A la carte tv = bad for creative programming
So there's a movement to change the way Americans buy cable television from the "package" model (where you have to buy 17 home shopping channels to get the Discovery channel) to an "a la carte" model where consumers are free to buy individual channels that they want, and not have to pay for channels they aren't interested in (like those 17 home shopping channels, for instance. Who the fuck buys the crap they peddle on these things? Wal-Mart was sold out?) The people who are behind the main push for this change are the fuckbag lunatics that scream "Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Chlidren" whenever there's a nipple on HBO; in other words, they want to decide what you can watch because they know better. I'm against this change, which goes against one of my core beliefs: More customer choice = good. I'm against it because of the aformentioned fuckbags, but also for another reason: it will decrease the variety of programming available to the American viewing public.
At first blush this might seem counter-intuitive. Otto, you might ask, doesn't this mean that people will be able to support the channels that they watch more directly? Won't it mean that the crap nobody watches will go away? Yes and no. It is true that it will provide a more accurate picture of what people are actually watching (great, more marketing information.. but that's another post), but it will also continue the dumbing down of mass media to the lowest common denominator. People, by and large, (being the sheep that they are) will watch what they're told to watch. (How the hell do you think Touched by an Angel stayed on the air?) On the other hand, excellent programming that doesn't have the marketing clout of a Disney or a Time Warner still manage to get viewers by appealing to the "long tail" of the cable market. ("Long tail" refers to a visual description of market share; there are a few very popular channels, and a greater number of channels that don't get as many viewers.) What the a la carte system will do is cut off the "long tail"; only the stuff that the great unwashed watch will stay on the air, because none of them will be paying for channels they no longer get as part of a "package" they have to buy in order to get the one or two channels they (think they) want. Under the current system, the popular garbage effectively "subsidizes" the stuff that has fewer viewers. My two favorite "long tail" type shows are Attack of the Show and X-Play, both of which are on the Comcast-owned G4. G4 doesn't get very good numbers due to a combination of niche programming and colossal blunders of management (*cough*firing Leo*cough*), but they have some stuff which is creative, entertaining, and useful. G4 is currently a "basic" or "extended basic" channel, meaning that it comes with packages customers buy to get certian channels, even if they don't want all the channels in the package. If "a la carte" channel selection becomes the norm, G4 is dead, because a huge number of viewers will no longer have it delivered to their homes. They have a hard enough time now attracting advertisers (most of their ads are for work-at-home scams, technical schools, and Fitness Made Simple); what will happen when their market penetration drops by 97%? Bye bye.
There are lots of channels that will suffer the same fate; the advertising dollars will end up in the pockets of the big players, who don't really need it. Innovative, controversial, or niche programming will essentially cease to exist, because they will no longer be included by default in a "basic" package, and don't have the hardcore dedicated viewership numbers to exist independently. What we'll get is more lowest-common-denominator garbage like Survivor and Fox News. Whole genres of channels will go away. Forget about Scifi, the History channel, the Golf network, most of the Discovery channels, even the Food network might go away. Lots of people like the content on these channels, just not enough people to make them viable under the new system.
So basically what seems like something that is increasing consumer choice will actually have the effect of decreasing it. Which is precisely why the big media networks have allowed the concept to even enter the public consciousness; they want the ENTIRE pie, not just 90% of it. Just another example of the Wal-Martization of our culture.
At first blush this might seem counter-intuitive. Otto, you might ask, doesn't this mean that people will be able to support the channels that they watch more directly? Won't it mean that the crap nobody watches will go away? Yes and no. It is true that it will provide a more accurate picture of what people are actually watching (great, more marketing information.. but that's another post), but it will also continue the dumbing down of mass media to the lowest common denominator. People, by and large, (being the sheep that they are) will watch what they're told to watch. (How the hell do you think Touched by an Angel stayed on the air?) On the other hand, excellent programming that doesn't have the marketing clout of a Disney or a Time Warner still manage to get viewers by appealing to the "long tail" of the cable market. ("Long tail" refers to a visual description of market share; there are a few very popular channels, and a greater number of channels that don't get as many viewers.) What the a la carte system will do is cut off the "long tail"; only the stuff that the great unwashed watch will stay on the air, because none of them will be paying for channels they no longer get as part of a "package" they have to buy in order to get the one or two channels they (think they) want. Under the current system, the popular garbage effectively "subsidizes" the stuff that has fewer viewers. My two favorite "long tail" type shows are Attack of the Show and X-Play, both of which are on the Comcast-owned G4. G4 doesn't get very good numbers due to a combination of niche programming and colossal blunders of management (*cough*firing Leo*cough*), but they have some stuff which is creative, entertaining, and useful. G4 is currently a "basic" or "extended basic" channel, meaning that it comes with packages customers buy to get certian channels, even if they don't want all the channels in the package. If "a la carte" channel selection becomes the norm, G4 is dead, because a huge number of viewers will no longer have it delivered to their homes. They have a hard enough time now attracting advertisers (most of their ads are for work-at-home scams, technical schools, and Fitness Made Simple); what will happen when their market penetration drops by 97%? Bye bye.
There are lots of channels that will suffer the same fate; the advertising dollars will end up in the pockets of the big players, who don't really need it. Innovative, controversial, or niche programming will essentially cease to exist, because they will no longer be included by default in a "basic" package, and don't have the hardcore dedicated viewership numbers to exist independently. What we'll get is more lowest-common-denominator garbage like Survivor and Fox News. Whole genres of channels will go away. Forget about Scifi, the History channel, the Golf network, most of the Discovery channels, even the Food network might go away. Lots of people like the content on these channels, just not enough people to make them viable under the new system.
So basically what seems like something that is increasing consumer choice will actually have the effect of decreasing it. Which is precisely why the big media networks have allowed the concept to even enter the public consciousness; they want the ENTIRE pie, not just 90% of it. Just another example of the Wal-Martization of our culture.
posted by Zach Burnham at 8:36 PM (click for permalink)
1 Comments:
Gads... G4? That has to have been the WORST takeover that could have happened. TechTV was just fine how it was. I miss Leo, Pat, Yoshi. "Attack of the Show" has none of the allure that "The Screen Savers" had. TechTV had a wide demographic. When it became G4, they narrowed it down to the teen range, took away females that weren't glamourous, made over ones who had the potential for glamour, and extracted brain cells. I have no idea what Comcast intended with that "merger" (read hostile takeover), but they did a bad job.
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