[opendtv] Re: Pro a la carte, Another Perspective

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 08:08:31 -0500

At 5:14 PM -0500 12/14/07, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:

Tom Barry wrote:


 I think various community affairs programs are already forced
 upon cable one way or another, for free, and would continue to
 do so under a la carte.


Prob'ly so, as you and John point out. But obviously Jonathan Adelstein,
in addressing the 70/70 rule recently, and certain special interest
groups he was siding with, were worried about a la carte. So to me this
says that even if certain channels of limited appeal would be forced on
the cable companies, perhaps there are too many such limited appeal
channels to be properly safeguarded, without the possibility of
bundling.
Virtually ALL cable franchise agreements require that the cable system operate public access channels. As John and others have indicated, this ain't goin away. In Gainesville the public access channel is part of the lifeline bundle, so EVERY cable subscriber gets it.
As for minority access, it does not exist today. Almost all of the channels that serve minorities are owned by the media conglomerates. Jesse Jackson wrote an editorial supporting Adelstein in which he said: 

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/nov/30/guest-column-fcc-rules-would-stifle-minority
Nearly every civil rights organization and virtually every single government and private study have said that per-channel charge regulations would destroy opportunities for new small and minority programmers by depriving them of the scale, market penetration or advertising that programmers can now achieve on the tiered bundle. Per-channel charges would also raise prices for most consumers, according to the studies.
I must as what these opportunities are. I am not aware of ANY minority owned cable channels today OTHER THAN some public access channels developed specifically to provide a minority voice in their community. Yes there are a handful of shows produced by minorities for the conglomerates - just as there are children's shows and other niche content produced for the congloms to meet FCC requirements and to demonstrate that they serve minority communities. The two major cable networks that serve minorities are owned by the six big conglomerates: 

GE  - Telemundo
Viacom - BET
And nearly all of the congloms are offering Spanish language versions of at least some of their entertainment networks.
Jackson singled out Oprah Winfrey as an example of minority ownership. But Oprah did this the old fashioned way - she produced a show that people want to watch - as a result she is one of the highest paid entertainers in the world, making more money than Rush Limbaugh.
ANY minority can get access to "TV LAND" if they can attract a large audience for advertisers. Jackson also cited the success of Bill Cosby. But these minority oriented shows were successful because they appealed to the masses, not minorities.
The real problem with the current system of bundling programming is that NOBODY has access, unless they are willing to work through the conglomerates.
And the notion that there would be per channel charges is a smokescreen. The reality is that virtually every cable channel today has a per channel charge. We just don't know what it is and have no ability to refuse to pay for the stuff we don't watch, OTHER THAN doing what Tom is doing - not paying for any of them.
I am absolutely convinced that if Ala Carte were to happen, MOST of the cable networks would DROP their subscriber fees for fear of losing the ability to reach a broad audience. 



Including, for example, the "starving producer" productions that Craig
keeps lamenting about.


Which productions are you talking about Bert?
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a program onto a TV station, much less an entire network slot on a cable or DBS system?
The good news is that the Internet is providing the bypass technology to get around the media oligopoly.
Ala carte is going to happen, when it is cheaper to buy the programs you want than to subscribe to a multichannel TV service. 

Regards
Craig


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