Canadian Government Wants To Unbundle TV Channels

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Just great, Canada's government is talking about unbundling TV channels while we are stuck paying for three billion bundled channels just so we can get the twelve we actually want.

The Canadian government will soon require cable and satellite television providers to make it easier for customers to buy only the channels they want rather than pay for bundles, the country's industry minister said on Sunday. "We don't think it's right for Canadians to have to pay for bundled television channels that they don't watch. We want to unbundle television channels and allow Canadians to pick and pay the specific television channels that they want."
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Sure pass legislation to force the person who doesn't own the channels to unbundle them ;)

It is the channel owners that force most of the bundling ... until they pass a law that forces the studios and corporations who own the channels to offer them to cable companies ala carte it would allow the studios to still force the cable company to buy the channel access in a bundle (even if they are forced to offer them to users ala carte)

I don't see the ala carte services taking off since it would generally require the cable companies and satellite providers to charge more for less or drop some channel packages all together (if the studios refuse to unbundle them at the front end)
 
Glad to see this coming, but I'm sure it won't be a good deal. The law doesn't fix a price/channel so they will charge a shit load per channel or let you have for a few bucks more a package with 50+ channels in it...
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Unbundle all of the channels and only a few will survive. I like it.
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Ditto. We don't need 300 channels of garbage that we are paying for. If only the top 10 survive, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

True competitive market forces at work!
 
It would never happen in the US, as it would be declared racist and anti-religion since hardly anyone would be funding telemundo and such crap on basic cable.

I'd love it though, and would probably just buy the local news and HBO. :D
 
A win for Consumer Choice in Canada if passed. It's an uphill battle to have the same happen in the U.S.
 
Ducman69 said:
It would never happen in the US, as it would be declared racist and anti-religion since hardly anyone would be funding telemundo and such crap on basic cable.

I'd love it though, and would probably just buy the local news and HBO. :D
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If they offered a-la-carte channel selections, I might actually subscribe to a cable package for the first time in years.

I'd get the free over the air channels, and then from cable I'd maybe get 5 channels or so. NESN (New Englad Sports channel) for my Red Sox games, a couple of news channels, the BBC, PBS (strictly for Antiques Roadshow :p ) and maybe (just maybe) the History Channel.

It would be nice if hardware were released allowing better control over the channels too, so I don't have to browse through 700 channels I don't have to try to find the HD version of one I have. A channel browsing tool that hides every channel I don't have and every non HD channel would be nice.
 
AceGoober said:
A win for Consumer Choice in Canada if passed. It's an uphill battle to have the same happen in the U.S.
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In the U.S. they'd just fight it passively.

Pick your favorite:
10 channels = $89.99
50 channels = $92.99
200 channels = $94.99
300 channels = $99.99

Or a la carte at $19.99 per channel.

The root of the problem is lack of competition, and until they do what we did with electricity in Texas (doesn't matter who wired electricity to your house, anyone with a powerplant on the grid can sell you power), nothing will really change.

The whole reason you see these amazing pizza deals for example is because Papa Johns and Dominos and Pizza Hut are all competing in the same neighborhoods. Capitalism requires competition to work.
 
won't happen..... or they will charge ridiculous prices for 1 channel where it would be cheaper to get it in their bundle anyway..
 
I live in Canada and have not had cable TV since leaving the parents' to go to school.

We have cable internet where I live and a side effect of that is that we get basic cable for free since they have to power the line to provide internet.

I may watch 4 or 5 hockey games during the year when I am super bored, but other than that I don't use it. No one in the house does really.

Whether they unbundle or not, I couldn't care less, I won't ever be getting a cable or satellite TV package ever until maybe when I have a family. But even then, why? I think I would be doing my kids a favour by not getting them into the habit.

This being said, I would be willing to pay $20/mo for HBO.
I tried doing that when first getting to school, but was told I needed to buy the basic cable package in order to be able to tack on HBO. I said no thanks.
 
AceGoober said:
A win for Consumer Choice in Canada if passed. It's an uphill battle to have the same happen in the U.S.
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If it does happen here, the cable companies will jack up prices to pad their profits. "You only pay for what you need" means that a company will keep the base rate exactly the same and gouge people for features that used to come standard.

It'd be like data caps all over again.
 
Ducman69 said:
In the U.S. they'd just fight it passively.

Pick your favorite:
10 channels = $89.99
50 channels = $92.99
200 channels = $94.99
300 channels = $99.99

Or a la carte at $19.99 per channel.

