Congress Should Press Cable for A La Carte, Consumers Say
Congress should pressure the cable industry to provide a la carte to Americans, consumer groups said Thurs. at a news conference. A letter seeking govt. intervention -- signed by 38 entities claiming to speak for families’ interests -- went to Congress Wed. “We don’t pay for food we don’t want to eat, we don’t pay for magazines we don’t want to read, yet we are forced to pay for multiple channels we have no desire to watch,” the letter said: “Until the cable companies lose their virtual monopolies, we need congressional intervention.”
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The cable industry said this week it would offer a family choice tier to subscribers during 1Q 2006 (CD Dec 13 p1). But consumer groups criticized that as curbing consumer choice.
“We don’t feel that family friendly tier is the right answer” said Lanier Swann, dir.-govt. relations at Concerned Women for America (CWA). “It falls significantly short to [sic] doing what cable” should do, which is “putting the choice back in the hands of consumers,” she said. Shows like South Park, endorsed by some in industry for inclusion in a family friendly tier, are “offensive to adults and you can imagine how offensive and inappropriate that would be for children,” Swann said.
The cable choice issue has gained momentum in recent months. Consumer groups particularly like FCC Chmn. Martin’s endorsement last month at a Hill forum of the possibility of cable choice, Swann said. Martin said a new FCC study found a la carte programming “could be economically feasible and in consumers’ best interest.”
Cable a la carte would give consumers “more control over the size of a cable bill,” said Jeannine Kenney, senior policy analyst at Consumers Union. She said cable rates rose 64% the past 9-10 years. Media conglomerates force cable distributors to put all their programming in packages, even if distributors want to offer channels individually, she said. On the other hand, she said, dominant cable companies, like Comcast and Time Warner, favor the programming and channels they own, keeping independent programmers from airing their content.
Consumer groups oppose industry deciding what goes into the family tier. “The only way we see this tier providing any real options for families is if distributors offer subscribers the option to select from among the cable lineup, say, 10 or 20 channels [for] their customized family tier,” Kenney said: “That, however, is not how we expect the cable industry to play this out, based on their past statements. It is a real concern, because what is appropriate programming for one family obviously may not be appropriate for another.”
On the positive side, the industry showed it can provide smaller bundles of programs -- for years something it claimed to be financially or technically unfeasible, Kenney said. Creating family and other tiers would allow consumers “at least get closer to being able to send a signal to the marketplace about what they are most interested in,” she said. But consumer groups won’t stop pushing for a la carte, Kenney said: “We would still want choice for subscribers who are interested in other options in terms of what channels they could select.”
“We wouldn’t support more customized tiers if there is no ability for consumers to opt out,” said Dan Isett, dir.-corporate & govt. affairs at Parents TV Council. “This is the most reasonable solution and certainly the most free market-based solution to the problem,” he said. Kenney said firms such as AT&T, EchoStar -- and some smaller providers without market power aiming to compete with cable giants -- back cable channel choice.