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OT: Another article on cable cutting: Would you pay $36 for ESPN?

I would drop it in a second if I didn't have to lose 150 other channels with it.

Momma say espn is the devil.
 
Class of 67 said:
As some here have noted in the past, if cable went a la carte, ESPN would have to charge more. What's your limit? The author notes how dependent followers of different sports are on ESPN for their TV viewing.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/07/espn-ala-carte-price-unbundle-unbundling-price-per-month-hbo
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If Ruppert Murdoch was smart, which he is, he would just purchase the NCAA. Fox then launches the NCAA CFB channel....it would be an instant hit....

Sure it would marginalize his 50%owned BTN...but sometimes sacrifices are necessary.
 
Class of 67 said:
As some here have noted in the past, if cable went a la carte, ESPN would have to charge more. What's your limit? The author notes how dependent followers of different sports are on ESPN for their TV viewing.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/07/espn-ala-carte-price-unbundle-unbundling-price-per-month-hbo
Click to expand...
That why a la carte will mean paying the same price for less selection. Some people may save some money but most will pay the same or a little more. The content producer are not going to suddenly take less.
 
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PSU_Nut said:
That why a la carte will mean paying the same price for less selection. Some people may save some money but most will pay the same or a little more. The content producer are not going to suddenly take less.
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They'll take less if that's all they can get. God never said ESPN/Disney HAS to make zillions of dollars.
 
I have said a number of times. This is why cable TV is so expensive and sports profits and salaries are out of control. It is ALL about cable TV money. And most to that is buried in everyones cable bill. Imagine IF all went to ala carte and "pay per view".
 
PSU_Nut said:
That why a la carte will mean paying the same price for less selection. Some people may save some money but most will pay the same or a little more. The content producer are not going to suddenly take less.
Click to expand...

First of all, even if it cost the same for less selection it would be an improvement because you'd only have to flip through the channels you're interested in instead of the channels you're interested in and 200 more.

And secondly, the fact that the cable companies are so against a la carte makes me think it will be bad for them. And if it will be bad for them it will probably be good for the consumer.
 
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Op2 said:
First of all, even if it cost the same for less selection it would be an improvement because you'd only have to flip through the channels you're interested in instead of the channels you're interested in and 200 more.

And secondly, the fact that the cable companies are so against a la carte makes me think it will be bad for them. And if it will be bad for them it will probably be good for the consumer.
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I think the cable company are against it because it make a heck of a lot of work for them along with upgrading infrastructure. Just think of the additional customer service support they would require. You would have endless calls to change channel line ups. People would be calling and canceling based on seasons. For example if you only watch TNT for a single show won't you cancel after the season is over? I only watch college football on ESPN so I would cancel it until after the season. It also would require an investment in hardware and infrastructure to handle the a la carte environment. Set too boxes that are programable down to individual channels. The ability to push out thousands of individual channels maps. They would need a complete overhaul of their billing system to accommodate the new changes.

Even if they did a la cart at best I think you will see bundle prices. The abc bundle or nbc bundle that include all of their channels. I also could see it killing some channels and driving up the price of the survivors. For example if Fox sports can't compete it would give ESPN a near monopoly and they could almost charge even higher rates.
 
The consumer will get screwed in the end.

If things go PPV or ala carte and IPTV becomes the new normal, ISPs (many of which are cable companies) will strictly enforce bandwidth caps or up pricing. HD streaming uses a ton of bandwidth.
 
PSU_Nut said:
I think the cable company are against it because it make a heck of a lot of work for them along with upgrading infrastructure. Just think of the additional customer service support they would require. You would have endless calls to change channel line ups. People would be calling and canceling based on seasons. For example if you only watch TNT for a single show won't you cancel after the season is over? I only watch college football on ESPN so I would cancel it until after the season. It also would require an investment in hardware and infrastructure to handle the a la carte environment. Set too boxes that are programable down to individual channels. The ability to push out thousands of individual channels maps. They would need a complete overhaul of their billing system to accommodate the new changes.

