4 Things John McCain's Cable Bill Would Mean for Subscribers - Yahoo! TV (http://tv.yahoo.com/news/4-things-john-mccains-cable-bill-mean-subscribers-145722767.html)

Sen. John McCain will fundamentally change television if his latest legislation succeeds: It would allow consumers to pay for only the channels they want to watch, instead of being forced to plunk down lots of cash for a full cable package of negligible offerings.

The Arizona Republican's bill faces lots of hurdles and will likely be subjected to fierce opposition from the cable industry, so passage is far from assured. Cable companies like the current system, because it allows them to force subscribers to pay for less popular channels if they want to keep watching ESPN.

Cable networks want to keep the status quo in place so they can continue bundling their top channels like AMC or MTV with their less desirable ones.

Before the mudslinging gets fierce, here's a look at four things that the legislation, dubbed the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013, would accomplish -- besides potentially taking a big chunk out of Comcast's profits.

I can say with all honesty that I have never met someone who didn't want an ala carte cable service, and so do I. So I support McCain's efforts 100%.

I'm sure lobbyists are already lining the pockets of elected officials so this won't get anywhere.

I personally would have no problem going to an a la carte system. ESPN I can do without outside the college football season. ESPN is of course the largest chunk of your monthly cable bill. I want to say it is like $20-30 on average per customer. Of course cable companies can move the prices around with the various packages. Someone like WE TV id only going to cost pennies in most cases, so you stock pile the premiere packages with those and you even out the loss you are taking on ESPN being in basic packages.

I link the prohibition of broadcast networks going to cable if they want to keep their license. They have free reign of the public airwaves, but yet want to force me to watch the BCS title game on cable - even though ABC owns ESPN.

The lower cable bills sound good, but I think they'll just jack up the charges of the equipment to make up any difference.

ESPN gets $5.05 per subscriber.

Can ESPN Sustain Its Fee Per Subscriber Growth? - Seeking Alpha (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1290141-can-espn-sustain-its-fee-per-subscriber-growth)

ESPN gets $5.05 per subscriber.

Can ESPN Sustain Its Fee Per Subscriber Growth? - Seeking Alpha (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1290141-can-espn-sustain-its-fee-per-subscriber-growth)

Thanks I knew it was high, but I was apparently smoking something LOL

Expect about a third to half the channels to disappear if ala carte is forced on the cable systems.

Expect about a third to half the channels to disappear if ala carte is forced on the cable systems.

Yep or more. I don't see how the bill would hold up legally

Also the cable companies are not the only ones that don't want ala cart The media companies force cable providers to carry x amount of channels if they want the best channels. And they have signed multi year contracts

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is involved in this...

Yep or more. I don't see how the bill would hold up legally

Also the cable companies are not the only ones that don't want ala cart The media companies force cable providers to carry x amount of channels if they want the best channels. And they have signed multi year contracts

I think it holds up legally. It doesn't force them to change, it just gives them incentives to.

While a la carte sounds good, I'm afraid it would raise our bill and lower the number of choices we have.

Nobody is forced to have cable therefore nobody is forced to plunk down a wad of cash for a cable package. That's a choice. Congress needs to butt out of this and let the free market do its job.

Nobody is forced to have cable therefore nobody is forced to plunk down a wad of cash for a cable package. That's a choice. Congress needs to butt out of this and let the free market do its job.

Actually, what most cable companies do now with ESPN and its other nonsense is just a contemporary version of what used to be called a "tying contract," which tied the purchase of one good or service to another. And, back in the day, tying contracts were illegal. But its been done for years in various forms, such that people become numbed to them.

Car manufacturers did and, I guess, still do, engage in this with their "option packages." If you want Car X, and you want a Super Deluxe GPS, you have to buy Extra Deluxe Carpets. They say that Super Deluxe GPS is only a $300 add-on, but the real world is that you can't get it without buying $200 Extra Deluxe Carpets in the "pacakge." Replace "Super Deluxe GPS" with "ESPN" and "Extra Deluxe Carpets" with "BridezillaChannel" and you've got essentially the same thing.

I generally agree with the idea of letting the free market do its thing, but when legal monopolies such as Cox own the entire playing field, the consumer doesn't really have much of a choice. Cox has relied on the price elasticity of demand for years in its captive markets, but as it and other cable providers continue to hemorrhage customers, they are starting to realize what all monopolies (legal or otherwise) eventually face - their own downfall as the market around them reconstructs itself to make them irrelevant.

Intel announced their own initiative to pursue ala carte television earlier this year. NetFlix and similar streaming services are almost ala carte providers, but not entirely. Live-streamed sporting events are perhaps the holy grail as it were of ala carte offering, but they'll likely be the last rats off the current sinking cable tv ship.

Nobody is forced to have cable therefore nobody is forced to plunk down a wad of cash for a cable package. That's a choice. Congress needs to butt out of this and let the free market do its job.
I agree. If people voted with their wallets, this would get resolved quickly. I haven't done it yet, but I know quite a few people who have "cut the cable" and gone to over the air or Internet-only entertainment.

How is cox a monopoly?

How is cox a monopoly?

I guess its from the stand point you can't get another cable provider to offer service. Of course this all comes down to local agreements because these companies are assuming all the risk for the infrastructure put in place.

