5iN: I am discovering how big of a scam cable TV really is.

RJ45: What this about Cable TV being a scam?

5iN: First CableCARD...To elaborate, 90% of the time we get calls on CableCard issues, it's not because of the TV like the CSRs with cable companys are telling people. Most of the time it's miscommunication between their Head End department that programs the cable cards and their billing department.

IE: Their supposed to get Starz, but they get a cable card programed for HBO. They call billing who tells them that everything in their system is correct and then tells them that it's our TV. At that point it gets sent to our CableCard department who ends up finding out it was on the Cable company's end and WE have to work out the communication issue that shouldn't be there in the first place.

However, the 10% that is on our end is easily fixable by sending out an upgrad disc on a SD card that they put in their TV and then they're good to go ASSUMING that the cable company sent out the correct card. Typically, it's Cox Cable that's the issue. I haven't heard of a single issue at your company yet.

Another gripe I have with cablecard is that it's a PCMI card, and they can't do on demand because they don't want to have it sticking out of the set of a cable hanging off of it (ala PCMI networking cards and modems) to provide "on demand" content.

Now, TV Guide On Screen, that not working is neither the cable company or our fault. Typically it doesn't work because it's not offered in their area, and it doesn't work at all through satellite.

RJ45: Okay, well, I am not educated on CableCARD, so I am not going to debate what I don't know. HOWEVER, to me, it sounds like some badly trained CSRs at Cox. Maybe they need to work on that.

5iN: Further, cable companies pay for the right to broadcast the stations they do, and typically make up the difference in advertising. The customer at that point pays for CSRs, maintnance, etc. By this with things like digital cable you're paying $50 (using Insight's pricing as an example) to pay for channels you may never watch or need to watch as opposed to ordering on a channel by channel basis. If advertising was used to pay maintnance and CSRs and the like, they could use customer subscription rates to determine what channels they should be paying for in the first place and use what money they make FROM the subscriptions to pay for those stations.

In a nutshell, customers and the cable company are paying for channels that there's no real demand for. I'd rather pay $2 a channel for the 3 channels I actually watch as opposed to $50 for an additional 123 that I never will watch. Follow the logic? Of course, downside is, everyone who is paying for this ala carte content, so to speak, is going to need a cable box or a cablecard to decode the encryption.

RJ45: The thing about Cable Companies and the a la carte idea is that it is a good idea on the paper from the consumer's point of view. The issue is that it is not the Cable Company's fault.

There is a story about said debate here: http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/magazines/fortune/pluggedin_fortune/

Almost all channels provided aren't each run individually, the majority are owned and operated vicariously from major media conglomerates. The big ones are Time Warner, Disney, Viacom & Universal. (85% or more of your television comes from these four companies.) They each run a tremendous number of network clusters. For example, MTV Networks owns MTV, VH1, CMT, Nickelodeon, BET, Nick Toons, Noggin, VH1 classic, Logo, etc..

If each channel were on their own, the cost of doing business would be atrocious. One have to have tons of technical equipment costing hundreds upon thousands of dollars. One would have to pay production companies to make content, they in turn have to hire writers, actors, producers, camera people, etc. All of us have to pay for electricity, gas, water, etc. It's a very costly business, and many people on the production side make allot of money to do what they do. It's not that you can't run a channel by yourself, but it is much more helpful if you have a large corporation behind you to help fund it.

Premium networks aside, almost network clusters make the predominant portion of their money via advertising. The ad revenue that they make helps pay for programming, broadcasting, and other overhead costs that are required in order to provide a television network cluster. They also charge their cable/satellite providers a per person fee for each person that could potentially watch a channel. Whether or not they watch the channel is incidental, it is the fact that you could watch the channel that we are paying for. Bottom line...that's how network clusters make their money.

Part of that sales pitch to a potential advertiser is that the network cluster can tell them.."Your commercial will be seen by X million people. And, not only will it be seen on the Blah Blah network, we can also show it on VH Blah Blah, Blah Blah 2, Blah Blah Extreme, The Psycho Channel, etc." If we gave you the ability to pick and choose your channels, then the networks could not make that claim. As a result, advertisers would be more picky about the channels that they chose to advertise on, and only a handful of channels would be very attractive to them. They might say..."Well, since Blah Blah is your main channel, and seen by the most people, then that is the only channel that I want to advertise on." The network clusters then have to charge more for the advertising to make up for the lost revenue from not being able to charge for advertising on the additional networks. This would make their channels even more unattractive to advertisers.

The only other option the network cluster has is to increase it's price for programming to the cable/satellite providers (US), or shut down the other channels in the cluster. Shutting down a series of channels results in even more revenue lost, and the clusters don't want to take that hit so we end up getting charged more to carry the channels. If WE pay more, YOU pay more. (The cost of business doesn't magically decrease anywhere here for us or them.) Where your friend is thinking that it would be a $1 per channel, it would actually be much more than that, and the prices will fluctuate dramatically depending upon the size of cable system in question.

It would be nice if there was one flat rate charged for all cable systems, but there is not. Usually, it all boils down to "how much money can we hornswabble out of this cable company this time around?" Unless your friend lived in a major metropolitan area (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, etc) he would be punished tremendously with having to pay more per channel to watch his TV.

We try to eat as much of the cost for programming as we can to keep the rates fair, but we have business overhead expenses as well. For instance... A splitter may only cost us $0.25, but we service 1.54 million customers. Most of them hook up at least 3 TVs which requires at least one three way splitter. Take $0.25 times 1.54 million people and the figure is some where around $385, 000 dollars. There is a small margin of error here because not every single household hooks up 3 TVs, but it is still a huge cost either way....and we are just talking splitters.

We also have to hire people, buy petrol to put in our trucks & vans, pay for electricity for all of our offices, pay for phone lines so that you can call in and yell at us about the prices of your cable, etc. The cost of conducting business in the home entertainment industry is huge.

Unbundling also may mean the death of variety. We are not going to pay extra to carry channels that hardly anybody watches, and the network clusters won't have the money to keep them going. They would have no choice but to stop broadcasting their unpopular channels. The number of channels that you currently have will drastically diminish, and some of your favorite channels will disappear forever.

In conclusion, if you make us un-bundle our channels, then you force us to charge you more to stay in business. If we are not in business, then you get's to have antenna service. (Seven channels...maybe. HELL FUCKING YEAH!).

Incidentally, the satellite companies have a little less overhead than we do, yet their prices are surprisingly similar to ours once you add it all up. You have to look beyond their specials, and look at the cost of more than one TV. Remember, most people hook up at least three TVs