When is the Cable TV Industry Going to Collapse?
June 28th, 2007 by Brian
Rolling Stone published a good article about the perceived death of the recording industry. The article got me thinking about the cable television industry and how I’d love it if it could be the next one to suffer a collapse that necessitates a major reorganization.
Let’s break down my cable TV viewing habits.
I subscribe to RCN in Chicago (they’re the cable company that prevents Comcast from being a local monopoly.) It is with great shame that I admit my monthly cable bill is $152.90. This includes 10 Mbps internet, 99 basic digital channels, about 70 expanded digital channels, 10 or so HD channels, and HBO (RCN gives us Showtime, Cinemax, and Starz for free with HBO.)
That’s about 200 or so channels. Now, as for the ones we actually *watch*
CBS, NBC, Fox, Discovery, Food Network, HGTV, Comedy Central, ESPN, Comcast Sports Net, WGN, PBSHD, Cartoon Network, HDNet, National Geographic HD, HBO, Showtime.
16 out of 200-ish. Let’s round up to 20 out of 200. That’s 10%
RCN forces us to buy 200 channels so we can watch 20 of them. Granted, HBO alone accounts for $17.99 or so out of the $110 or so that we’re shelling out for TV but you can be assured that asking RCN to block the unused channels and subtract 80% off the remainder of our bill is not an option. The situation sucks, and because we’re not prepared to cancel cable in favor of downloading our favorite shows, we’re stuck with it (I like baseball too and it’s hard/impossible to download a live baseball game in HD.)
The television industry is increasingly playing for an audience that wants to dictate their own TV schedules. The concept of ala carte cable service has been around for a long time but I have yet to see it as an option on my bill.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand that ala carte cable is a nightmare for the cable company. Their infrastructure operating fees per house are the same regardless of how many channels are transmitted. It just bothers me to no end to know that I’m paying a company to deliver 4 home shopping networks that I’ve never even purposely turned on.
Maybe Google will somehow solve this problem. *shrug*
While I agree that cable sub rates are high, do not blame the home shopping nets…they actually pay for the carriage…which in effect holds your monthly cable bill down. It would be interesting to see how many channels there would be if all of them had to pay the cable co for carriage. My guess….way less than 200
I finally broke down and had cable installed - it was the only way to get high speed internet. Because of their combo pricing, I actually save money by having basic cable with the internet connection. Until I started looking into the cable rates, I never realized ComCast sold a $8.69 basic cable package. They never advertised such a cheap package, must be some sort of state law or something. But in typical cable fashion, the full standard package is turned on. And I’m not about to tell them I’m getting more than I paid for.
Rich, if you just recently got the cable turned on then it’s possible that Comcast is giving you a promotional preview of the full package. In 3 months they’ll turn it off and hope you’re addicted enough to it that you’ll pay to have it turned back on.
Brian - it’s possible ComCast is just trying to feed me free crack. But I’ve seen several instances of cable companies having no idea what they are sending down the tube. It took ComCast a year to come and disconnect the cable in my current house after the old owners left. Had the same thing happen in an old apartment of mine. I’m putting the over/under at 18 months before the realize they are feeding me the old customer’s cable account.
The same thing happened in my last condo. The association had a deal with RCN to provide free expanded basic cable to all units for a flat fee which was included in our association dues (we paid 191/month for cable, water, heat, common insurance.)
But that deal expired and the association didn’t renew due to RCN wanting to charge us way more. The condo board sent a letter to everyone telling us to arrange for our own cable TV services.
I, of course, did not do that and RCN showed up promptly on the cutoff day and unplugged everything, including my internet, which I was paying for (I had a feeling they would do that.)
I called them and had them send a tech to hook the internet back up. Doing this also restored the TV feed which I happily used for another 2 years until I got an HDTV and had to start paying for digital/HD cable.
This is 2007. ala carte cable should be an option. Today’s technology should make this option a no-brainer. My list of channels is very similiar to Brian’s.
At the very least there should be groupings of channels they offer. “Educational” would have your Discovery, TLC, National Geographic, etc. “Basic Sports” would put Comcast SportsNet, ESPN, and ESPN2 together. “Home” would have HGTV, Food Network and DIY. My cable bill is in the $70 neighborhood (I don’t know exactly. The wife pays the bills.) And I don’t get DIY. I’m dying to get DIY, but I don’t want to double my cable bill to get it along with 80 other channels I don’t need.
I have the most basic cable package in my area (local channels plus ten more). It is expensive. It would be great if they restructured everything so that you only had to pay for what you watched, or if you were given the option to select which channels you subscribe to.