DO VIEWERS REALLY NEED A PACKAGE
INCLUDING  HUNDREDS OF STATIONS
THEY’LL IGNORE AND NEVER WATCH?

Would anyone buy a full course meal at lunchtime
if all they wanted was a bowl of soup & crackers?
 
By David Maril
 
New cable stations and networks are being created all the time.

Fox is adding a sports channel. ESPN keeps expanding its empire as its competition grows and is concerned enough to have even brought the unstable Keith Olbermann back to boost ratings.

Al Jazeera America has been launched, adding to the intensity of the 24-hour cable news mentality.

The commercials permeate the TV airwaves fast and furiously promoting the advantages of having cable or satellite service.

All promise digital clarity and hundreds of channel choices.

There’s one big option missing, however. None of the pay television services allow you the privilege to order only what you want. You are restricted to selecting from an assortment of programming packages with flashy and misleading names like premium, gold, platinum, expanded basic and economy.

The cable and satellite providers advertise low monthly fees to get you to sign up. However, those basic packages have a lot of stations but few of the popular selections many of us want. Once you begin examining the stations included in these economy packages, the realization is that you will also have to pay for many offerings you don’t want just to receive the one channel or two you are seeking.

NO INTEREST IN EVER WATCHING

For example, on some systems if you want Turner Classic Movies, you have to upgrade to a package that includes 15 other stations you probably have no interest in ever watching.

By the time you’re through, the monthly cable or satellite bill approaches what people used to pay for rent. We all know some who complain, or brag, about shelling out $200 a month to receive all the stations they want on every TV set in their homes.

But for the majority of us, this is absurd. And, do you really need to be paying for a system that has 200 channels, which include 170 or more you never watch?

I don’t know about you but I never have turned on OXYGEN, QVC, STYLE, WAM, WE, ID, HSN, FUSE, DEST. AMERICA, DIY, and NOGGIN, to name just a few. There are plenty of others I seldom watch, like the Cartoon Network, Disney, and Golf.

Even if you have a big family and five or six people with different tastes watching programs on several television sets, would your household need more than 25 stations?

Imagine if restaurants were run this way. If you just wanted a bowl of soup and maybe a few crackers at lunchtime, you’d have to order a salad, drink, main course and dessert as part of the package. According to cable rules, it wouldn’t be out of the question to force a customer ordering dinner to pay for every main course on the menu just to get the one desired meal.

STATIONS WE NEVER WATCH

There’s no reason why we should be paying for so many stations we never watch.

If you don’t have children, do you really need the Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon channels?

If you are not a sports fan and don’t care about the Orioles, why is MASN lumped in with non-sports stations?

Why should a person who doesn’t have any interest in sports have to help foot the bill for sports fanatics who do want MASN, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, and NBC Sports, which come as a forced part of packages that have non-sports stations?

Why not give customers the option of buying ESPN the same way the major league baseball package is offered? If you want it, buy it.

I’m a big Orioles fan and enjoy following Major League Baseball. I have no qualms about paying for the Major League Baseball Extra Innings package each summer that offers an endless number of baseball broadcasts each day from coast to coast.

If I had to buy MASN separately to make every Orioles game available, I’d do it. This, of course, would be in a pay system where I was only purchasing the specific sports and non-sports stations I wanted.

If I could order my own individual combination, it would be MASN, local stations WJZ, WBAL, WMAR, and WBFF; Extra Innings, several news networks, plus TCM , TNT, USA, A&E, Showtime and the Encore movie stations. Other people would have other preferences.

CONSUMERS WITH STRICTLY DEFINED VIEWING TASTES

It’s OK to offer packages combining stations and group discount prices. And there’s nothing wrong with promoting package deals on movie channels, like HBO and Showtime. However, consumers with very strictly defined viewing tastes should also be allowed to order each station individually, only paying for what they actually watch.

The technology is certainly available to allow customers to order only the stations they want. Heck, with some televisions, a football fan can watch half a dozen games on one screen at the same time.

The big roadblock is the media firms that provide the programming don’t want consumers to have a choice. However, complaints have increased so much the cable and satellite companies are actually putting pressure on the media companies to offer bundling on what viewers want. That would certainly be a step in the right direction.

A big factor in the possibility of this step towards fairness is competition from cheaper web-based alternatives offered by companies like Netflix, Apple and Amazon.

The media programming companies will, of course, fight breaking down the bundling system. Too many channels and stations are owned by too few companies and they want to make sure their less popular programming is included with the stations that are in demand. They like a system where consumers who want a high demand station also have to pay for the ones that aren’t as popular.

Good thing the shoe industry hasn’t adopted this strategy. If it did, you’d have to buy five types of unpopular footwear just to purchase the shoes you wanted.
 
davidmaril@hermanmaril.com
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.
 
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