Does anyone really think that Disney won't charge at least $20 per month for ESPN--ONLY! If you want all of the ESPN channels such as ESPN 2, News, etc. for only an additional $5 per month. AND additional saving by adding our Disney channel suite for only an additional $7 per month, a savings of $5 if you were to subscribe to to ESPN and Disney Channels separately. And every Joe Sixpack will pay it. Now this means the wife get the channels she wants a la carte. Can you see where a la carte, in the end, is really bad for the consumer, but the channels will perfer al a carte via On-line were they get the money directly and as the technology matures, withdraw from and kill Hulu, et al. No middle man and all the creme is theirs. We are headed for a worst value world of entertainment options to be streamed only.
Yet another Al la carte thread. Sorry!
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I think Dish has a good product compared to the other choices that most people have in their area for this sort of thing. However I think the industry as a whole is in for a lot of disappointment over the next decade because they have greatly sacrificed quality and forced people to buy expensive packages just to watch a few channels. (and everyone pays a rather ESPN/NFL/NBA tax whether they watch sports or not) It's not just DISH but all of them doing it and often at the hands of the 6-7 large corporations that own 95% the cable media in this country now.
The end result if they don't change it themselves, they are going to lose customers and fail to gain new customers. It's getting very easy these days to put up a cheap antenna in most metros and get 20-40 digital channels which are showing all kinds of different content, and broadband is starting to fill in the rest. I stay with DISH at the moment because none of my alternatives offer a compelling advantage to change, but that's only until I decide to cut the cord (or satellite so to speak) all together. That day isn't that far off and the extra $115/month will certainly pay for a lot of alternatives.
The end result if they don't change it themselves, they are going to lose customers and fail to gain new customers. It's getting very easy these days to put up a cheap antenna in most metros and get 20-40 digital channels which are showing all kinds of different content, and broadband is starting to fill in the rest. I stay with DISH at the moment because none of my alternatives offer a compelling advantage to change, but that's only until I decide to cut the cord (or satellite so to speak) all together. That day isn't that far off and the extra $115/month will certainly pay for a lot of alternatives.
Nothing new, some ISPs have been doing this for 5+ years. Frankly I have no problem paying for what I use; what do I object to is paying for the 98% of the channels no one in my family ever watches. I interpret that as subsidizing other people's habits.
I pay a little extra for very high bandwidth caps from two different ISPs (I want reliability). One of these is business-class with a 1 hour SLA. The two together cost less than the $100/month I pay to Dish to subsidize all the sports, Disney, news channels, etc. we never watch.
We don't watch a lot of Dish Network, probably less than 20 hours a month. That comes to $5/hour. We're getting far more value from our Canadian DBS provider. I've been keeping diligent records for the past year, and it comes to about $1 per movie we watch without considering anything else. I think 50 cents/hour is on the high side for that. We also are watching a lot more OTA and FTA, both of which are incrementally free. We also use the Internet a lot, but not for viewing TV. But if we did, there would be no incremental cost. We're already below the 10 cents/hour mark for direct human use of our ISPs, without counting the automatic consumptions our servers make and cause 24/7. Dish Network is our worst entertainment deal, and it's not getting any better.
Not sure if this has been brought up yet, I'm certain there are dozens of other "Ala Carte" threads that have come and gone.
However, let me explain why this would mean higher costs for everyone.
Television stations cost money to produce. I know everyone knows that, but it bears repeating. It's very expensive. Now, in order to be profitable and pay the hundreds of people that make producing television shows possible, they have to sell advertisement. But even that is not enough to pay the bills if nobody is watching.
I'll get back to that in a moment, but I wanted to make that point before I move on. Let's say that 7 million people subscribe to a package that includes the Science Channel on Dish Network.
Let's also assume that Dish Network pays Discovery 18 million per year to keep the Science Channel on Dish. (Which may be a GROSS understatement, who knows?). Finally, let's assume that of those 7 million that subscribe, only 2 million actively WATCH and would PAY to have that channel should AlaCarte become a reality.
Science Channel isn't going to want to take a loss on their profit because of something like this. So, in order to make up for the reduced subscriber numbers, they have to raise prices on those that stay loyal to them. 18 million in costs divided among 2 million subscribers is 9 bucks a month. For one channel.
Now, getting back to the advertising thing, Instead of a potential 7 million eyeballs watching advertisements on Science Channel, there is now only 2 millions potential eyeballs watching advertisements. Do you think advertisers will pay NEARLY as much to keep ads on that channel as they did before? No. And those cost of that? Yep, passed on to the subscriber.