Even if they did a la cart at best I think you will see bundle prices. The abc bundle or nbc bundle that include all of their channels. I also could see it killing some channels and driving up the price of the survivors. For example if Fox sports can't compete it would give ESPN a near monopoly and they could almost charge even higher rates.
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Channel/lineup changes will become a profit center.
$5, $10, or $25 for every change. No problem for providers!
 
I think the argument that bundling is good for everybody holds up to a point. I think it starts to break down when the average cable bill is headed for $150 and the primary driver of the higher costs is basically sports channels paying crazy prices for exclusive rights.

What it means is that everybody with a cable box is essentially taxed to pay for higher athletes salaries, higher college football coach salaries, new stadiums, bribes to FIFA etc.

And that's just unfair to people who don't watch sports. If we were adding $40 to everybody's cable bill for the Food Network and DIY Network and Lifetime to pay for exclusive broadcast deals with TV chefs and home improvement shows, I think the sports fans would be screaming bloody murder.
 
psuguy04 said:
The consumer will get screwed in the end.

If things go PPV or ala carte and IPTV becomes the new normal, ISPs (many of which are cable companies) will strictly enforce bandwidth caps or up pricing. HD streaming uses a ton of bandwidth.
Click to expand...

So long as they're regulated on how much they charge so they can't gouge people, I think that's a good thing. It's like the water bill or the electric bill. You're metered and the more you use the more you pay for. Of course, there is the separate component of what channels you have access to but that can be figured out separately.
 
The other point I'd make is that it isn't going to be $36. That is what it would be if they could impose that price, but they can't.

What would happen in an a la carte world is that ESPN would be priced at what people are willing to pay -- probably $15 or $20 -- and then ESPN would have to tighten its belt in order to reach that number.

That means ESPN wouldn't be spending $1.6 billion a year for Monday Night football and other crazy rights fees. They would be paying less to the college for football and BB. So less money to the colleges, but I don't really see a problem with that -- so much of the rights money has basically just gone into crazy coaching salaries.
 
Op2 said:
So long as they're regulated on how much they charge so they can't gouge people, I think that's a good thing. It's like the water bill or the electric bill. You're metered and the more you use the more you pay for. Of course, there is the separate component of what channels you have access to but that can be figured out separately.
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No disagreement here.

Personally, I'm not going to be surprised if we see a return of the 1990s: X hours for Y dollars per month.
 
tboyer said:
I think the argument that bundling is good for everybody holds up to a point. I think it starts to break down when the average cable bill is headed for $150 and the primary driver of the higher costs is basically sports channels paying crazy prices for exclusive rights.

What it means is that everybody with a cable box is essentially taxed to pay for higher athletes salaries, higher college football coach salaries, new stadiums, bribes to FIFA etc.

And that's just unfair to people who don't watch sports. If we were adding $40 to everybody's cable bill for the Food Network and DIY Network and Lifetime to pay for exclusive broadcast deals with TV chefs and home improvement shows, I think the sports fans would be screaming bloody murder.
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The average for every channel is $54.92. So there not as much meat on the bone. So while you drop ESPN which is the most expensive will save you about $8.50 but the rest will go up which will eat much of those savings.
 
PSU_Nut said:
The average for every channel is $54.92. So there not as much meat on the bone. So while you drop ESPN which is the most expensive will save you about $8.50 but the rest will go up which will eat much of those savings.
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But that's the point, they're all going to go up and people can't pay for them all. And there are new cable channels invented pretty much every day. I know because my Tivo always gives me an annoying message about it. If you want all those channels it is going to cost $200. Then $300. Then $500. There is no stopping it. The cable companies and satellite companies have tried but they can't stop it.

It's just unsustainable. The bundle made a lot of sense when it was 70 channels and cable cost $40. But those days are over.

Really a la carte was inevitable. The digital cable systems can carry 1000 channels but nobody is going to watch 1000 channels. So TV is going to become like every other consumer product -- incredibly diverse and consumers are going to have choices.

For ESPN or the Weather Channel or anybody to just presume that they can bill 100 million households for their channel indefinitely, no matter what the cost -- it was unrealistic. ESPN shouldn't have based their business plan on it. And now they're starting to pay the price.