The root of the problem is lack of competition, and until they do what we did with electricity in Texas (doesn't matter who wired electricity to your house, anyone with a powerplant on the grid can sell you power), nothing will really change.

The whole reason you see these amazing pizza deals for example is because Papa Johns and Dominos and Pizza Hut are all competing in the same neighborhoods. Capitalism requires competition to work.
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Yeah, just like Verizon FiOS is doing internet now.

Used to be you paid similar amounts for the internet and TV portion of the bill.

Now, if you want Internet only, it actually costs MORE than if you get both internet and TV...
 
[QUOTE='Zarathustra[H]
It would be nice if hardware were released allowing better control over the channels too, so I don't have to browse through 700 channels I don't have to try to find the HD version of one I have. A channel browsing tool that hides every channel I don't have and every non HD channel would be nice.[/QUOTE]

Go satellite... Their guides (at least Dish), have that ability to create custom guides with only the channels you want to see.

This for the most part is a software option on the cable/sat box, sat services tend to have more modern software/UI but cable is slowly catching up with Comcast X1 box etc.

oh and don't get too excited for a la carte... you might save 10% for your 5 channels vs the 200 channel plans now. It is the way the pricing works, the popular channels command 90% of the fee and content providers throw in the other garbage channels for 10% forced upsell.
 
Zarathustra[H];1040283544 said:
Ditto. We don't need 300 channels of garbage that we are paying for. If only the top 10 survive, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

True competitive market forces at work!
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You still would not have market forces as most areas still have limited options. In the end you will have 10 channels and end up actually paying basically the same amount. You might feel better knowing that you are not paying for the other 290 channels, but your wallet will still likely hit for the same amount. Currently employees will want their options to be in the black, so they will just raise rates blaming cost increases due to recent changes.
 
Zarathustra[H];1040283609 said:
Yeah, just like Verizon FiOS is doing internet now.

Used to be you paid similar amounts for the internet and TV portion of the bill.

Now, if you want Internet only, it actually costs MORE than if you get both internet and TV...
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I used to think that with Comcast, but I am looking to change my current provider and the Comcast internet only service is actually $20 cheaper than Internet + TV. $30 a month for 6 months for 25MB internet, or I can do $50 for internet + TV for 6 months. After 6 months it goes up to $50 and $70. Then again the internet on the bundle is twice as fast as the internet only package.

The bundles is really how they get you to subscribe. They usually have promotional packages that give you other shit, like HBO, Showtime, etc. for a year or so, which really gives incentive for the people to buy the higher end bundles. I was tempted but then I realize I watch maybe 3-4 hours of TV a week. Is that worth $20 extra a month? It might be, but then I remembered that it's going to actually cost me $70.00 or more after 6 months. I'd rather just have internet + Prime.

Back on topic - This could work out, but I doubt they will offer individual channels at a reasonable price. They will just end up bundling like they currently do.
 
I'd love to see cable channels unbundled here in the U.S., but it will never happen by legislation for one simple, all-encompassing reason. The politicians are too damn kissy-kissy with corporations to do anything to benefit the citizens.
 
Legislation isn't the answer. Someone needs to start their own unbundled television service and people will flock to them in droves.

Of course since the major carriers are ignoring net neutrality these days they will enforce data caps or whatever it takes to keep you from buying the competitors service. That SHOULD be considered anticompetitive/antitrust but I doubt it would be.

Hence why it hasn't happened yet. The short version: we're screwed, for now.
 
So it only works well in theory because the economics of it don't benefit the cable companies. Damn! I'd be interested in seeing an actual analysis of the cost benefit of such a thing.
 
Universal health care and unbundled channels. Is there any room in Canada, and is it that cold?
 
Kai said:
So it only works well in theory because the economics of it don't benefit the cable companies. Damn! I'd be interested in seeing an actual analysis of the cost benefit of such a thing.
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Actually it would probably benefit the cable companies since they could just charge more for fewer channels (especially if ala carte is mandated by law where all the competitors have to do the same thing) ... but the cable companies don't own the channels ... the companies who do (Disney, GE, Fox, etc) do like bundling and it would be impossible to force them to go ala carte ... they would continue to sell the cable companies bundles even if the cable companies had to then unbundle them ... the company who owns the content has the most power here ;)
 
Touché. And that's quite logical, Disney wants to bundle all of its channels to reach the widest possible audience. Comcast, with all it owns, would make it next to impossible to separate their content. And soon comcast will own the world.
 
It is true.

