Posted on 7/7/2004, 5:45:53 PM by truthandlife
Pro-family groups are pressuring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and members of Congress to force cable television providers to allow consumers more choice when it comes to programming options.
"It only makes sense for a cable company to allow a family to pick what channels they want, and only pay for those," said Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association. "Such an a la carte approach would also help parents keep smutty television out of their homes."
Currently, cable companies force consumers to buy cable "packages," in which raunchy channels like MTV, E! Entertainment, VH1, and Comedy Central are bundled with more family-friendly fare.
Congress has instructed the FCC to look into the ramifications of an a la carte approach to pricing for cable television. The study will examine whether or not subscriber costs would rise under the new proposal, and whether less popular cable channels might disappear, leaving consumers with fewer choices. The FCC report is due back to Congress by November 18.
Meanwhile consumers have another alternative. Leading cable companies affiliated with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), which represents about 85 percent of all cable subscribers, will make channel-blocking technology available to any cable customer who does not already possess the equipment necessary to block channels. The technology will be made available upon request, at no additional charge.
Some local cable companies have balked when customers have called to ask for the new channel-blocking technology. When Wildmon's group passed this along to the NCTA, president and CEO Robert Sachs said the organization was setting up an e-mail address (parentalcontrols@ncta.com) for complaints.
Oh, yes....I only want the "paid program" junk channels.
It irritates me that I pay for cable and half the stuff is sales pitches. Remember when cable didn't have that?
They'll find a way to screw the consumer. Might as well opt out.
The first channel I would dump would be CNN and then MSNBC.
I want my FoxNewsTV.
We were comparing Directv and Wow Cable in our home. We were getting the cable modem and thought we might be better off with the cable as well.
Short of FoxNews for me and The Learning Channel for Dad, all of our other regular stations (PBSkids, Noggin, Discovery Wings, Techtv etc.) we had to pay for seperately on Directv and were not offered at all on the Cable. Go figure.
I have to buy like 10 golf channels and the super cable s4it to get my speedvision.
All i want is the speedvision. They want 25$ for the super package plus i have to have the digital box for another outrageous fee, so I don't have speedvision. :(
If it were ala carte, i would, though. (And i WILL have speed for the Dakar rally in January!)
Bravo HDTV has some good programming.
I do not have cable. The reason is that I am required to accept what I consider to be garbage in my home in order to get the channels I want. I tell every cable sales person this. None of them have any concept of what I'm talking about.
"...and whether less popular cable channels might disappear, leaving consumers with fewer choices."
Well that's the idea now isn't it? Why should I have to subsidize some piece of crap sation (MTV) for others?
Another way of saying that the consumer would actually have the power to choose what it is willing to pay for and that means that inferior (raunchy/left-wing, etc.) products would fall by the wayside. In other words, the Leftists couldn't force us to pay for their crap.
To them, it's a debit, to me, it's an asset...
Wow, where did you find a TV that doesn't have a power button?
Just look at the program schedules at certain times of day. Why am I being forced to pay for "payed programming"?
Technology being what it is, cable companies should really be able to offer packages where you get a certain number of channels for X amount of dollars, premium channels would cost more, and then local programming. I could lose so many channels and then pay for only what I want to watch.
Of course, the reason we don't have this type of option is because the cable industry is a monopoly. If I could get cable from more than one company, somebody would be offering this service.
Great !.... I hope they provide such in the future.
My daughter was about 3 or 4 when I saw her sitting on the floor in front of the tv watching the skank madonna crawling around kissing some guys feet.
I called the cable company and told them to disconnect mtv.
They said "We can't. It's part of the basic package."
So I told them to turn off the basic package.
They said "We can't. Then you won't have any channels at all."
I said I didn't care, turn it all off, I don't want that crap in my house.
She asked me to hold and came back in a couple of minutes and told me that mtv was disconnected, but the basic package was still on.
That was step 1. A few days later I called them back and cancelled my cable subscription totally. It was the best move I ever made for my kids. We raised them with books, sports, and family outings. The kids turned out great and now support themselves.
We now have our basic package back so we can check the weather, FNC, and my favorite preachers.
Congress got involved and passed legislation to solve the problem. With the aid of the new law, among the first locations to get the new local channels off satellite was Washington, D. C. Some rural locations didn't get locals until last year, several years after D. C. got them.
Go figure.
I think most of the new tv/cable boxes have a feature where you can lock out specific channels.
We recently cut off our cable service because we were paying $42/mon and only watching 3 or 4 channels with any regularity. The only cheaper option our cable company offered was basic service which gives us the networks (ABC,NBC,CBS). We never watch network channels so we just killed the service.
We also have little kids and were disgusted by the raunchy and disgusting commercials that would come on even during family-type shows. We'll just have to listen to music, shortwave radio, or read at night. What a shame!
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