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Re: Morning Tech Bits

Jun 8, 2009, 14:57

kanniballl

I canceled my cable TV service recently. My wife will miss Animal Planet, but that was really the only thing either of us ever watched, and it wasn't worth paying the ridiculously high fees for one damn channel.

About 1/2 of what I watch is on Broadcast networks like NBC, CBS, etc: House, Heroes, Bones, etc. So if I killed cable that would leave me with most of my entertainment intact so long as I could setup an antenna (which would have to be external, as my internal ones don't pick up jack).

However there are shows on Cable that I watch regularly: mostly on USA, SciFi, and (in 1 case) TNT: Burn Notice, Eureka, psych, Leverage, etc. And some upcoming SciFi shows look interesting. Fortunately those shows are legally available elsewhere like Hulu and iTunes so I could still watch them if I dropped it.

I really fucking hate the TV companies in the USA. I should be able to customize the channels I get, and pay a small per-channel fee or go into a tier system (e.g. 10 channels for a small fee, 20 channels for slightly more, etc.).

There is a method to their madness; whether you want to believe it is another story.

The short version is, if everything was a la carte (choose the specific channels you want) then the more "specialized" channels might cease to exist due to their lack of demand.

For example maybe SciFi's or BBC America's popularity on US cable is low enough that when offered the choice via a la carte, not enough people subscribe to it. So the cable company drops it all-together to save themselves the money, which stinks if you're a fan of SciFi or BBC America.

Replace SciFi and BBC America with any other niche channels: Smithsonian, History, Food, FX, etc.

There are other factors, like the Studios selling the cable companies the rights to air their channels at a bulk/package rate. Drop all of those channels, lose the bulk/package rate, pay more per the other channels... it balances out.

This comment was edited on Jun 8, 2009, 15:11.




"Space. It seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you." -Fry, Futurama

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