Today: Cable Unbundling Will Devastate Canadian TV Production: Report
My problem with the whole "bundling" thing is that it makes you pay for things you don't want in order to get things you want. In the past one could make the argument that providing a customized, per-household bundle of channels was too technologically expensive, and thus cable providers needed to have only a few tiers of service. But even since the 1980s when pay-TV and the first channels like The Movie Channel, addressable cable boxes have made this somewhat of a lie.
The fall-out from this problem is that I spend a huge amount of money on this stuff: $230 per month for TV, Internet (15/5/unlimited), and home-phone; plus another $50 for Jenn's smart phone. If my employer wasn't paying for my phone you could probably double what Jenn's costs and add the same again for me. Plus $10/month for Netflicks, $10/month for Spotify, plus whatever we spend on iTunes and old fashioned going-out-to-the-movies. Do the math -- it is a lot of money.
So anything which offers to trim $10 or $15 here or there sounds good to me and frankly I don't care that doing so means The Home And Garden Channel suddenly stops getting the 75 cents or whatever per month from my household.
You have to have a product that people are willing to pay for in order to watch. And if you don't, you are in trouble.
I am willing to spend money on what I want to watch. If you don't make something I am willing to pay for, I am not interested in subsidising you any more. If a subsidy is a socially desirable thing, do it the honest way -- through taxes. Don't try to back-door money flow.