Here's the part where I address all of those who would say "Well if a channel isn't popular enough it should just go away anyway." What if your favorite channel went away because it couldn't make enough money to sustain itself? Hell, let's take a step further and assume that only THE MOST popular channels will ultimately survive the transition. What would we be left with? The Big Four, ESPN, and few stragglers. Enjoy your Ala Carte, all six channels of it.
Packaging is good for consumers because it gives you the most bang for your buck. Ala Carte is great for SOME channels, but putting everything on that system would result in a dramatic upheaval of how TV is viewed. A few people would win, sure, but most of us would lose.
Just my two cents, apologize if it's TL;DR, you aren't getting cliffnotes.
However, let me explain why this would mean higher costs for everyone.
Television stations cost money to produce. I know everyone knows that, but it bears repeating. It's very expensive. Now, in order to be profitable and pay the hundreds of people that make producing television shows possible, they have to sell advertisement. But even that is not enough to pay the bills if nobody is watching.
I'll get back to that in a moment, but I wanted to make that point before I move on. Let's say that 7 million people subscribe to a package that includes the Science Channel on Dish Network.
Let's also assume that Dish Network pays Discovery 18 million per year to keep the Science Channel on Dish. (Which may be a GROSS understatement, who knows?). Finally, let's assume that of those 7 million that subscribe, only 2 million actively WATCH and would PAY to have that channel should AlaCarte become a reality.
Science Channel isn't going to want to take a loss on their profit because of something like this. So, in order to make up for the reduced subscriber numbers, they have to raise prices on those that stay loyal to them. 18 million in costs divided among 2 million subscribers is 9 bucks a month. For one channel.
Now, getting back to the advertising thing, Instead of a potential 7 million eyeballs watching advertisements on Science Channel, there is now only 2 millions potential eyeballs watching advertisements. Do you think advertisers will pay NEARLY as much to keep ads on that channel as they did before? No. And those cost of that? Yep, passed on to the subscriber.
Here's the part where I address all of those who would say "Well if a channel isn't popular enough it should just go away anyway." What if your favorite channel went away because it couldn't make enough money to sustain itself? Hell, let's take a step further and assume that only THE MOST popular channels will ultimately survive the transition. What would we be left with? The Big Four, ESPN, and few stragglers. Enjoy your Ala Carte, all six channels of it.
Packaging is good for consumers because it gives you the most bang for your buck. Ala Carte is great for SOME channels, but putting everything on that system would result in a dramatic upheaval of how TV is viewed. A few people would win, sure, but most of us would lose.
Just my two cents, apologize if it's TL;DR, you aren't getting cliffnotes.
Having worked on and off in broadcast over the decades, I've seen the entire spectrum. Yes, it can cost a lot of money to run an operation, but the amount spent often weakly correlates to the quality of the result. There is a lot of waste, posturing and finagling to make things appear differently than they really are. As much of this is entirely profit based, greed is always there along with the desire to do the proverbial "make money while you sleep".
In lucavex's example, the supposition that advertisers pay for potential viewers is patently false. They know, or at least they think they know, the demographics and numbers of the people who actually pay attention to their commercials vs. those who skip over them. There is also the supposition that having access to more eyeballs leads to more watching. I believe it would be very difficult to defend such an assertion for the less-frequented channels, as this tends to go against industry wisdom and human psychology.
What really happens is the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. If you're ESPN-grade, you can ask for the moon and get it because no cable/sat provider wants to get caught without you. This "feed-the-pig" philosophy continues through the outrageous fees sports leagues and their athletes demand with the same reasoning. On the other hand specialty channels carry little bargaining leverage and can easily be bamboozled by the cable/sat providers into taking peanuts in order to gain carriage. Programming providers may try to bundle weaker channels with hot ones, but no one in the negotiating room is stupid over what they're really buying.
I believe the entertainment industry is mostly taking us for a ride because we are a captive audience. I'll accept that a number, if not many, of the specialty channels would die if they had to survive an a la carte structure. If they're not able to appeal to enough people to make sufficient cable/sat fees plus advertising to keep alive, I can live without them. In fact I can live without any of them.
But perhaps many would survive. Look at the substantial rates Dish charges for the international packages, some of the only true a la carte options we have. Many of these channels are available FTA and are subsidized almost entirely by their home governments as an outreach or even propaganda tool. I doubt Dish pays much if anything in fees to certain of these broadcasters. But enough people are willing to pay to keep Dish willing to allocate serious resources and satellite bandwidth. Like one whole bird.
It's almost certain the channels that would be hurt the most by a true a la carte system are the biggest ones. And that's why they never want to go there. It's not the little specialty channels that have an enormous sway to force the cable/sat providers into a la carte; you need to look elsewhere. The dirty little secret is that when people have to pay for something they really don't need, they find they can live very well without it. Thank you very much.