Nothing else we pay for works that way. The only reason bundling happened in the first place was technical limitations on cable networks that no longer exist.

I personally am ready to revisit pay per view. I would gladly pay $20 to watch a single football game if it could be commercial free. Someday somebody is going to offer this as an option.

(BTW do you know anybody with a $54 cable bill?)
 
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tboyer said:
But that's the point, they're all going to go up and people can't pay for them all. And there are new cable channels invented pretty much every day. I know because my Tivo always gives me an annoying message about it. If you want all those channels it is going to cost $200. Then $300. Then $500. There is no stopping it. The cable companies and satellite companies have tried but they can't stop it.

It's just unsustainable. The bundle made a lot of sense when it was 70 channels and cable cost $40. But those days are over.

Really a la carte was inevitable. The digital cable systems can carry 1000 channels but nobody is going to watch 1000 channels. So TV is going to become like every other consumer product -- incredibly diverse and consumers are going to have choices.

For ESPN or the Weather Channel or anybody to just presume that they can bill 100 million households for their channel indefinitely, no matter what the cost -- it was unrealistic. ESPN shouldn't have based their business plan on it. And now they're starting to pay the price.

Nothing else we pay for works that way. The only reason bundling happened in the first place was technical limitations on cable networks that no longer exist.

I personally am ready to revisit pay per view. I would gladly pay $20 to watch a single football game if it could be commercial free. Someday somebody is going to offer this as an option.

(BTW do you know anybody with a $54 cable bill?)
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The $54 is subscriber fees. The rest of the bill is profit and infrastructure.
Secondly you are not going to get a commercial free game for $20. It will be about $100 per game.
 
PSU_Nut said:
The $54 is subscriber fees. The rest of the bill is profit and infrastructure.
Secondly you are not going to get a commercial free game for $20. It will be about $100 per game.
Click to expand...

If they're charging $100 to watch a football game then there's not going to be many people watching football games. I think they could increase their viewership more than five fold by charging $20 per game and end up making more money.

But even $20 per game is too much unless it's a rare, special occasion. I think if you get too far beyond $20 per month you're going to have a hard time getting to pay for ESPN, which gives you a bunch of games per month and a bunch of other stuff.

ESPN and the sports leagues don't have a right to make as much money as they want. They have to operate in a market. In fact, channel bundling is an effort to get out of having to operate in a market. There are about 100 M subscribes of ESPN and about 2/3 don't want it and ESPN charges about $6 per month. That means ESPN brings in about $400 M per month from people that pay for ESPN but don't want it. If things change so that those people no longer have to pay that money ESPN can try to get more than $6 per month from the people that do like ESPN but there's no guarantee they'll get it.
 
Op2 said:
If they're charging $100 to watch a football game then there's not going to be many people watching football games. I think they could increase their viewership more than five fold by charging $20 per game and end up making more money.

But even $20 per game is too much unless it's a rare, special occasion. I think if you get too far beyond $20 per month you're going to have a hard time getting to pay for ESPN, which gives you a bunch of games per month and a bunch of other stuff.

ESPN and the sports leagues don't have a right to make as much money as they want. They have to operate in a market. In fact, channel bundling is an effort to get out of having to operate in a market. There are about 100 M subscribes of ESPN and about 2/3 don't want it and ESPN charges about $6 per month. That means ESPN brings in about $400 M per month from people that pay for ESPN but don't want it. If things change so that those people no longer have to pay that money ESPN can try to get more than $6 per month from the people that do like ESPN but there's no guarantee they'll get it.
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The reason they are getting that much is because that many people are watching it. The cable companies have to balance price vs lost of subscribers. So there is a market pricing. In addition no one mentions that cable companies get local ad time to sell. That offsets some of the subscriber fee. So networks charge no subscriber fee but keep all ad time. The advertising is also effected with bundling. For example ESPN has a big game. A person might turn on for just that game. That more ad revenue. With out bundling that revenue is lost.
 
