OT: Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013

[crisper57]

I know this could easily go in P and R, but there is one provision that directly impacts the NFL. Senator McCain introduced the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013 last week. In it, TV subscribers would be able to choose channels a la carte, rather than paying for bundled programming that they don't want. One of the other provisions in the Act also takes aim at the NFL blackout rule:

Lastly, McCain's bill also calls for elimination of the sports blackout rule which prohibits a local TV station from showing an NFL game that is going on in its market if the event is not sold out. McCain wants to gut that rule for any team whose stadium was funded with taxpayer dollars.

"When the venue in which these sporting events take place has been the beneficiary of taxpayer funding, it is unconscionable to deny those taxpayers who paid for it the ability to watch the games on television when they would otherwise be available," McCain said.

So I'd like to discuss this from the football perspective. Is this Act a good thing or a bad thing? If it passes as is, will U of P sellouts become a thing of the past? Or will it eventually help grow NFL Team brands that are continually blacked out right now?

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-mccain-cable-20130509,0,2224732.story

 

[Mulli]

Way to get after important issues!

 

[BigRedRage]

I am not sure why this is congresses business. I am all for pay per channel plans though.

Also - the blackout rule is interesting, its one thing I could see a need for congress. the rest is a private market issue.

PS: next election cycle he will change his mind and want amnesty for all cable companies.

 

[crisper57]

I am not sure why this is congresses business. I am all for pay per channel plans though.

Also - the blackout rule is interesting, its one thing I could see a need for congress. the rest is a private market issue.

PS: next election cycle he will change his mind and want amnesty for all cable companies.

This has to be a Congressional issue because only Congress can regulate interstate commerce. If Disney, for example, forces cable providers (and by extension, consumers) to buy a bundle of ABC, ABC Family, A&E, Disney Channel, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, and ESPN News; and that is considered to be unfair in some way, then only Congress has the power to intervene.

As for the blackout rule, I wonder if a state could tell the NFL it wasn't allowed, given that the blackout would only impact residents in a single state. It'll be interesting to watch it play out.

I think the blackout rule has run its course and should be lifted, regardless.

 

[BigRedRage]

good points - I wonder too, how it could be administered? You would need some sort of set top box do display the channels, they cant just beam espn exclusively to my television.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

Way to get after important issues!

This seems pretty important. Not gun control or immigration important, but important enough.

 

[EndZone]

good points - I wonder too, how it could be administered? You would need some sort of set top box do display the channels, they cant just beam espn exclusively to my television.

Its talking about cable companies, so you would still need to get service from one of them...i.e. DirecTV, Cox, but your packaging would be different. Instead of getting the Basic, etc, etc, Premier. You would order channels al la carte. I think it would be great, but I assume those channels that everyone wants...ESPN would be more expensive than others.

 

[BigRedRage]

Its talking about cable companies, so you would still need to get service from one of them...i.e. DirecTV, Cox, but your packaging would be different. Instead of getting the Basic, etc, etc, Premier. You would order channels al la carte. I think it would be great, but I assume those channels that everyone wants...ESPN would be more expensive than others.

id still be interested in that - there are very few chanels I would care to have. otherwise, stick to my netflix/hulu combo i use now.

 

[crisper57]

I want an amendment to the bill that requires NFL Sunday Ticket to be offered by all providers.

 

[CardsFan88]

The cable box can determine what channels you have access to. So if anything they'd just have to rewrite each channel as a tier.

One interesting note is how some franchises...cough...Yankees...cough...force anyone who gets cable in NYC to pay $3-4 a month (though this was like five years ago so maybe more now) to buy their channel. You HAD to buy it.

Not sure about the Dodgers. But this could keep some big market teams from getting all that insane extra revenue.

So in a roundabout way this could help keep some teams from spending uber money because suddenly they lose a couple million paying customers.

 

[EndZone]

I want an amendment to the bill that requires NFL Sunday Ticket to be offered by all providers.

There are other providers?? Never heard of them.

 

[Azlen]

This is one of those things that could be very costly for sports fans.
Channels like ESPN that are on the basic tier are subsidized by non-sports fans. Essentially everyone who subscribes to cable or satellite is charged for ESPN. If everything became a la carte then non sports fans would not have to pay for sports programming any longer and that would mean that sports fans could end up paying more. I would want to understand what the price of the channels that I want to watch would be before I be in favor of this legislation.