If every household demanded the level of premium sports coverage that DirecTV provides, Dish Network would be dead. But they seem to do ok. And look at the Nielsen market shares. ESPN loses viewers every year, especially with young people. If the cable/sat market went a la carte, ESPN would have to charge some pretty healthy rates to keep their revenue the same because there are plenty of people who would simply walk away. In reality they would have to live with less, which would mean smaller fees to the sports leagues and lower salaries for a handful of athletes. Would this be a horrible thing? I think not. And with the Internet it may very well happen.
In lucavex's example, the supposition that advertisers pay for potential viewers is patently false. They know, or at least they think they know, the demographics and numbers of the people who actually pay attention to their commercials vs. those who skip over them. There is also the supposition that having access to more eyeballs leads to more watching. I believe it would be very difficult to defend such an assertion for the less-frequented channels, as this tends to go against industry wisdom and human psychology.
What really happens is the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. If you're ESPN-grade, you can ask for the moon and get it because no cable/sat provider wants to get caught without you. This "feed-the-pig" philosophy continues through the outrageous fees sports leagues and their athletes demand with the same reasoning. On the other hand specialty channels carry little bargaining leverage and can easily be bamboozled by the cable/sat providers into taking peanuts in order to gain carriage. Programming providers may try to bundle weaker channels with hot ones, but no one in the negotiating room is stupid over what they're really buying.
I believe the entertainment industry is mostly taking us for a ride because we are a captive audience. I'll accept that a number, if not many, of the specialty channels would die if they had to survive an a la carte structure. If they're not able to appeal to enough people to make sufficient cable/sat fees plus advertising to keep alive, I can live without them. In fact I can live without any of them.
But perhaps many would survive. Look at the substantial rates Dish charges for the international packages, some of the only true a la carte options we have. Many of these channels are available FTA and are subsidized almost entirely by their home governments as an outreach or even propaganda tool. I doubt Dish pays much if anything in fees to certain of these broadcasters. But enough people are willing to pay to keep Dish willing to allocate serious resources and satellite bandwidth. Like one whole bird.
It's almost certain the channels that would be hurt the most by a true a la carte system are the biggest ones. And that's why they never want to go there. It's not the little specialty channels that have an enormous sway to force the cable/sat providers into a la carte; you need to look elsewhere. The dirty little secret is that when people have to pay for something they really don't need, they find they can live very well without it. Thank you very much.
If every household demanded the level of premium sports coverage that DirecTV provides, Dish Network would be dead. But they seem to do ok. And look at the Nielsen market shares. ESPN loses viewers every year, especially with young people. If the cable/sat market went a la carte, ESPN would have to charge some pretty healthy rates to keep their revenue the same because there are plenty of people who would simply walk away. In reality they would have to live with less, which would mean smaller fees to the sports leagues and lower salaries for a handful of athletes. Would this be a horrible thing? I think not. And with the Internet it may very well happen.
Of course what you say it true.
But it doesn't seem to work that way in SelfEntitlementLand, where some people seem to post from.
And Pendragon makes a good point too, IMHO.
"Packaging is good for consumers..." Packaging, Bundling, etc. is never good for consumers when that is the only choice made available to them. This has been proven over and over in the course of many failed business models. It always results in higher prices and lower quality of the product and will only be maintained as long as people have no other choices.
Isn't it a happy coincidence then, that Dish and DIRECTV offer a variety of packaging options, most of which will fit into someone's lifestyle?
Imagine going to a Salad Bar and selecting your items. When the time comes to pay, you explain you don't want to pay full price for your meal because you didn't want the croutons, you didn't add ham or egg, and you don't like olives. They'll laugh you out the door. Why? Because packaging is an easy and affordable way to ensure everyone has a wide selection of programming at a decent price. You pay for access to EVERYTHING at the Salad Bar, and the same is true for Television Providers.
The reaility of things? Right now we're paying pennies per channel. ESPN is the most expensive of the popular english channels at just over a buck per subscriber. One dollar is perfectly reasonable, and I don't even watch sports. I pay it because I like the quirky, small, upstart channels that come bundled with the big boys. If TRUE Ala Carte pricing becomes the norm, we'll be paying dollars, maybe tens of dollars for one channel, and new channels will never have a chance to make it, because the big boys are you'll know about, and they'll be the only ones that can afford to stay in business. As Pendragon had posted before, even the Big Boys will be hurting, but they'll stay afloat. The little guys will all but vanish, for the same reason Pendragon had said:
"The dirty little secret is that when people have to pay for something they really don't need, they find they can live very well without it."
And darnit, you may not like olives, but I sure as heck do, and if bundling lets me keep my olives, I say live and let live.
