Are you counting down the days till the Michigan-OSU football game? What about the thrilling Houston Rockets-Dallas Mavericks game on ESPN’s Wednesday night NBA broadcast? Or for those of you who are more drama inclined, what about the latest episode of Rizzoli & Isles on TNT? Regardless of whether you answered yes or whether you don’t care, if you have cable TV you’re paying around $6.87 per month for ESPN ($5.54) and TNT ($1.33) on your cable bill.
If that seems expensive and unfair, you’ll be happy to know that several legislators agree with you. Senator John McCain and Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo have proposed separate bills that would make cable programming “a la carte.” These bills would allow subscribers to choose which channels they actually would like to pay for, and not pay for the channels they never watch. But before you start a letter writing campaign or a Twitter bombardment urging your local senator or house representative to support the bill, you should consider the fact that some critics think “a la carte” is a bad idea. FX Networks CEO John Landgraf believes an “a la carte” system would completely restructure the Hollywood’s current model. According to Landgraf, “you’d see the greatest recession in the history of Hollywood.” Landgraff, along with other critics, point out that this could end a number of cable channels that are not popular enough to be economically feasible. So are you mad enough at your cable bill to end the glory that is Bravo’s programming lineup, and kill hundreds of jobs.
If one of these bills became law, the impact would go far beyond Hollywood. Anyone who follows college sports knows the last several years have seen schools jump from conference to conference in search of bigger paydays. The University of Maryland and Rutgers University will join the Big Ten in 2014, in large part because of the potential payouts. While there are no firm numbers on how much each Big Ten member receives per year from the Big Ten Network, each school has generally received about $40 million over the last six years from the network. Obviously, if there was no more guaranteed subscriber base or multi-million dollar payout, universities may reconsider ending decades long relationships, as Maryland did when it decided to leave the Atlantic Coast Conference and join the Big Ten.
While neither of these proposed bills are close to becoming law anytime soon, they do raise serious issues to consider the next time you get your cable bill. The real question is: how much are you willing to pay per month to see your favorite sports team or show? $20 a month? The time may come when all cable subscribers need to find the answer themselves.