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Vermont Cable Company Wants Viewers To Subscribe By The Channel, Not The Bundle

by Jon Bershad | 12:43 pm, October 15th, 2010

» 15 comments

Asides from the various news channels, the folks in my apartment only really watch HBO, AMC, and Comedy Central. However, if any of you came over to visit, I’m positive you could sit down and turn on ESPN 32 or Game Show Network Latin (the one broadcast, not in Spanish, but in the actual dead language) because that’s what the cable companies make us get just so I can keep up with Boardwalk Empire. You can all relate, I’m sure. However, a cable company in Vermont is trying to change that by looking for a way to have viewers subscribe by the channel. Can you see that? It’s the future! And, if you can’t see it, it’s probably just because you didn’t want to see it and now you don’t have to pay for it!

The cable company is Vermont Telephone and Advertising Age’s Jim Louderback is reporting that he apparently received the following inspirational missive:

“In a recent letter to customers (disclosure, I am one), he insisted that they ‘should have the legal right to pay less’ for their TV service. ‘We believe that the old cable TV model of making you pay for 250 cable TV channels you don’t want, at prices you can’t afford, is obsolete.’

Guite continues by saying that VTEL thinks its customers have ‘the right to pay for individual TV channels for $1, or $2 or $3 each’, and then obliquely promises to cut household TV bills by 66%. My first thought here is that Guite is tilting at windmills. How does he expect to get Disney, Viacom or any of the other big multichannel programming outlets to offer their networks on an ala carte basis. But then I noticed the use of the words ‘legal right’ in his letter, and realized that perhaps VTEL was taking it to the courts to force ala carte on a recalcitrant industry.”

Man, that letter sounds like the cable company equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount. Louderback goes on to explain why he thinks that, even if VTEL fails, this will happen eventually. In fact, this is something I’ve felt was right on the horizon as well. With HBO testing out online platforms like HBO Go, it just seems like being able to sign up for only the channels you want is an inevitability. However, I’ve always been a bit of a cynic, so it was something I talked about a lot while deep down I wasn’t really sure it was going to happen, kind of like my buddies in college who claimed marijuana was going to get legalized or my teacher in high school who kept discussing when we’d get a black president.

…wait a minute.

You know, aside from our crippling economic troubles, our horribly divided political views, widespread intolerance for certain minorities, and our failing education system, all we need is the flying car and I’d say we’re heading towards a pretty bright future!

Advertising Age, Cable Channels, Cable TV, Jim Louderback, Vermont Telephone

Nahu Tuk

This appears to be the best news I’ve heard in a long time! Finally, the consumer gets to decide whether it wants all the spanish speaking channels, the shopping channels, and all the other channels the vast majority of people don’t watch but pay for just the same.
Moderate

The cable companies get a 10% cut of the junk sold on the shopping channels, so you are stuck with those. I suspect the 5 channels you chose to watch would cost you more than the package. The objective of the cable companies is to make lots of money. CNN and MSNBC would get screwed if people paid by the channels they watched.
TeaPartyPatriot

WOW!!!! That’s FANTASTIC!!!! Just think, NOT having to pay for crap from MSNBC, CNN, BET and the other lunatic-left propaganda outlets and instead pay for ONLY responsible, wholesome, really entertaining and really informative channels. That’s a dream, unfortunately, that most of us still can get thanks to the greed of COMCAST and the other monopolist cable providers who will gouge us as much as as long as they can..
http://www.facebook.com/people/Aloysius-Okon-Jr/1410683584 Aloysius Okon Jr

TeaPartyPatriot said:
WOW!!!! That’s FANTASTIC!!!! Just think, NOT having to pay for crap from MSNBC, CNN, BET and the other lunatic-left propaganda outlets and instead pay for ONLY responsible, wholesome, really entertaining and really informative channels. That’s a dream, unfortunately, that most of us still can get thanks to the greed of COMCAST and the other monopolist cable providers who will gouge us as much as as long as they can..