(As an aside, I know that Ala Carte will eventually gain steam, and my happy ride will be over. IPTV is revolutionizing the way we view content, and Ala Carte is going to be part of that revolution. Until that happens, I'm perfectly content with bundled pricing.)
Imagine this. I go to a buffet because I'm traveling and it's the only restaurant in town. Not even a grocery store. This buffet includes the finest seafood, filet mignon, champagne, expensive wines, etc. But I'm a vegetarian, I don't drink and I only want a salad. I look at the tables and there are a lot of kids, their parents and some 600-pounders hurling food into their gullets. So I get a little salad and head for the cashier. They tell me $100, please. Same price for anyone who walks through the door. It's a great deal.
It's a great analogy in theory, but when you place beside the example (In this case, Dish Network) you have to modify it. To compare the "Salad Bar" thought experiment to Dish Network, said buffet wouldn't be the only place in town to eat. And in this buffet, there would be multiple options for making the salad bar experience really yours. You can visit the cheap buffet line, which has only salad, a few condiments and dressings. You can pay for the intermediate buffet, which allows access to the meat carving station, extra accouterments for the aforementioned salad, and a few a dessert options. Or, you can really go all out and pay for the ultimate buffet experience, giving you access to that Filet Mignon you saw others stuffing in their craw, the fancy wines, the personal service, etc.
Heck, as long as you pay for the basic salad, they can even bring you an Ala Carte menu with a variety of delicious International choices. Like Italian? They have pasta for a nominal extra fee. Prefer Chinese? They got all the fried rice and teriyaki chicken you want. The list goes on. In fact, if you pay an extra (fairly high) fee, you can even be allowed to go into the "gentleman's" section. We won't discuss what kind of service you get back there!
Come to think of it, why has nobody actually MADE this a restaurant yet?
What was I talking about again?
until you walk in see all that seafood, filet, ect, pay for it in advance for a year. come in the next day and its all burgers and fries from hardees
The point was a simple analogy. However I can modify it to handle your objections.
The government in this town owns all the buildings. They only allow food establishments in three of them, two of which are fairly modern and one of which is an older, but still a nice building. These are leased to the highest bidders at exorbitant prices, and the winners have to obtain certain approvals for changes they make to the buildings.
There are a handful of food distributors that truck their wares to the restaurants, but each one specializes. There is one that sells only alcohol, another that sells only meats and seafood, etc. The restaurants all have to negotiate with the food distributors, but when one cannot come to terms with the alcohol distributor, for example, they are cut-off and their patrons threaten to switch to another restaurant.
You can eat at any restaurant you choose, but you have to buy a one-year contract at the minimum and pay by the month. They can raise the rates at any time. They all have different deals, but they all seem pretty much the same. There is a "family plan" where you can have all the stale bread and water you want. Then there is a mid-tier plan where you can eat yesterday's leftovers, but no high-value food. The top plan allows you to choose anything made today, and the high value foods. You get cheap wine as part of the price. If you want better wine, there is a price for Californian, another for French, etc.
None of these are buffets; you have to order very specifically what you want to eat. The menus are printed in English. If you want a Spanish menu, you can have much of the same thing for a similar price. However if you speak Japanese, Chinese, Russian, French, German, etc., you need to pay extra for a menu that you can actually read and order from someone who speaks your language. These international packages come with a tiny ethnic appetizer with each meal as a bonus.
One problem that can happen is when you order your meal, they may be out for the day. There are no substitutions. They also sometimes give the lower tiers a chance to preview what they're missing. This year one of the restaurants raised their prices, but lets you have a free glass of wine with each meal, from Grand Junction, Colorado.
Absolutely not! They are sports fanatics who get upset when someone suggests an a la carte channel system.
Pendragon, you essentially described the current state of Television Service Providers, albeit with a little Orwellian bent. My analogy did the same, but with a bit of a Utopian ideal.
And while both accurate to an extent, they also may be a reflection of our own personal ideals regarding the current state of affairs in television broadcasting. This proves to illustrate how polarized the current Ala Carte debate is.
Truth be told, Ala Carte will get it's day in the sun. When that happens, we'll have these same discussions, but I imagine the direction would be shifted.
But enough of all this doomsday talk, I'm hungry. This thread is now about Food Establishments.
And while both accurate to an extent, they also may be a reflection of our own personal ideals regarding the current state of affairs in television broadcasting. This proves to illustrate how polarized the current Ala Carte debate is.
Truth be told, Ala Carte will get it's day in the sun. When that happens, we'll have these same discussions, but I imagine the direction would be shifted.
But enough of all this doomsday talk, I'm hungry. This thread is now about Food Establishments.
By having ala carte, the networks would know what they are really worth. And the service providers would not have all the retransmission problems.