 

[CardsFan88]

This is one of those things that could be very costly for sports fans.
Channels like ESPN that are on the basic tier are subsidized by non-sports fans. Essentially everyone who subscribes to cable or satellite is charged for ESPN. If everything became a la carte then non sports fans would not have to pay for sports programming any longer and that would mean that sports fans could end up paying more. I would want to understand what the price of the channels that I want to watch would be before I be in favor of this legislation.

I see where you are coming from, but overall it wouldn't work like that.

You see, you WOULD be paying more than the 'avg' of what you normally pay. So if it's like 3 bucks a month, maybe it would go up to 6 or 10 even.

But then you'd get rid of the Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, and other channels like that and you'd end up paying less. Most people only watch 10 percent of the channels they get or thereabouts. Maybe another 10 percent on blue moon occasions. So even if you only bought 1/2 of those channels at 20-30 percent more per channel rate, you'd still save money.

It really hurts the smaller niche channels. Like what G4TV used to be and the d-bag channel that is replacing it esquire network. Or other niches like LOGO, or the tail end of various networks like your 4th Nickelodeon channel, or MTV, etc.


Of course who knows decades from now after yearly increases.

 

[crisper57]

I also want my ala carte option to include partial channels. For instance, I want CBS when the NFL is on, but I want it blocked with Two and a Half Men/Big Bang Theory are serving up their latest sucktastic half-hours. Can't risk even flipping over those shows by accident.

 

[Azlen]

I see where you are coming from, but overall it wouldn't work like that.

You see, you WOULD be paying more than the 'avg' of what you normally pay. So if it's like 3 bucks a month, maybe it would go up to 6 or 10 even.

But then you'd get rid of the Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, and other channels like that and you'd end up paying less. Most people only watch 10 percent of the channels they get or thereabouts. Maybe another 10 percent on blue moon occasions. So even if you only bought 1/2 of those channels at 20-30 percent more per channel rate, you'd still save money.


Of course who knows decades from now after yearly increases.

Maybe. And that's why I would want to understand the pricing first.
Sports programming is probably the most expensive part of the cable bill and one of the few types of programming that could get people to pay for. There exists the distinct possibility that the increase in costs for sports programming could be more than the savings of the channels I and my wife and kids, don't watch. Most of the channels that people would want to pay for, we probably watch and that could end up being more expensive than what it is today.

 

[52brandon]

This seems pretty important. Not gun control or immigration important, but important enough.

do you really think so? I'd say television pricing and billing is pretty far from important at the moment

healthcare, immigration, tax reform, national budget, aid to countries that hate us/don't deserve it, sending jobs overseas, degradation of the constitution, the failed "2-party" system, the joke of an election process, term-limits, government transparency, accountability, the failed war on drugs and the confusion it has created today (the legality of pot for instance), privately owned central banks, privately owned prisons, free wars (once upon a time the victor was paid reparations. Now we just went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq to piss away trillions of dollars as well as tens of thousands of US service-people's, as well as our allies, and millions of Iraqi/Afghan lives), just off the top of my head are things I find FAR more important than congress getting involved in the breakdown of TV channel billing



but on the subject of blackouts. I doubt it'll have much impact. With the simplification of access thanks to the internet, you can watch any game anywhere for free anyways. I go to games because I love the atmosphere of being there live, not because I'm afraid of it being blacked out

 

[HotSauce]

Maybe. And that's why I would want to understand the pricing first.
Sports programming is probably the most expensive part of the cable bill and one of the few types of programming that could get people to pay for. There exists the distinct possibility that the increase in costs for sports programming could be more than the savings of the channels I and my wife and kids, don't watch. Most of the channels that people would want to pay for, we probably watch and that could end up being more expensive than what it is today.

You know that's a very good point. Those guys are going to get their money one way or the other.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

do you really think so? I'd say television pricing and billing is pretty far from important at the moment

healthcare, immigration, tax reform, national budget, aid to countries that hate us/don't deserve it, sending jobs overseas, degradation of the constitution, the failed "2-party" system, the joke of an election process, term-limits, government transparency, accountability, the failed war on drugs and the confusion it has created today (the legality of pot for instance), privately owned central banks, privately owned prisons, free wars (once upon a time the victor was paid reparations. Now we just went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq to piss away trillions of dollars as well as tens of thousands of US service-people's, as well as our allies, and millions of Iraqi/Afghan lives), just off the top of my head are things I find FAR more important than congress getting involved in the breakdown of TV channel billing



but on the subject of blackouts. I doubt it'll have much impact. With the simplification of access thanks to the internet, you can watch any game anywhere for free anyways. I go to games because I love the atmosphere of being there live, not because I'm afraid of it being blacked out

Because we are in a football forum that talks about football, absolutely. In the grand scheme of things, not as much.

