• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Verizon FiOS Now Offers "Skinny Bundle" Packages

Maybe this is an attempt to avoid having a la carte imposed on them.

Canada will be requiring a la carte to be offered next year after a test in London, Ontario.
 
Be careful what you ask for. I've said this before and I'll repeat it - if "a la carte" comes, or is imposed, cable and satellite viewers will be paying as much or MORE for their dozen or so stations than they paid for 50+ stations previously. These are FOR PROFIT companies. If you think they are going to charge you just $2 or $3 per station in an a la carte scenario, you are dreaming. They will take the charge to they have to pay to each provider to carry each station, then double it to make their money. They will also jack up charges for the cable box, DVR, etc.

So if there are ...say 12 stations that you like times (maybe) $8 each, that's $96 per month. Plus fees for equipment and tax - viola - you'll be paying easily over $100. Canada may be able to impose a la carte AND put a cap on charges and fees, but that is NOT going to happen in the old US of A.
 
LKellerIII said:
if "a la carte" comes, or is imposed, cable and satellite viewers will be paying as much or MORE for their dozen or so stations than they paid for 50+ stations previously..
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right about that. At the same time, there's no "win" for consumers. Cable programmers keep adding more channels that either repeat the same shows that are already available, or in the case of sports, another specialized channel.

As a non-sports fan, I could be off, but I'm sure someone will correct me. We keep adding channels to supposedly cover more sports, but what actually happens is we just end up with the same number of events spread among a larger number of channel$.
 
newsmark said:
As a non-sports fan, I could be off, but I'm sure someone will correct me. We keep adding channels to supposedly cover more sports, but what actually happens is we just end up with the same number of events spread among a larger number of channel$.
Click to expand...

Not really. The number of events broadcast has steadily gone up over the years as events have moved from broadcast to cable, especially on a regional basis.

For example, most Major League Baseball teams in the 90s had a broadcast TV partner who might choose to air 3 or 4 dozen games through the season. Today every MLB team (that I'm aware of) has a deal with a cable network to air every game. Ditto nearly all Hockey and NBA teams.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Not really. The number of events broadcast has steadily gone up over the years as events have moved from broadcast to cable, especially on a regional basis.

For example, most Major League Baseball teams in the 90s had a broadcast TV partner who might choose to air 3 or 4 dozen games through the season. Today every MLB team (that I'm aware of) has a deal with a cable network to air every game. Ditto nearly all Hockey and NBA teams.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but the issue is most regional sports networks air useless filler programming for 21 hours a day. Most sports teams (both college and professional) only play at night, so you get repetitive news shows and "encore" (i.e "repeat) showings of games all day long.
 
A really busy week on ESPN would be during the overlap between football and baseball season in September:
- Monday Night Football
- Tuesday: 30 for 30, or Poker
- Wednesday: MLB
- Thursday: College Football
- Friday: College Football
- Saturday: 4 College Football games
- Sunday: Bowling, NBA, Sunday Night Baseball

Other than weekends, ESPN doesn't show a lot of sports, by the "21 hours a day of filler" standard.
 
LKellerIII said:
Be careful what you ask for. I've said this before and I'll repeat it - if "a la carte" comes, or is imposed, cable and satellite viewers will be paying as much or MORE for their dozen or so stations than they paid for 50+ stations previously. These are FOR PROFIT companies. If you think they are going to charge you just $2 or $3 per station in an a la carte scenario, you are dreaming. They will take the charge to they have to pay to each provider to carry each station, then double it to make their money. They will also jack up charges for the cable box, DVR, etc.
Click to expand...

In the old C-band days there were literally hundreds of programmers to the big dish and because of that it was easy to find very reasonable ala carte offerings in addition to all the package combinations you could want. Then the pizza pan sat providers came along and because there were now only two they conspired to fix the market and offered packages only - prices went up. Because most markets have only one or two cable companies it is easy for them to offer non-competitive packages as well.

