No, in fact, just last year, the FCC said bundling keeps costs down for consumers and encouraged it. New studies released today show that they were wrong.fly said:I thought this was already law as of 2 years ago.
theacoustician said:No, in fact, just last year, the FCC said bundling keeps costs down for consumers and encouraged it. New studies released today show that they were wrong.
kiwi said:They definitely don't need to dedicate a channel to those shows, between TNT and the other stations that play them, you can get Law and Order 24 hours a day. Don't worry, every episode they will figure out who did it early on, but the evidence will be thrown out and they will have to figure out a sneaky way to get the guy to admit to it or find new evidence. They will figure it out by the end of the show though and the guy will get the jail sentence and fines he rightly deserves.
This is cheaper because they negotiate a license fee for every channel. Since some companies own large blocks of channels *cough*, they tend to force cable companies to buy ALL their channels when they only want 1 or 2. You end up paying for 8 channels from a content provider that even your cable company didn't think you wanted. On the per channel basis, this makes content licensing fees a little more honest.taeric said:Yeah, I saw the new studies.
I'd be curious to know why they think this will be cheaper. I would also be curious to know if this will kill off stations that will take a chance on new programming.
And what is to stop it at paying per channel? Why not just pay per show?
theacoustician said:This is cheaper because they negotiate a license fee for every channel. Since some companies own large blocks of channels *cough*, they tend to force cable companies to buy ALL their channels when they only want 1 or 2. You end up paying for 8 channels from a content provider that even your cable company didn't think you wanted. On the per channel basis, this makes content licensing fees a little more honest.
I'll explain the per show thing tonight at dinner.
In the long run, it will help. What's the point of all this "choice" if the niche channels show nothing but crap? It will end up as survival of the fittest. Instead of companies allowing channels to work off corporate welfare, they have to earn their keep. It would also allow channels with small fanbases, but deep pockets to finance their channel of choice the way they see fit. You could pay a $1 and get Sci Fi, but would you be willing to pay $2.50 if you knew they would be able to put out more original programming like Battlestar Galatica?Ryokurin said:It wont.
Remember how most channels make their money? By selling all their channels as a package. For instance, you wont get TV Land unless you also pick up Nick Game and Sports as well, because they know that in most cases nitch channels are rarely if ever watched. If anything it will stop the "call Viacom to keep them from taking your channels away from us" scares that have occured in the past few years but expect the amount of channels you actually have a choice in to drop too.
theacoustician said:In the long run, it will help. What's the point of all this "choice" if the niche channels show nothing but crap? It will end up as survival of the fittest. Instead of companies allowing channels to work off corporate welfare, they have to earn their keep. It would also allow channels with small fanbases, but deep pockets to finance their channel of choice the way they see fit. You could pay a $1 and get Sci Fi, but would you be willing to pay $2.50 if you knew they would be able to put out more original programming like Battlestar Galatica?
It also allows low risk for cable providers to offer alternative channels. They only have to pay the content provider on a per unit basis instead of a % based on total subscribers and demographics. Maybe they don't feel like its worth it to pay TechTV Reborn $20,000 a month in licensing, but they'll make bandwidth available if they only have to pay per unit royality.
And its better that they air them for half a season out of order then cancel them?taeric said:The only thing that scares me on that is that shows like Firefly, Buffy, Wonderfalls, etc would probably never get made if they weren't somehow getting funded from deeper pockets.
theacoustician said:And its better that they air them for half a season out of order then cancel them?
How is this model any different than how movies get produced?
Channels will still be funded by the parent company. That parent company will still invest disproportionately in certain projects if they think the return it there. This just leads to more accountability and more realistic feedback to content providers on who is watching.
Shit yeah, I'd pay triple HBO prices to get Farscape and Lexx backtheacoustician said:You could pay a $1 and get Sci Fi, but would you be willing to pay $2.50 if you knew they would be able to put out more original programming like Battlestar Galatica?
I'm telling you, buy the series. Completely worth every penny.Sarcasmo said:I saw an episode of Firefly the other night. The one with Early the assassin. If networks would show more stuff like that I'd pay more. Most of that crap they've got though....probably not more than a buck or so.
theacoustician said:I'm telling you, buy the series. Completely worth every penny.