 

[coyoteshockeyfan]

Little over $5 of your monthly cable bill goes directly to ESPN for the main channel. Most other channels get dimes and quarters, if that. The biggest chunk of the cable bill is for the logistics of bringing the content rather than the content itself, so going to an a la carte system with your favorite 20 channels or so instead of 200 probably isn't going to save a whole lot of money. Still would have some nice benefits though, like not having to wade through endless useless channels.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-30/espn-everywhere-sports-profit-network

 

[NJCardFan]

I want an amendment to the bill that requires NFL Sunday Ticket to be offered by all providers.

This. Why DirectTV has a monopoly on this is ridiculous. I know it's offered on PS3 but you can only get it if you are in an area where you cannot get DirectTV. I have Verizon Fios and have access to MLB, NHL, NBA, and even MLS packages but not NFL. As for the blackout question, I don't get it. When I lived in Tucson, I could never get Cardinals games because they were blacked out even though Tucson and Tempe are about 115 miles apart. However, living in South Jersey about 50 miles from Philly, we couldn't get Philly games that were blacked out but I could get them if I was at the shore or watching the NBC affiliate that's out of Wildwood.

 

[cardpa]

Since they already have a system in place to selectively select a movie or a PPV event and automatically bill you for it, I see no reason why they cant have a system in place where you just go into your box and select each channel you want to pay for and that becomes your channel lineup and it shows up on your monthly bill.

You should be able to pick on a specific channel see what it costs per month and then say yea or nay, then move on to the next channel to select.

 

[ARZCardinals]

I agree with McCain on this one

If tax payer pay for the stadium you have no right to block them out.

Here pay for my car...no you can't have a ride...buy a ticket

Re: TV our family cut direct tv 3-4 months ago. We don't miss it one bit. We have an Apple TV and use Netflix. Our son does t sit around watching cartoons anymore he's more active and playing. Any sports I see through first row online if need be. I find myself not watching games I could care less about just because they are on. Glad we cut the cord and now pocketing the $

 

[BigRedRage]

I agree with McCain on this one

If tax payer pay for the stadium you have no right to block them out.

Here pay for my car...no you can't have a ride...buy a ticket

kinda like the light rail?

 

[CardsFan88]

Well it all depends on what you get.

If people get 'basic' cable then there isn't much to cut out.

But for people that get basic, sport/info tier, movie tier (like encore), variety tier, and I think theirs another one....then you basically have hundreds of channels.

Also another interesting thing is if it's split between HD and regular channels.

Some people might just want HD channels. Others might want to keep the SD version just in case the HD feed goes out (which I've seen happen quite a few times over the past ~10 years and luckily had a SD version to switch to like fox, cbs, espn).

So the more channels you have the more you 'save'. The fewer you have the less channels to cut to save.

Still though there's probably quite a few channels people don't watch even for basic cable. You could probably save about a buck a channel for basic. Most 'tiers' are about 6-7 dollars.

I also wonder how it would affect the premium channels. Like the HBO tier. Starz tier. Shotime tier. Cinemax/TMC tier. Would these still be tiers or would you have to start buying them separately too.

I bet there will still be 'bundles', they just also have to have the option of paying per channel.

I must say it's pretty disgusting that cable and the 3rd tier internet still costs over $200 a month. If I was to go up to the fastest internet and add phone with cox I bet it would be over $300 a month.

Also I would agree alot of it has to do with cable infrastructure. The amount the cable company receives won't go down in terms of their profit and ability to pay for the infrastructure plus management overhead, dividends, etc. Where the savings occurs is directly a result of a bunch of stations don't get paid. It wouldn't surprise me to see a bunch of stations be gone a few years after this was implemented.

So it's not the cable company getting screwed, they'll get the same cut, even if their numbers go down. I.E. revenue is down 40 percent but profits up 10 percent type thing. Because that 40 percent less isn't going to MTV10 the snookie channel.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

I agree with McCain on this one

If tax payer pay for the stadium you have no right to block them out.

Here pay for my car...no you can't have a ride...buy a ticket

Re: TV our family cut direct tv 3-4 months ago. We don't miss it one bit. We have an Apple TV and use Netflix. Our son does t sit around watching cartoons anymore he's more active and playing. Any sports I see through first row online if need be. I find myself not watching games I could care less about just because they are on. Glad we cut the cord and now pocketing the $

I agree with McCain too, surprisingly.

We did the same (cutting the cord) about 2 years ago. We use Hulu Plus and Netflix. Linder still hates not having cable. I absolutely love saving $100 a month.