Re: FCC's "a la carte" study - 14 channels for less than the price of 60


obveeus@xxxxxxx wrote:
> WQ wrote:
> > Obveeus wrote:
> > > Same difference - only you've cut out 140 channels that each might have only
> > > one show per month worth watching...but now you don't have the option of
> > > watching any of those 140 shows and you still pay the same price. Sounds
> > > like a pretty crappy deal you are offering.
> >
> > --- Oh, come on. 140 hours per month adds up to almost 5 hours a day!
>
> Did I say that you had to watch every one of those shows? Nope. What
> I said was that just having one show worth watching in an entire month
> from each of those channels would cause you to lose 140 shows worth
> watching. Given the variety of programming on cable, that loss is
> understated.

--- Well, what's the point of saying that you can lose 140 shows if
there's no intention to watch them all? You only lose them if you know
that you want to watch them all but can't because you don't have the
channels, otherwise it's not a loss.

> > Add at least another 1 or 2 more hours each day for regular network
> > fare and, well ... you do find time to work, don't you?
>
> You do know that the average house has a TV on inside for more than 8
> hours per day, don't you?

--- The operative word is "on," it doesn't mean that people are
actually watching what's on. My set can be on for 10 hours in the
course of a day, but I'd probably end up watching only 3 or 4 of those
hours. And why would my set even be on 10 hours in a day? I don't
know, guess I don't want to miss something. And usually I don't. I
should turn it off and save electricity.

> > You do find
> > time for a social life, don't you? Maybe read, listen to music, clean
> > house, get groceries, work on the car, smell the roses...?
>
> If you want to be a flower sniffer, by all means, sniff flowers. Throw
> your TV away and be free of it once and for all. People do make that
> choice. They are terribly out of touch with society, but they lead
> happy lives. I, myself, see little reason to pay extra for the premium
> tier cable packages because I don't want to make the waste that is TV
> any more tempting than it already is. However, your solution of paying
> the same amount as I do now, but getting 1/10th the programming is just
> plain silly. You can't possibly believe that the majority of people
> want less for the same price.

--- I hate to break this to you, but getting less for the same price
has been going on for decades. Just look at movies. You used to be
able to see a typical 2-hour movie for about $2 in 1975. Now the
average price is over $6 - see
http://www.natoonline.org/statisticstickets.htm. Same 2-hour movie but
you're paying 3 times as much for it. If you still wanted to pay the
same price of $2, then you'd end up watching two-thirds less of the
movie. Consumers can't win, that's not the way it works in a
capitalist society. Illusions are spun to make you think you're
getting more for the same price, but just do a little research and you
find out more often than not, you're not. So the spinning of the
illusion in this case is that sure, you can get 150 channels for $50,
but easily half those channels are ones you know you'll never watch,
and most of what's left you'll probably watch a couple of programs a
month on any number of them. Ultimately, what you're really left with,
which equates with the real value for your money that you should really
be thinking about, are those 10 or 12 or 15 or maybe 20 channels that
you watch most often, whatever they may be. Sure, you have the
convenience of having 130 more channels for the same price as 20 a la
carte, but what's the point of that if 98% of the time you're not going
to watch most of that 130 extra channels because 98% of the time you're
watching the 20 channels you always watch. So how much more are you
really getting for the same price? If you put together all the
programming that you'd really want to watch on those extra 130
channels, they would probably fill only one channel's worth of a full
weekly programming schedule for any given year. That means the other
useless 129 channels are just an illusion of you having "more" for the
same price.

.

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