2009.08.02
NRV Editorial: Cable competition
Invite cable TV competition
Radford and Blacksburg should stop awarding monopolies to cable companies.
Radford City Council has had it with JetBroadband, the cable television provider in the city. It owes the city $50,000 and does not want to pay, so the council will consider revoking its exclusive license to provide cable. If it comes to that, and it probably should, the city would need a new cable provider.
Meanwhile, Blacksburg is renegotiating its license agreement with Comcast. That, too, is exclusive.
As the two towns negotiate licenses, they should reject government-enforced monopolies. Non-exclusive license agreements would serve citizens better.
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Kill your television.
(Ok OK but only to play DVD's and such).
Kill your catv connection.
Comment by MrRational — August 2, 2009 @ 11:16 am
Update:
Received an e-mail from Blacksburg's attorney this morning. He points out that the Blacksburg cable franchise is, in fact, non-exclusive. The town provided incorrect information last week.
Comment by C. Trejbal — August 2, 2009 @ 11:47 am
Citizens deserve choices. Currently, there's no option for selective channel packages.
NO need (for most) for 150 'cooking' channels.
How about, if one desires to view certain venues, offering an individual's favorite 25 channels (or less) @a moderate cost.
Education, political awareness, entertainment...there's much needed to offer folks what THEY want, rather than 'packages' that are virtual subscriber-paid ads for 'belly floppers' and cooking tips.
Choices; that's the option that should be offered. I feel that many companies will falter, due to exhorbitant prices, if something doesn't change.
For instance, I need education/nature/news oriented programming. I HAVE to buy useless programming packages.
I will be cancelling my satellite beam soon, due to overpricing; one can only recieve the channels they NEED (for work-related duties, etc.), IF they subscribe to certain packages. I will have to record certain programs from my workplace.
Unfortunately, NO ONE offers a selective package: it's time for change.
I get the feeling that, somehow, they're all 'connected'...is there a virtual monopoly of providers, knowing that similar NON-OPTION packages is all there is available?
Comment by Know Nothing — August 2, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
@KN:"I get the feeling that, somehow, they're all 'connected'...is there a virtual monopoly of providers, knowing that similar NON-OPTION packages is all there is available?"
sorta like with Oil?
sorta like with Medicine?
curious minds go hmmm...
As to KN's point... there are still technology limits to allow ala carte menu choices quite yet. But this consumer desire has instead been twisted into more and more pay per views.
If the cable co can get enough pay per view billing out of a neighborhood then there is no reason to NOT load them up with the whole 300 channel package and let them (this is the important part KN) let them edit their remote to ignore the 275 channels that subscriber doesn't want to even know exists. PITA for you but the cost is the same to the CATV Co. and most families prefer it that way.
Comment by MrRational — August 2, 2009 @ 12:54 pm
We're keeping our dish service, because we don't pay any more for the service today than we paid for a lesser service 5 years ago when we first set up our account. We now have HD locals, a better DVR, and a few more channels, so it's a good deal from our perspective. Though, we only really watch about a dozen of the 200 channels. If we could pick & choose, we'd do it and just get locals, a couple sports, learning, and maybe a weather channel. But, we get them now, so we'll stick with it for the time being.
Comment by Other John — August 2, 2009 @ 1:24 pm
As there is no benefit to the community via an exclusive contract, they should be banned. Any and all cable providers should be aware that excessive and needless rate increases and instances of poor service will have repercussions. Competition should keep rates in check, if there is real competition.
Comment by Just Saying... — August 2, 2009 @ 8:31 pm
Lots of folks are opting to unlimited DVD-only low-cost options and their antenna. I know a lot of people that have opted to go that route, especially households with children that want certain movies.
I stick with my opinion that the possible faltering of certain cable and satellite companies could be on the horizon, due to lower customer participation.
Yes, oil and medicine are good examples of 'related centralized control(?)' that might be in-place. I know that Direct TV ot Dish, for example, once wanted to buy out the other. Perhaps they 'made a deal.'
It costs about $70.00 monthly to get very much more than channels that sell goods, etc.(that's about $100, counting income taxes, etc.) Everyone has their own needs, but when educational, political, and entertainment are one's needs, the $29.95 packages are useless. The DVD/antenna combination costs about 1/8th of the $70.00 deal.
There's little competition. While I'm against tariffs that are too low, costing Americans jobs, I guess this is one area of concern that I wish the Chinese would address: launch another one of their orbital satellites that would compete with the few choices we have. Sure, they would have to pay 'rights' fees, but I think that deal could easily be negotiated.
While Americans are opting (forced?) to eat out less, for example, perhaps the Pay Per View will be relegated to the mailable DVD options.
Supermarket sales are up, and so is the mailable DVD business.
Comment by Know Nothing — August 2, 2009 @ 10:05 pm
We pay for access to the Internet when we dont use every website, dont we? If you still have a POTS line, you pay for access to every local number even if you dont call them, right?
Do you have any idea how much price per channel programming would skyrocket once all the national channels suddenly were whittled down to about 10 most popular ones? Others like ABCfamily, 2 or 3 disney/nick chans, amc, and others would fold pretty quickly unless they were part of a package deal. Advertisers realize that, although not that many people would choose to add abcfamily or amc ala carte, there are 70 or 80 million households 'potentially' being reached because that particular channel they are paying to advertise on is included in certain companies basic packages.
Comment by Marked Man (Mark) — August 3, 2009 @ 9:04 am