marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO |  GAO Report
Highly suggested reading on this topic:
»www.gao.gov/new.items/d048.pdf
In particular read pages 20-29 (pricing factors) and 30-38 (programming tiers) |
|
Justin Playfair
@198.231.x.x
| Thanks for the link. Yes, it is enlightening, such as the part that reads:
"Almost all of the cable operators we interviewed cited sports programming as a major contributor to higher programming costs."
Then it goes on to say that sports programming costs increased 59% over three years while non-sports costs only increased 26% and that the average fees for sports channels were "substantially higher than the average for other networks."
I also noticed this:
"A 2000 Nielsen Media Research Reported indicated that households receiving more than 70 networks on watch, on average, 17 of these networks."
It does also say:
"it is possible that cable rates could actually increase for some consumers" (with a la carte)
No doubt that's true -- people who watch a lot of different channels and / or expensive (e.g., sports) channels probably would pay more, but that seems much more fair than having the rest of us pay part of their cable bill every month. |
|
marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| reply to marigolds
Actually, the effect works out in the opposite way.
Despite being expensive, sports channels have wide viewership, so the monthly fees for sports will increase only slightly if at all (they may bring in more add revenue since they will carry a larger percentage of viewers). That still means that the sports channels will add a hefty chunk to the a la carte bill, but that chunk is already taken into account in current billing.
The currently less expensive channels with significantly smaller viewerships are the ones most likely to increase dramatically. Those consumers who watch smaller, specialized channels are the ones most likely to see a price increase (or lose the channel altogether). What will be interesting is that HSN and similar channels -pay- per subscriber, so you might actually be able to get a discount by subscribing to those channels (most likely in the form of a package deal).
On the bright side, the 17 networks per household was somewhat unexpected. The numbers were thought to be lower. So maybe the a la carte situation would not be so bad after all.
--
ISCABBS - the oldest and largest BBS on the Internet
telnet://whip.isca.uiowa.edu
Member: American Association of Geographers, American Geophysical Union, American Water Resources Association |
|
