major ad revenue (speaking of the smaller networks) so you need to charge the cable/sat company for your channel so you can survive, but CUT the commercials then. Stop being greedy. Local networks especially, quit chargeing subs for your channel sd/hd either or.

The same can be said for movie theatres today running commercials.. Granted they come on before the show and entertain you while you wait for the showtime but dam, is EVERYTHING going to be for sale?
 
Fee enterprise ROCKS! Some aspects of it can be annoying from time to time but it still rocks. Personally I do not favor laws that forbid ads on cable. But if you want to stop watching those stations that is another story. Just my two cents.
 
Would you open up a cable company, give away the programs, and not get a dime for the advertising??? You would go out of business the first day, because there is no income from anything, except the subscribers!!!

Now if you don't want any channels except your local channels, then simply put up an off air antenna or two, or three, and if you can get a signal, you would have eliminated your monthly cable or satellite bill. You may also put up a FTA Satellite system, and all of those Free channels will help your bottom line...

That is why you pay for channels!!!
 
I can understand people's frustration with having commercials on tv when you have to pay for your television service. This is what DVR is for, to skip the commercials. When most people will eventually have DVR's they will have product placement on the shows and probably start advertising during the show. I can see this happening but I hope by this time a lot of tv will be available on IPTV which will have advertisements during the playback of the show.
 
I think of it this way. The advertising pays for the program content and to maintain the station's infrastructure. Cable/Sat fees pay for the Cable and Sat company's infrastructure. If the advertising were eliminated, then the cable/sat fees would go up.
 
jdspencer said:
I think of it this way. The advertising pays for the program content and to maintain the station's infrastructure. Cable/Sat fees pay for the Cable and Sat company's infrastructure. If the advertising were eliminated, then the cable/sat fees would go up.
Click to expand...

huh? I think your confused.. The money we have to pay say the 2$ a month for ESPN goes directly to ESPN so they make 2$ a month PER user (about 90million people hav e access) So in a sense they make 180million per month(estimate give or take 20million) just in user fees... Then on top of that they make whatever on advertisement fees... The cable company then inturn has to make money so they charge viewers a fee to.. So if ESPN and the likes would stop cahrgeing so much for their channels your cable bills SHOULD go down.. Ya know when dish/cable do price increases at the end of the year right? That is to maintain the same profit they had the year before.. So as channel feels go up, your cable bill does to..
 
stevenl said:
huh? I think your confused.. The money we have to pay say the 2$ a month for ESPN goes directly to ESPN so they make 2$ a month PER user (about 90million people hav e access) So in a sense they make 180million per month(estimate give or take 20million) just in user fees... Then on top of that they make whatever on advertisement fees... The cable company then inturn has to make money so they charge viewers a fee to.. So if ESPN and the likes would stop cahrgeing so much for their channels your cable bills SHOULD go down.. Ya know when dish/cable do price increases at the end of the year right? That is to maintain the same profit they had the year before.. So as channel feels go up, your cable bill does to..
Click to expand...


ESPN is closer to $3 than $2 and the entire ESPN suite is in the mid t$4s - closer to $5 than $4.
 
I remember when cable first came on the air, the big attraction was that there were no commercials because the cable bill paid for the programming. And the shows started at times other that on-the-hour or half-hour because all the commercials were cut out. Had to really keep track of the programs' starting times or you missed it. Now commercials are even included with VHS or DVD movies. And the price hasn't gone down on those movies you buy at Walmart. I guess the bottom line is if you don't want to get commercials with your satellite or cable or movies then don't buy them. It's not going to hurt the businesses though since lots more people will still buy them. It's just the current price of electronic entertainment. Have fun.
 
I hate commercials too, but if they cut commercials, only the extremly wealthy could afford the bill to have tv.
 
I remember when VHS tapes first came out - You could easily spend $80 for a New Release. Now there are commercials, VHS/DVD prices are cheap.


Hermitman said:
I remember when cable first came on the air, the big attraction was that there were no commercials because the cable bill paid for the programming. And the shows started at times other that on-the-hour or half-hour because all the commercials were cut out. Had to really keep track of the programs' starting times or you missed it. Now commercials are even included with VHS or DVD movies. And the price hasn't gone down on those movies you buy at Walmart. I guess the bottom line is if you don't want to get commercials with your satellite or cable or movies then don't buy them. It's not going to hurt the businesses though since lots more people will still buy them. It's just the current price of electronic entertainment. Have fun.
Click to expand...
 
I think the worst thing to happen to cable networks were spin offs. It's like if they said, "Wow, look at the revenue we get off this channel, why not create another, move some of the programming over there so people will want it, charge a fee to watch it and create yet another stream of advertising dollars." Now you have less content and more advertising, infomercials and more reruns. Damn, when does it stop, what's next? Nick 5, Nick 7 hell why not 100 channels of Nick?

As for ESPN, here is some prices per sub:
ESPN: $3.4292 (0.2442 increase in the 3rd quarter of '07)
ESPN2: $0.544
ESPN News: $0.13
ESPN Classic: $0.25
ESPN HD: $1.00

For a total of $5.3532 a month the provider pays them.
 
I just can't Imagen why a sports tier would be so important. :rolleyes: This alone probably would save a customer $10-$15 range (if not a little more) alone on their bill a month if ALL sports were in a tiers. I think a la carte would be more expensive to do because of the current contracts in place with providers and the fact a lot of those contracts DO NOT allow a la carte, let alone tiers. Hell they make more then enough in advertisement, not counting what they are charging operators to carry them. This is why their is such a stink going on with SINclair as well. They are a "broadcaster", not a cable network and they are wanting 50 cent to a $1 per sub plus huge upfront fees. Thatalone in SOME cases is more then the cable networks ask per sub. They do not operate no where near like a cable network. SINclair looks at it like this, if cable has the money to invest in new services, then they have the money to pay us and WE should get a piece of that pie as well. They stated that fact while that dispute was going on with Suddenlink in West Virginia.
 
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