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Message: [QUOTE="nzm136, post: 725829, member: 2531"] You have a very flawed understanding of the system. For starters, you're confusing revenue drivers. Carriage rates are one revenue driver and advertising is another. Ultimately, they both factor into the decision process of both networks and cable providers (that's why there is free TV over the air and that's [U]one[/U] of the reasons why general interest content is on low tiers, whereas niche content is on specialized tiers). Admittedly, they both influence each other in that carriage rates (especially on lower tier, general interest content) are often lower than their otherwise optimal level so as to increase the number of viewers and thus increase advertising revenue. However, the two revenue drivers are two separate things. It's like putting a gum ball machine in a barber shop. Hair cuts and gum ball sales both make money, and gum ball sales are linked to the number of people that come into the shop to get their hair cut, but to argue that hair cuts and gum balls are the same thing is obviously crazy. What affects one dos not necessarily affect the other. Up until this point, we have been talking about carriage rates. If you want to talk about advertising revenue too, fine, but that's a whole different animal. And, to answer your question, large companies generally don't give preference for "in house" operations. They go with whatever is more profitable. Exxon is the classic example. If you think that you're only getting Exxon gas next time you pull into an Exxon station, you're out of your mind. Everything is competitively bid amongst the silos that make up the greater organization. Beyond that, bargaining power doesn't affect the general shape of the payouts. A company with X bargaining power an Y value will make more than a company with X bargaining power and Z value to the extent that Y is greater than Z, regardless of what X is. In other words, bargaining power affects how much of the value created by a network returns to the network, not if some of that value returns to the network. That's why bargaining power doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion. And your assumption about what you assumed that I assumed is wrong and in left field. "NONE OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS HAVE ANY BASIS IN REALITY." No. That statement has no basis in reality. You have offered no proof to dispute anything that I said. Instead you have discussed advertising revenue in a discussion about carriage charges (notice how those are two different things?) and you brought up bargaining power in an effort to dispute that companies are rewarded for providing their customers with more valuable products. However, the balance of bargaining power only alters [U]how much[/U] of the increased value goes where. You never attacked the basic economic idea that grouping multiple products together can create a new product with a different price elasticity than the sum of the parts. "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." How does this differ in [U]any[/U] way from what I wrote? Where have I [U]ever[/U] said or implied that bundling didn't result in more money for cable companies and less money for consumers? "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." A la carte v. bundled programming and cable-provided content v. internet content are two COMPLETELY different discussions. A la carte can happen via cable (PPV), and bundling can happen via internet once again, see the adult industry). Going a la carte does NOT mean cutting out the middle man. You are 100% wrong. Delivering content via the internet [I]may[/I] very well mean cutting out the middle man (it also might not), but that has absolutely NOTHING to do with a la carte. And no, bundling is ONLY good for the consumer when the provider is dumb enough to bundle the wrong things together. Given that there is way too much money on the line for providers to make a mistake that sophomoric, bundling will NEVER be good for consumers in general. IF such a situation were to arise where to arise where consumers could choose to go a la carte or bundle, the consumers who would save money by going a la carte would go a la carte and the consumers who would "game the system" by bundling would bundle. That would cost the providers potential profits, which would drive them to either remove bundling completely or remove a la carte completely. A hybrid model will not work for the providers, and they are smart enough to know it. [/QUOTE]

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