John McCain wants to blow up the cable industry as we currently know it

[irafreak]

Why don't they consider reducing some of the taxes cable companies pass on to their customers. Have you guys ever looked at all the ridiculous fees that you pay for on your cable bill? About a third of your bill is probably just fees they passed on to you.

Except for the fact that they won't. New fees will be created to compensate...it's an opportunity to profit...they could make a big deal about the savings and give customer's a quarter of it back and pocket the rest and still look like the good guys.

[StPaulHusker]

I don't see this going anywhere. It is good in theory but the cable channels need as many TV sets as possible to make money and put on good programming. Even if most of us can't agree what that would be.

 

If this were to pass. You can say goodbye to all that fat BTN money everyone is so excited about.

[tschu]

Big government blowing up business.

 

Seriously though, I love this. I don't know why it isn't a thing already. Must not be fiscally viable. The free market, I would think, has spoken.

The reason we have to get so many channels packaged together is mainly the large companies that run like 10 or 15 channels that say, oh, you want our premier channel? Well you have to include these dozen lesser channels that nobody else watches. And if you don't, we will only provide our channels to your competitor TV provider. Which is bullsh#t negotiating and probably has nothing to do with bottom-line profitability as a whole

 

This isn't "big government blowing up business" as much as it is "government blowing up big business" ...Monopolies are bad for everyone.

[Husker_x]

As someone who watches my share of TV shows (it's gotten good post-Sopranos), I could care less if cable TV is cancelled. Minus football season, I need nothing but a solid internet connection to get just about everything I want. If I really wanted to, I could probably find a way to stream football for less than the cost of having cable all the year round. The times are a-changin'. Advertising has ruined television. Now that the internet provides so many ways to get uninterrupted content, cable is a dinosaur regardless of what bills they pass.

[strigori]

As someone who watches my share of TV shows (it's gotten good post-Sopranos), I could care less if cable TV is cancelled. Minus football season, I need nothing but a solid internet connection to get just about everything I want. If I really wanted to, I could probably find a way to stream football for less than the cost of having cable all the year round. The times are a-changin'. Advertising has ruined television. Now that the internet provides so many ways to get uninterrupted content, cable is a dinosaur regardless of what bills they pass.

You would see a different world with trying to watch things online. More draconian set ups like those that exist as video game DRM. Pay to stream would be the first part, some would probably require clients to watch so they could better control who is watching. Without the revenue that the carrier fees and advertising generate, shows wouldn't be able to be made, the money to produce has to come from somewhere.

[Enhance]

I'll be interested to see how this develops.

 

As a consumer, I love this idea. I don't pay for cable because it's far too expensive and I don't watch enough TV to justify the cost. But, I wish I could have access to sports channels without having to pay for other channels I don't care about. The fear of course is companies creating a base cost each consumer must pay (which will likely be high) and then charge by channel after that, some channels likely being more expensive than others.

 

The bigger issue is the monopolistic characteristics of companies like Time Warner Cable, Cox, etc. I've had TWC internet for the last 10 months, and I've had poor customer service experiences. They've screwed up service appointments several times, and after brief research online, I've noticed both of these companies have rough customer service histories. There's very little competition in areas like Lincoln which allows them to do what they want, charge what they want and tell the consumer 'too bad.' A lack of competition breeds poor customer care.

[tschu]

Right. At the end of the day the biggest cable channels like ESPN and TBS and A&E might cost like $10/mo each which would destroy the hopes you had of it being cheaper. Cable companies make such massive profit though; they're like oil companies - jack up the prices because we can't do anything about it and make billions of dollars

[strigori]

Like I said, congress would be better off force breaking the monopolies. If companies like Verizon, with FiOS, didn't have to sue their way into markets, there would be a lot more competition. If cable companies had to abide by the same rules for wire usage that phone companies do, you would have a whole different world.

 

http://gizmodo.com/5830956/why-the-government-wont-protect-you-from-getting-screwed-by-your-cable-company

[Moiraine]

All I want is HBO.

[knapplc]

All I want is HBO.

 

I have six months free HBO because TWC screwed up my DVR.

 

Now I'd like time to watch that free HBO. I barely have an hour at a time to watch TV anymore, let alone two hours to watch a movie.

[QMany]

I want HBO but can't justify the cost. Without Entourage, I can't spend the money on it. I get free Starz, that gives me my movie fix.

[ZRod]

All I want is HBO.

 

I have six months free HBO because TWC screwed up my DVR.

 

Now I'd like time to watch that free HBO. I barely have an hour at a time to watch TV anymore, let alone two hours to watch a movie.

Game of Throwns is less than two hours, try it!

[strigori]

Forbes agrees with me.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2013/05/14/senator-mccains-cable-tv-bill-targets-sports-fans-but-would-be-bad-for-everyone/?partner=yahootix

 

It’s a lousy bill for consumers because it would cause cable prices to increase.

[Saunders]

The problem with this (and I like the idea in theory) is everyone assuming they'll just stream whatever they want. I guarantee if that happens, you'll see ludicrous bandwidth caps overnight. Stuff like Netflix is poorly encoded and you'll hit a modest cap pretty fast.

[strigori]

The problem with this (and I like the idea in theory) is everyone assuming they'll just stream whatever they want. I guarantee if that happens, you'll see ludicrous bandwidth caps overnight. Stuff like Netflix is poorly encoded and you'll hit a modest cap pretty fast.

I doubt bandwidth caps are what you see. Odds are you see everything going to something of a subscription basis, like Netflix, but ESPNOnline, BTNOnline or whatever, all charging monthly fees. If you are lucky they let it go through a web browser rather than a dedicated client. And you had better hope people don't decide to start using a recent Microsoft patent to turn pay per view into pay per viewer..