The way I see it the only thing that can be done to change that is to have the local municipalities take over ownership of the lines, contract out the maintenance of it, and then allow various operators to utilize it. Probably more of a hassle than its worth. Granted I've seen electric/gas utilities deregulated where you can buy the product from various vendors who use the incumbent company to deliver it. I'm not sure how big of a price break people can get from that, the results seem to be pretty mixed.

The biggest issue I really see coming is the bandwidth to provide data to communities. If cable companies take a hit, they are going to jack up bandwidth costs/restrictions to compensate for the shift in traffic. At that point it almost might be required to shift to a Provo, UT model of the local community roll out its own high speed network (in this case fiber) to neutralize the impacts of this. Then of course you can pray for Google to come in and buy it up and take over management. :) Something like that though I don't really see feasible for OKC. I could see it work for Norman and Stillwater to support the educational facilities as well as the nearby area, but even then East Norman (Lake Thunderbird east Norman) would probably be too far out to expand the network there.

I agree. If people voted with their wallets, this would get resolved quickly. I haven't done it yet, but I know quite a few people who have "cut the cable" and gone to over the air or Internet-only entertainment.


I'm about ready to do that... at least till college football starts.

I Killed the cable at my house years ago, it's so not worth $100/mo for waht 90% is junk.
There is a fundemental problem with alacarte services, Cox has to eliminate analog service for alacarte service to be effective. It's expensive to do a truck roll to install/remove filters every time somebody wants to change thier channel lineup. With digital it's much easier, the CSR simply turns the channels on and off with a computer.

I guess its from the stand point you can't get another cable provider to offer service. Of course this all comes down to local agreements because these companies are assuming all the risk for the infrastructure put in place.

The way I see it the only thing that can be done to change that is to have the local municipalities take over ownership of the lines, contract out the maintenance of it, and then allow various operators to utilize it. Probably more of a hassle than its worth. Granted I've seen electric/gas utilities deregulated where you can buy the product from various vendors who use the incumbent company to deliver it. I'm not sure how big of a price break people can get from that, the results seem to be pretty mixed.

The biggest issue I really see coming is the bandwidth to provide data to communities. If cable companies take a hit, they are going to jack up bandwidth costs/restrictions to compensate for the shift in traffic. At that point it almost might be required to shift to a Provo, UT model of the local community roll out its own high speed network (in this case fiber) to neutralize the impacts of this. Then of course you can pray for Google to come in and buy it up and take over management. :) Something like that though I don't really see feasible for OKC. I could see it work for Norman and Stillwater to support the educational facilities as well as the nearby area, but even then East Norman (Lake Thunderbird east Norman) would probably be too far out to expand the network there.

directTV dish ATT uverse all are competitors to cox

it is like when the feds argued that if XM and sirious merged it would from a monopoly ... the judge disagreed (rightfully) because FM and AM provide significant competition for satellite radio

I can get most of the shows I like on the internet for free and the local ones with an antenna... every time I pay my Dish bill I wonder what for.

I pay just a shade under $150 a month for just my TV service with Dish Network... Hopper and 3 Joeys, full home DVR, and slingbox mobile TV capabilities. I love my TV service and you won't ever find me complaining about the price.

I feel that if this legislation passes it'll only serve to reduce our options on channels (which can be debated is a GOOD thing), but I seriously doubt the cost will go down much. In fact, I would bet that what it grants in choices, it will take back in $$$$$.

I wish I had the time to watch that much TV...

I wish I had the time to watch that much TV...

I think you would be shocked/amazed/appalled/jealous/embarrassed if you saw my DVR timer list... But, being a single male I do have a good deal of down time to myself. Oh, I also have 2 TV's in the living room. :D

Expect about a third to half the channels to disappear if ala carte is forced on the cable systems.

Fine. I don't have time to watch over 2/3s of them, anyway.

I can get most of the shows I like on the internet for free and the local ones with an antenna... every time I pay my Dish bill I wonder what for.
Unless you are watching a lot of sports then most programs can be found online. We watch a lot of sports (usually going on in the background as we are doing something else) so we have Directv with the MLB and NFL packages. For some of my friends cable/sat is or would be a waste of money since many of the shows they watch (more sci-fi type of stuff) is available on Hulu and places like that.



Fine. I don't have time to watch over 2/3s of them, anyway.
The problem is most of the channels you watch will be the ones to be cut, that just always seems to happen. They aren't going to cut the ones with the crap you don't want.

I have 200 channels with my dish package and probibly watch less than 20 of them.The rest are JUNK.

Online TV, or not ABC unveils live-streaming app ... with limits - CNNMoney - May. 13, 2013 (http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/13/technology/mobile/abc-streaming-app/index.html?hpt=hp_t3)

Online TV, or not ABC unveils live-streaming app ... with limits - CNNMoney - May. 13, 2013 (http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/13/technology/mobile/abc-streaming-app/index.html?hpt=hp_t3)
That led me to this: https://www.aereo.com/

That led me to this: https://www.aereo.com/

Only problem with this is:

Do I have to have a New York area address to join Aereo?

Yes, your credit card must have a billing address within the Aereo market area, which includes the New York City metropolitan area.

Only problem with this is:

Do I have to have a New York area address to join Aereo?

Yes, your credit card must have a billing address within the Aereo market area, which includes the New York City metropolitan area.

Looks like they are expanding: https://aereo.com/preregister

I wouldn't expect them in Oklahoma anytime soon though.