If we were to force a -la carte programming we would ahve fewer channels and pay more per channel. No doubt about it.

But on the flipside, each of the remaining channels would have to earn their income, and not rest on the laurels of their bundled counterparts. I can only imagine that programming quality would rise rather quickly.
 
hesho said:
won't happen..... or they will charge ridiculous prices for 1 channel where it would be cheaper to get it in their bundle anyway..
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That's how it is right now, though. (all costs are made up) $20 for MTV. But, you get these other channels with that purchase: Hallmark, Oxygen, RealTV, BSChannel... The popular MTV channel helps subsidize those smaller ones that wouldn't survive on their own.

Sucks, but ala carte would end up like that - pay for the ones you want, but it'd cost more to subsidize those that most people don't want and a few do. Either that, or those smaller channels would disappear.

I'd love ala carte, if it was cost effective. I'd pay $5 a channel, easy. My bill would be $30 a month for 6 channels that I watch. Hell, I'd pay more for other channels if they had meaningful content. I seriously cannot pay for satellite because many channels went to reality TV. History, Discovery, Animal Planet, TLC, etc.. went to shit. I used to be able to justify the high cost, but when they went to crap, I can't anymore. Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, and those are just shit. Can't stand to sit through those to watch 1 or 2 good documentaries.
 
At least one of the reasons for the bundles is the mandate that most cable providers are under.
Since most providers are classed as a public utility under the oversight of community PUC's, they are required to offer a certain number of channels for local community access.
Add the effort to offset the cost of their operations by adding everything but the kitchen sink to their bundles.
It's like bloatware for your TV.

I've not had cable TV service or even used my TV for anything other than playing my own content for several years, now.
Don't miss a thing.
 
Zarathustra[H];1040284076 said:
But on the flipside, each of the remaining channels would have to earn their income, and not rest on the laurels of their bundled counterparts. I can only imagine that programming quality would rise rather quickly.
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Or they would just go with programming that offers the lowest cost and easiest return.... i.e. reality TV :( I'm skeptical that those who appreciate quality programming sufficiently outnumber the morons :p
 
Unfortunately the "12 that I want" are no longer ones I want, since the Discovery Networks decided they're going to do "reality TV" but keep the name of the channels to make it seem like you're learning something "See it's not just fake pawning of goods, you're learning about the history of the objects!"
 
Rix said:
Legislation isn't the answer. Someone needs to start their own unbundled television service and people will flock to them in droves.

Of course since the major carriers are ignoring net neutrality these days they will enforce data caps or whatever it takes to keep you from buying the competitors service. That SHOULD be considered anticompetitive/antitrust but I doubt it would be.

Hence why it hasn't happened yet. The short version: we're screwed, for now.
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You still have to buy the content from the providers that LIKE to bundle, if you could convince them to unbundle you would pay a premium. Content providers don't want to piss all over the contracts they have with their already well paying customers (cable/sat).

At best a new company could rebundle channels specifically based on the contract with each specific content provider.

$4 per mo = MTV, Oxygen, blah blah blah
$4 per mo = History, channel 1, 3 5 etc
$10 per mo = ESPN 1, 2, 3, 4
$ 7 per mo = TBS, Spike, syfy etc

To keep profits where it should be, only very frugal customers will probably see savings, customers who watch shows on the "bigger" channels will end up paying the same.

Content providers aren't stupid, they have been doing this for a long time. They put 1-2 popular shows on a channel, fill the rest with filler and then create more channels to "bundle". They make is specifically so you have to get everything anyways, that is their profit margin... the cheap low budget filler is what makes them money at the end of the day.
 
This is a damn good idea. Comcast should take note of this. The Comcast determines which channels go in which tiers is pure bullshit.
 
I'm beginning to like Canada and their government more and more. I watched a quick special on how rheir banking operates and how it's regulated. They seem to govern (for the most part) from the perspective of the people. ... where the US is from the perspective of the highest bidding lobbyist.
 
Ashbringer said:
Universal health care and unbundled channels. Is there any room in Canada, and is it that cold?
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-30 Celcius in winter and +30 Celcius in summer, with a shit load of humidity wich makes it even worst... (To be honest the average is closer to -20 and +20).
 
Steve said:
Just great, Canada's government is talking about unbundling TV channels while we are stuck paying for three billion bundled channels just so we can get the twelve we actually want.
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right. I am being raped by comcast and their blast internet and tv bundle. What am i to do? no aereo internet tv thing in my town yet.
 
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