Ala Carte will succeed only when we have true competition between programmers again. And until then, and since there is almost nothing on cable I can't find at much reduced cost over the Internet, I will not subscribe to cable or sat. The cable/sat providers have screwed themselves. The cable cutters are winning.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Not really. The number of events broadcast has steadily gone up over the years as events have moved from broadcast to cable, especially on a regional basis.
Click to expand...

Yes, but the number of inane and lazy 'camera in a radio studio' simulcasts of radio shows has gone way up to a point where it feels very lazy. Sports networks used to program actual lower-tier sports during the day, but now it's all covered up by panels just talking about sports. Frankly I find it stupid that about $1 of my cable bill per month goes to financing radio sports talk shows of interest to only a small area or fanbase that I'll never care about.
 
More marginal sports get a lot of coverage. As far as major events, these are now dispersed amongst several outlets almost forcing a sports fan to get a package with lots of channels, but little, if any, additional content that is actually desired.
 
Verizon replaced the Select package which I have with the Custom package. The Select package did not have ESPN, but customers now have the option to spend extra to get ESPN with the Select package. All the other packages (besides the Locals-only one) still contain ESPN. Not only can I not figure out how this could be a violation if the previous Select package was in compliance, but it seems like it can only be a win for ESPN since you can add ESPN to a package that otherwise never had it before.

- Trip
 
umfan said:
More marginal sports get a lot of coverage. As far as major events, these are now dispersed amongst several outlets almost forcing a sports fan to get a package with lots of channels, but little, if any, additional content that is actually desired.
Click to expand...

I absolutely agree with this. One of the things SlingTV got right was selling in small bundles so I don't have to spend $35 on things like PBS Sprout and MTV Tres, just to have the privilege to buy HBO or STARZ.
 
tripinva said:
Verizon replaced the Select package which I have with the Custom package. The Select package did not have ESPN, but customers now have the option to spend extra to get ESPN with the Select package. All the other packages (besides the Locals-only one) still contain ESPN. Not only can I not figure out how this could be a violation if the previous Select package was in compliance, but it seems like it can only be a win for ESPN since you can add ESPN to a package that otherwise never had it before.

- Trip
Click to expand...


Is ESPN tied with the Disney Channel, ABC O&Os, and ABC Family?
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I absolutely agree with this. One of the things SlingTV got right was selling in small bundles so I don't have to spend $35 on things like PBS Sprout and MTV Tres, just to have the privilege to buy HBO or STARZ.
Click to expand...

If you live in Texas and you're an aggie fan instead of a bevo fan, you're still paying for the Longhorn network if you want the SEC network.
 
They still air marginal sports (women's volleyball, gymnastics) on the regional college sports channels (BTN, SEC Network, LHN), but ESPN mostly airs pundits in the daytime, many of the regional sports networks (FSN) even air infomercials in the morning
 
Last edited:
tripinva,

Did you rate go down when your package was changed from one that no longer contained ESPN?

nomad,

I don't think ESPN will do that that unless and/or until a significant number of cable users are able to not select ESPN and the incremental revenue makes more sense. I suspect one concession the cable companies were able to wring from ESPN in paying the HUGE per capita charge was that their customers were to receive free WatchESPN access and that ESPN couldn't sell this to someone without a cable subscription.
 
I'm grandfathered into my existing package, so I can't comment on that.

But my point is that my current plan has Disney Channel and ABC Family and other Disney networks... but not ESPN. (I wouldn't have signed up for it if it did--I refuse to let my money go to sports networks.) So by replacing my existing plan with a new one that offers far fewer channels for slightly higher price, they now can give people who want to cut back the option to continue receiving ESPN. I'm not entirely sure how this is a negative for ESPN in any way.

- Trip
 
ESPN gets paid on a per subscriber basis and has made it an ardent point of negotiations that its networks be carried in all but the lowest tier (basically the tier where local stations, shopping stations and public access is provided) packages. Verizon's move offers a somewhat desirable package that doesn't include ESPN, so it may lead to a lot of subscribers being on a plan where ESPN doesn't get paid. That is the negative for them.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom