Why not a buffet plan for TV providers?

[The Mystery Machine]

OK, you're all going to be annoyed with me, but I love the buffet of cable TV. Yeah, it costs a heck of a lot of money, but I love having the ability to watch lots of different types of programming. I love sports. I love movies. I love sitcoms and dramas and every kind of cooking show. I love investigative shows. My 89 year old dad loves the old movies he can watch. Any time I've had a problem, I call them, they either fix it remotely or they came and fix it. And when we went to digital cable a few years ago, I installed the boxes myself and it took about 15 minutes total. Just added DVR the other day and loving the heck out of that too.

I am with you. I love the "buffet of shows".

And leave my Grade B Sy Fy alone! Who does not like a little "Stonehenge Apocalypse" from time to time.

 

[Nayan]

You're assuming it is because the network is somehow "bad" when in reality it would most heavily impact those with a niche market. Disney Jr, which only appeals to a narrow age demographic. Sci-Fi or Ovation, which appeal to a particular set of cultural interests. CMT, which obviously only matters to country music fans. What a pay-per-channel system would do is limit the offerings to only those with the most broad-based appeal. And because the funding/advertising success would have to come before program development it would also hurt channels that started niche but became popular - for example, AMC probably wouldn't have survived long enough as a niche channel showing old movies to grow into the network that put out Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, and Mad Men.

Also, it would make it much harder to discover new shows. I never really watched AMC until Walking Dead... so if we were paying per channel I wouldn't have had it to get hooked on that new show. Same with FX and Justified, BBC-America and Broadchurch, etc.

100% agree with everything you said. I know folks watch things like Teen Mom, Duck Dynasty, etc. but those are shows/channels I have no interest in. I do watch Syfy for those awful movies (I am a huge cheesy movie lover), BBC America, AMC, History and a few other niche channels. I would be very unhappy if they went away.

 

[Laura66]

I love the buffet of shows as well!

 

[DWGal210]

You're assuming it is because the network is somehow "bad" when in reality it would most heavily impact those with a niche market. Disney Jr, which only appeals to a narrow age demographic. Sci-Fi or Ovation, which appeal to a particular set of cultural interests. CMT, which obviously only matters to country music fans. What a pay-per-channel system would do is limit the offerings to only those with the most broad-based appeal. And because the funding/advertising success would have to come before program development it would also hurt channels that started niche but became popular - for example, AMC probably wouldn't have survived long enough as a niche channel showing old movies to grow into the network that put out Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, and Mad Men.

Also, it would make it much harder to discover new shows. I never really watched AMC until Walking Dead... so if we were paying per channel I wouldn't have had it to get hooked on that new show. Same with FX and Justified, BBC-America and Broadchurch, etc.

100% agree with everything you said. I know folks watch things like Teen Mom, Duck Dynasty, etc. but those are shows/channels I have no interest in. I do watch Syfy for those awful movies (I am a huge cheesy movie lover), BBC America, AMC, History and a few other niche channels. I would be very unhappy if they went away.

I understand what you're saying and that makes sense. But - and not trying to be argumentative, just inquiring - do we think that a show like Breaking Bad wouldn't have become as popular as it did if people had to purchase that network when they didn't already have it in their pre-purchased line up? Perhaps people would have missed the first season or part of it, but when the buzz was going around the channel would have had a big boom in subscribers, I would think. But who knows.

I also like more "obscure" networks - I watch some of the big shows but I also like History, Investigation Discovery, etc. (I'm a sucker for a true crime / whodunit show ) If there was an a la carte situation, I personally would keep those channels but get rid of the 25 ESPN/sports channels that I never ever watch.

But to your earlier point, I can see that if we were always a la carte it would have been a harder road for those smaller/niche stations to get a leg up. It would have to grow more by word of mouth and recommendation, vs people stumbling upon the shows that they then grew to love.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I clarified in an earlier post - what I should have said, and what I meant - is that the TV business model has not changed, or has changed very little. Of course technology has changed - but it seems the way the TV industry structures their business has changed very little in the past 50+ years.

I think it has morphed.

The commercial has changed, paid programming came about, the movie theater experience is different.

They are watching what you watch and adjusting accordingly. They are even making programming direct to internet.

This isn't the 1960s network boardroom.

It isn't even what it was in the 1990s.

In end, the result is for you to watch something so the powers that be profit from you doing that. That hasn't changed because that is what the product is. But how they get you to keep doing that has changed.

 

[Missy1961]

I am with you. I love the "buffet of shows".

And leave my Grade B Sy Fy alone! Who does not like a little "Stonehenge Apocalypse" from time to time.

I love the buffet of shows as well!

thank you! I was starting to think I was alone!

 

[pryncess527]

I understand what you're saying and that makes sense. But - and not trying to be argumentative, just inquiring - do we think that a show like Breaking Bad wouldn't have become as popular as it did if people had to purchase that network when they didn't already have it in their pre-purchased line up? Perhaps people would have missed the first season or part of it, but when the buzz was going around the channel would have had a big boom in subscribers, I would think. But who knows.

I'm not the person you quoted, but I think the more likely argument is that AMC would not have been able to survive in business long enough to create a show like Breaking Bad. They existed for years showing old movies before they started developing original programming. I doubt they could have survived for years showing old movies in a subscription/a la carte model.

 

[DWGal210]

I'm not the person you quoted, but I think the more likely argument is that AMC would not have been able to survive in business long enough to create a show like Breaking Bad. They existed for years showing old movies before they started developing original programming. I doubt they could have survived for years showing old movies in a subscription/a la carte model.

Good point. I agree.

 

[Colleen27]

I understand what you're saying and that makes sense. But - and not trying to be argumentative, just inquiring - do we think that a show like Breaking Bad wouldn't have become as popular as it did if people had to purchase that network when they didn't already have it in their pre-purchased line up? Perhaps people would have missed the first season or part of it, but when the buzz was going around the channel would have had a big boom in subscribers, I would think. But who knows.

I think it wouldn't have gotten made in the first place because the network wouldn't have the revenue to justify a fairly high budget show like that. Only networks with a large established subscriber base would have the resources to develop ambitious new programming and AMC before their recent successes with original programs wouldn't have cleared that hurdle.

 

[ariel71]

I understand what you're saying and that makes sense. But - and not trying to be argumentative, just inquiring - do we think that a show like Breaking Bad wouldn't have become as popular as it did if people had to purchase that network when they didn't already have it in their pre-purchased line up? Perhaps people would have missed the first season or part of it, but when the buzz was going around the channel would have had a big boom in subscribers, I would think. But who knows.

I also like more "obscure" networks - I watch some of the big shows but I also like History, Investigation Discovery, etc. (I'm a sucker for a true crime / whodunit show ) If there was an a la carte situation, I personally would keep those channels but get rid of the 25 ESPN/sports channels that I never ever watch.

But to your earlier point, I can see that if we were always a la carte it would have been a harder road for those smaller/niche stations to get a leg up. It would have to grow more by word of mouth and recommendation, vs people stumbling upon the shows that they then grew to love.

Breaking Bad probably wouldn't have even made it to the screen had AMC not had success with Mad Men. Vince Gilligan has said that he shopped that show around to everyone and got a lot of rejections. And Mad Men might not have existed, providing a base for AMC to take a chance on BrBa, if the station was a la carte and relying on people who already had subscriptions to AMC before they started creating original content.

If you think about it, other than juggernauts like ESPN and HBO that have a wide enough cross-section, most cable stations have some sort of "niche-ness" to them. Other than HBO, I don't watch more than one or two shows on any particular network. I stumbled on Ripper Street but wouldn't have cared enough to subscribe to BBC America just for that one show. That led me to Orphan Black, which is now getting some much-deserved hype, but I still might not have paid money for BBC America had I not been able to watch Orphan Black before committing. The Americans is the only show I watch on FX - again, wouldn't subscribe just to watch that. I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy many of the shows on Showtime, but I'm not willing to pay for both that and HBO. I think we'd end up with very limited content if everything was subscription-based.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

I am with you. I love the "buffet of shows".

And leave my Grade B Sy Fy alone! Who does not like a little "Stonehenge Apocalypse" from time to time.

How could I have forgotten Stonehenge Apocalypse in my list?

I know what you mean - it's kinda sad, isn't it . Thus from the same network that has given us Babylon 5, Farscape and Eureka.

Babylon 5 originally aired on PTEN which was Warner Bros attempt at a 5th network. PTEN's shows, which include Babylon 5, are mothballed for the moment.