PSU_Nut said:
The reason they are getting that much is because that many people are watching it. The cable companies have to balance price vs lost of subscribers. So there is a market pricing. In addition no one mentions that cable companies get local ad time to sell. That offsets some of the subscriber fee. So networks charge no subscriber fee but keep all ad time. The advertising is also effected with bundling. For example ESPN has a big game. A person might turn on for just that game. That more ad revenue. With out bundling that revenue is lost.
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The problem is, the cable companies don't set the price. The priced is forced higher every year by networks demanding higher fees. The cable companies don't like it but in the end they accept the fees and pass them on to their customers. Comcast knows full well that as the price of extended basic gets too high, people will drop cable -- but they don't really control the price.

It amounts to third party pricing -- a little like health care. If your doctor raised prices 30% and you were paying the bill, you might shop around for another doctor. But instead that price increase just gets built into your health insurance premium and you can't do anything to stop it.

Only with a cable bill, you're not talking about a necessity. When the price of extended basic cable gets too high, you start to leak subscribers. You get cable cutters (which, for the most part is a misnomer -- young people who never had cable in the first place are not cable cutters). Young people are not paying for cable (they have grown up thinking they don't have to pay for any media) -- meanwhile at the other end, people who have subscribed to cable for 30 years are dying off.

The shrinkage is very very rapid. The most common cable networks (ESPN, TNT, Weather, CNN) are shrinking 1 percent a year or more. They're responding by trying to raise prices on remaining subscribers, which aggravates the problem.

Meanwhile, Comcast is clearly not interested in shrinking. When push comes to shove, they would rather abandon the bundle than shrink 1 or 2 percentage points a year. They'll push ESPN and TNT overboard rather than let them weigh down the whole ship.

Anyway, all I'm saying is, whether you like bundling or not, it is coming to an end. And that is going to have a big impact on sports television and sports itself.
 
Cable is losing lots of ground with the younger generation. So many people I know, including myself, have either dropped cable or just switched to a local cable package that only offers 20sh channels. With netflix, hulu, etc there are so many streaming options available. And if you're big into football, for example, the best NFL games are on network TV. Many of the best cfb games are as well. Yes, 3/4 of PSUs games fall on cable nowadays, but you figure you're actually in the stands for a number of those. And you can just go to the local bar for the rest. In my area of MD (Crofton) there's a Greene turtle right down the road. They have 4-5 big screens in an outside patio along with numerous big screens inside. I can watch any PSU game there with the purchase of a sandwich and beer. If you think aboubt it....you'd already be spending the $$ on food/drinks. Now you do it while watching the games without the cable bill. Yes, I have a nice big screen in my basement but I bought that damn thing 4 years ago and am not tied to it. It might get turned on a few times a month. Terrible use of funds in retrospect, but nice to have for big events.
 
The future is definitely IPTV.

Pay x dollars per month for internet. Add in your media subscriptions, then add sports subscriptions (i.e. the B1G package).....in the end, the consumer pays more.

But, it's definitely coming. In 10-15 years, cable companies as we know them will only represent baby boomers and be looked at much like AM radio is today.
 
I probably watch an avg of 4 hours of programming a week, and half of that is so I can grab a little entertainment while playing with my young son. Once he's in bed I play catch-up on things that require more focused attention. A la carte style plans would be great for me. I'd love to lower my bill by $40/month.
 
psuguy04 said:
The future is definitely IPTV.

Pay x dollars per month for internet. Add in your media subscriptions, then add sports subscriptions (i.e. the B1G package).....in the end, the consumer pays more.

But, it's definitely coming. In 10-15 years, cable companies as we know them will only represent baby boomers and be looked at much like AM radio is today.
Click to expand...

I think you are under estimating the number of people who will just drop services or channels to save money. When it's all said and done people will pay less but they will also get less.
 
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Not a dime. My life is simply more interesting as it is without ESPN or Cable TV for that matter. I lack a need for channel surfing as an alternative to entertainment.
 
That will be subject to the laws of supply and demand. If people won't pay $36, they will have to lower the price.
Or people will pay it but only during, say, football season.
 
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