Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Sports Prevents Cable Cord Cutting? Yeah, Pretty Much

That seems to be the case until the FCC steps in.

Surprisingly he doesn't think the answer lies in cutting the cord and using direct viewing via streaming service. The answer, he says, is the long-awaited government intervention in the form of a la cart pricing. That means getting ESPN would mean paying specifically for that service (for which Disney charges affiliates more than $5 a month).

If and when the FCC allows a la cart pricing, the bill will be broken out and customers will be able to see exactly how much they're really paying to support their teams. Unless or until that happens both your cable bill and your urge to cut the cord will only grow.

If they had a la cart pricing I would cancel the vast majority of the channels on cable. The only cable channels I watch are BBC America for Star Trek Next Gen, Cartoon Network for Family Guy reruns, ESPN for SportsCenter/NCAA Football, NFL Network for NFL Football, CNBC for Financial News, and HBO for Sopranos reruns/True Blood/the Newsroom/Girls. 

Of those channels I could stream 3 of those options since Star Trek Next Gen, Family Guy and HBO Go can be watched on my XBox360. So that pretty much leaves ESPN and CNBC as the only things I usually watch. If they had a la cart pricing I would probably have like 15 channels total on my cable box.

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