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Message: [QUOTE="cuseinchina, post: 725743, member: 3079"] Your idea of how this works involves an imaginary world where none of the content providers have greater pricing power than their peers when it comes to negotiations with the cable companies. It ignores the fact that viewer demographics are at least as important as quantity of eyeballs in the eyes of advertisers. It assumes that the cable companies are indifferent when it comes to carriage rates for their self-produced content and content that allows them the most local ad revenue versus content produced by others and content produced by providers who don't have pricing power and do not have good ad demographics for the cable co. it assumes that the proportion of revenue going to each content provider is equivalent on a percentage basis - eg fair dealing. And finally it ignores the fact that the cable company take margin from the content providers in exchange for carriage and that the amount it takes is dependent on the relative power of the content provider. NONE OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS HAVE ANY BASIS IN REALITY. Why, because bundling is monopolistic and inherently harms consumers who don't prefer the bundle and harms all consumers in the form of price fixing and overpaying for content we may not desire. The cable company is the middle man, cutting out the middle man and still allowing for bundling when consumers desire it, is better for both consumers and providers of quality and/or niche content. The only losers are cable company executives and investors who will get stock returns of a utility instead of the stock returns of a oligopolistic entity. You also miss the primary point that a la carte, when it comes will not require the cable company to be anything but a dumb pipe - other players will gladly aggregate content for consumers who want a bundle and they won't charge you a fee for it, they will just insert their advertising. Or the cable companies will do the same thing but at a much lower price because they will be forced to do so by competition. [/QUOTE]

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