Cable Prices

Since the price of cable TV here in West L.A. is absurdly high (Adelphia charges about $82 per month for expanded basic plus HBO, and those prices are due to rise yet again next month), one might think that I would welcome any initiative that might lower that cost. But when I saw a headline in the L.A. Times the other day, "Study Finds Savings in Cable Choice," instead I just found my blood boiling. Here's why:

The article reflects a recent FCC initiative to create what is called "a la carte" pricing for cable television channels. The idea is to eliminate the blocks of channels that most cable providers include as a matter of course, and to allow viewers to pick and choose which channels they do and do not want to pay for. On the face of it, this makes some sense: to pick only one example, since I don't speak Spanish, why would I want to pay for SiTV? If a low price could be found that, taken together, gives me only the channels I do actually watch at a lower price, why wouldn't that be a great idea? The L.A. Times article refers to an FCC report suggesting that, on average, consumers would find their cable bills reduced by about 13%. Sounds terrific.

Funny thing, though. An FCC report from 2004 (before Kevin Martin took over the reins of the Commission) concluded that a la carte pricing would in fact drive prices up. Mr. Martin, however, asserts that "the first [report] contained 'mistaken calculations,' relied on 'unsupported and problematic assumptions' and presented an 'incomplete analysis.'" That's Republican-speak for "it didn't come to the conclusions we wanted, so we changed the terms of the argument till it did."

First, let's deal with the basic economics, and how cable TV works under bundled pricing. Like most people, I pay a flat fee for what Adelphia calls Expanded Basic, meaning I get a couple hundred channels of programming for the same cost every month. And as I said before, if I find that I never watch, say, the PAX channel, why isn't it a good idea for me to be able to say No, and get it off my line-up? Isn't that just good ol' American competition, the marketplace in action? Not with cable TV, no. Because for one thing, there's already competition--for advertising dollars, and that is ratings-driven, just as it is for the free network channels like CBS, NBC and ABC. If enough people aren't watching a channel, it doesn't have good ratings and it doesn't make the big advertising bucks. Now to a certain extent these channels are subsidized by the fact that they're bundled together in the first place, which is how niche channels survive--would Trio still exist, otherwise? A couple years ago, I never watched anything on FX; then they started running interesting original programming like Nip/Tuck and, particularly, the wonderful Rescue Me. That's competition in action: now I watch their channel, their ratings have jumped, and I'm sure they're making more advertising money. But if, a couple years ago, I had been on an a la carte plan, I would have probably decided not to keep FX, and would have never been able to sample Rescue Me and would be missing out on a great show. (Sometimes there are downsides to this competition: Bravo used to be a great channel, with a broad focus on the arts; now it mostly shows pop-culture crap.)

As a Disney spokesman noted in the L.A. Times article, the "Disney Channel was once offered a la carte, and only a privileged few bought it despite the strength of our brand." This tells me that, in practical terms, if people are asked to affirmatively pay on a channel-by-channel basis, they will consistently make conservative choices whose purpose is to keep their bill low. In the process there will be less of what cable has to offer that is available, because if the Disney Channel can't draw subscribers, how will C-Span? Thus, consumer choice is actually restricted under a la carte pricing. And as the article noted, minority-focused channels like SiTV would be hit particularly hard, leaving those communities unrepresented.

And if I were to decide that having all those choices was important to me, then it's a pretty safe bet that I would end up paying more for those channels individually than I ever did when they were bundled. I have to conclude that the 2004 FCC report was correct; so then what's going on now?

Decency. That's what it's about. A la carte pricing is a stalking horse for enabling a small number of decency-obsessed viewers to keep the smut off their televisions. Heaven forfend they should take the trouble to learn how to use their V chips; no, they just don't want this stuff to exist at all. They don't want the naughtiness of Drawn Together, they don't want the harsh language and adult situations of Nip/Tuck, they don't want that damned Howard Stern anywhere anyhow. And they know that if you can starve out the stuff on the margins, eventually you start to starve the beast itself.

And that's when I start to turn red in the face. A la carte pricing isn't about the health of my wallet in the least; it's about a few overly-touchy ideologues trying to dictate the content of the airwaves. (Here's a Washington Post article from March 2005 about Senator Stevens's efforts to extend the ability of the FCC to fine cable programming on the same basis as free-over-the-air channels.)

Now if the FCC really wanted to lower my cable bill, then they would do something about the fact that Adelphia has a monopoly in my part of town. That's why my bill is so damn high, because I simply have no other options. (Satellite TV, alas, isn't an option where I live.) The very high price that Adelphia charges has nothing to do with how much programming comes in over my cable lines, or what kind of programming; it has everything to do with the fact that Adelphia can pretty much charge whatever the hell it wants, and what other option do I have but to bend over and take it?