So TeaPartyPatriot, what “responsible, wholesome, entertaining, and informative” channels would you include in your package?
ReverseFlash

TeaPartyPatriot said:
WOW!!!! That’s FANTASTIC!!!! Just think, NOT having to pay for crap from MSNBC, CNN, BET and the other lunatic-left propaganda outlets and instead pay for ONLY responsible, wholesome, really entertaining and really informative channels. That’s a dream, unfortunately, that most of us still can get thanks to the greed of COMCAST and the other monopolist cable providers who will gouge us as much as as long as they can..

And you sound like a cornball. I guess this means you will only watch Ion, GMC, Fox News, ABC Family, and the Hallmark Channel?
NeoKong

widespread intolerance for certain minorities,

Are you referring to the open hostility Democrats have against women on the right….?
Iris

Teapeepee patriot is crying and whining cause the FREE MARKET CAPITALIST
SYSTEM MAKES HIM PAY FOR STUFF HE DOESN”T WANT!
Lets see how hard would it be to just not buy the product?
BUT THEN YOU COULDN’t COMPLAIN AND WHINE ABOUT
HOW YOU ARE BEING MISTREATED BY LIBERALS WHEN IT IS THE
CAPITALIST SYSTEM YOU LOVE SO MUCH!
Big Eddie

Iris said:
Teapeepee patriot is crying and whining cause the FREE MARKET CAPITALISTSYSTEM MAKES HIM PAY FOR STUFF HE DOESN”T WANT!Lets see how hard would it be to just not buy the product?BUT THEN YOU COULDN’t COMPLAIN AND WHINE ABOUTHOW YOU ARE BEING MISTREATED BY LIBERALS WHEN IT IS THECAPITALIST SYSTEM YOU LOVE SO MUCH!

Quit hollerin’ , man . …http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc9sQoxPxAg
Nahu Tuk

Nahu Tuk said:
This appears to be the best news I’ve heard in a long time! Finally, the consumer gets to decide whether it wants all the spanish speaking channels, the shopping channels, and all the other channels the vast majority of people don’t watch but pay for just the same.

You forgot about Pubic Television and NPR.
Nahu Tuk

Not “You” but “We”
Alric_IV

TeaPartyPatriot said:
WOW!!!! That’s FANTASTIC!!!! Just think, NOT having to pay for crap from MSNBC, CNN, BET and the other lunatic-left propaganda outlets and instead pay for ONLY responsible, wholesome, really entertaining and really informative channels. That’s a dream, unfortunately, that most of us still can get thanks to the greed of COMCAST and the other monopolist cable providers who will gouge us as much as as long as they can..

So, In other words, you’d sign up for only Fox News, and you’d stay willfully an ignoramus for the rest of your days. Well, I guess you could sign up for the sports channels, and whatever channel carries The 700 Club. Ah, the bliss of being jaw-dropping stupid.
antonial

The subscription TV market is Balkanized. Even the big cable companies like Comcast have their franchises fragmented and scattered all over the map. The satellite services have blanket coverage, but still have relatively small shares of the pie. On the other hand, there are only a handful of big networks, and when one negotiates a higher licensing rate with one piece of the subscription service market, they expect to get the same sort of deal from the rest.
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http://www.facebook.com/people/Karla-Stephens/1186468323 Karla Stephens

I would buy this service in a minute.

Currently, I have no television because I refuse to allow FOX and the right wing fake Christians to spew their lies and propaganda into my home. All of our cable companies have that garbage as part of their basic package so buying any package includes the garbage.
Some_Dude

I honestly thought legislation was already pending that prevented cable providers form forced bundling, and had to open up to a la carte choosing.

In the wake of Netflix and Hulu, I’m down to basic cable service with HD HBO (and whatever they tacked onto that), anyways. The only thing I really miss is the Travel Channel and the HD versions of the various science and history focused stations. But they just weren’t the $50-or-so I was paying (because they were arbitrarily squeezed into bundles that included shit I never, ever watched).
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