Cable Companies Beware!

[gategrrl]

 Cable Companies Beware!   (click to read the article)

There's a law suit targeting all of the major cable companies, naming the antitrust laws.  The suit says that cable companies make tons of money bundling channels people don't want, making them pay higher bills for their television, and that customers should be able to pick and choose what channels they want in their own bundle.

Here's an excerpt:

 

"The antitrust laws protect the right of choice," antitrust lawyer Maxwell M. Blecher said. "Here the customer is denied that choice."

The complex web of contractual arrangements among service providers and networks amounts to a monopoly or cartel that has "deprived consumers of choice, caused them to pay inflated prices for cable television and forced them to pay for cable channels they do not want and do not watch," Blecher wrote in the complaint filed on behalf of cable subscribers in several states."

Comments

[sars.livejournal.com]

Which is exactly why we don't have cable television. I'd want like half a dozen of the 30 or so channels that come in the bundled pack. I'd much prefer to pay a little extra and be able to pick and choose.

[nialla]

As much as I'd like to pick and choose what I had in my satellite channel package, it's not necessarily the dish company that's the problem, but the networks providing the channels they offer.

I used to work for a cable company ages ago [ducks rotten fruit] and the various channels would make deals of "You'll get our very popular channel X for a discounted rate, but you've also got to include our not as popular channel Y in your package too. If you don't take channel Y, then the cost of channel X will be double... nah, triple, the rate."

The cable and satellite companies would have to pay more for channels if customers were allowed to select things a la cart, and you can be certain that price would be passed along to the customer. They way the networks have it rigged, you'd probably end up with fewer channels, but your bill would remain the same or even go up.