How Cable Should Be

Update @ 1:10pm CST, 06.05.09: If you’re upset about the Playboy mess and what happened to Tommy Christopher, you might want to consider putting some of that energy into supporting cable choice. Read on.

Update @ 10:06am EST, 06.08.09: Is Hulu trying to take over the world? Maybe. But it’s definitely giving cable a push.

Citing the (surprise!) offensive MTV Awards, which aired on Sunday, the Parents Television Council (PTC) is ramping up their efforts to advocate cable choice, as part of a campaign called “How Cable Should Be.” In short, cable choice is just that–how cable should be–offering consumers the ability to pick and choose which cable channels they want to view, and which they do not.

In this case, the PTC makes a great case. The MTV Awards’ rating indicated that the content was suitable for 14-year-olds, and yet the program was chock-full of the usual antics, including–but not limited to–a bizarre rear end stunt and a brand new “WTF Award.” (Mom and Dad: WTF stands for What The F*ck.)

Now, if anyone knows that MTV’s content is likely to cross the line, it’s the PTC. What makes this newsworthy is the fact that cable customers are forced to subsidize this kind of programming.

“Sure,” you’re thinking, “but what’s a few cents a month?” It’s a lot.

According to the PTC press release:

“By our estimates, every cable subscriber in America pays about 80 cents per month for MTV, whether they want the network or not. And while 80 cents may not sound like much money, just do the math: 80 cents per month times 12 months per year times 96 million cable homes equals about a billion dollars per year, every year.”

It’s worth pointing out now that I’m not a cable customer myself. I recently moved to a new apartment and decided to skip on cable to save some money, because I certainly don’t have the time or desire to watch $80-worth of cable each month. Instead, I signed up for Netflix and watch some TV shows online. I’m also reading, writing and cooking more. As Martha would say, “It’s a good thing.” Long story short, even if you love MTV in all its vulgar glory, there’s a place for you in the PTC campaign for cable choice. An á la carte option would appeal to a customer like me who really only wants to pay for cable news and Lifetime (don’t laugh; I love “Army Wives”).

Interested to see how the PTC would respond to this thinking–surely I wasn’t the first to think that cable choice appeals to a broader audience than concerned parents–I sent the following brief comment to Tim Winter, president of PTC:

It seems to me that the “How Cable Should Be” campaign not only represents the best interest of families with content concerns, but also is just good business. At a time where more and more people are subscribing to Netflix and watching TV via the Internet to save money, offering more flexible programming options might be the only viable way for the cable companies to stay in business. It could be a win-win situation; the cable companies might lose less customers looking to save money or control the content available to their families and families everywhere could rest easy that their money would not support networks they deem offensive or, frankly, uninteresting.

Mr. Winter’s gracious response appears below:

Katie –

Your point about the strategic business need to offer unbundled programming is an excellent one. In the not-too-distant future, the cable industry, like the broadcast industry before it, will be forced to adapt as their audience shifts to alternate distribution platforms where individual TV episodes can be consumed outside of a traditional network program schedule. They will need to offer consumer-friendly services to remain competitive, and this may very well include some level of á la carte service. After all, most television viewers are loyal to the specific programs they watch, not a particular network.

But in the meantime the cable industry is resolved in its refusal to allow something so consumer-friendly as Cable Choice. The industry’s immediate ability to force their subscribers to pay for massive quantities of unwanted product is so lucrative that they are spending countless millions to defend it. You are correct: an unbundled programming option might bring millions more subscribers to the table. But the cable industry’s financial analysts have calculated that they make more money in the immediate term by forcing the program bundle onto the current subscriber base than they would by selling fewer networks to a larger customer base. The cable programmer conglomerates, like Viacom, NBC-Universal, News Corp and Disney, force all their distributors – cable operators (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Charter, etc.), satellite providers (DirecTV, Dish, etc.), and now telephone companies (AT&T, Viacom, etc.) – to carry all their networks. And they usually demand the distributors proved programming in the same bundled tiers of networks. This assures them of lucrative and reliable revenue streams without having to spend a penny on traditional consumer marketing that every other industry requires in order for a customer to purchase their product.

Every attempt by the national consumer organizations to get the cable industry to unbundle their networks, and every attempt by the government to encourage or force the cable industry to unbundle their networks, has been undermined by the self-serving interests of an industry that reaps a huge economic benefit from the forced bundle. Whenever legislation is proposed in Congress, the cable industry immediately opens its wallets and doles out millions of dollars in campaign contributions and lobbying pressure. And almost as immediately, debate on the issue ceases. And when the Federal Communications Commission recently raised the á la carte issue, the cable industry made contributions to prominent advocacy organizations who railed against the idea as harmful to their social causes. We at the PTC have observed and noted that the only opposition to Cable Choice seems to come from the cable industry and from those who have taken money from the cable industry.

We continue to press for more public awareness of — and activism on — this issue. We continue to press for governmental scrutiny of what we see as patently anti-consumer – and potentially illegal – corporate behavior. And now we are watching the federal courts as they review the potential antitrust aspects of this issue via a class-action lawsuit against the cable industry.

When we go to the Cineplex to watch a movie, we only pay for the movie we want to watch, not for all ten or all twenty films that are being shown there at the Cineplex. When we go to the newsstand to buy a magazine or newspaper, we only pay for the magazine or newspaper we want, not for every magazine or newspaper on the rack. Cable network programming should be the same way.

The fight is not going away. As more Americans become aware of the fact that they are paying for cable products that they don’t want, don’t watch, and may actually find offensive, we believe that the growing tide of public opposition will ultimately lead to the consumer-friendly alternatives you suggest in your opening statement.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Tim

Maybe you’re not convinced that this is how cable should be? Don’t take my word for it: visit HowCableShouldBe.com and see how much money you’d save if you handpicked the channels that interested you. (Additional information available here.)

How the cable companies can solve the problem of notoriously terrible customer service, on the other hand, I cannot hypothesize.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Faith and Family, New and Old Media. The entry is tagged under cable choice, family, Interviews, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.