[ NNSquad ] Al le Carte and LCD

[Rollie Cole <rolliecole@gmail.com>]

Lauren et al.

I respectfully disagree that al le carte [always] kills speciality channels
and drives us to a lowest common denominator.  In a system of cable packages
(up front monthly payments) that might well be true, but in other schemes --
Netflix, YouTube, others, I see plenty of "long-tail" and/or specialty
content.

This tells me that both payment schemes (not just viewer to transporter, but
also content provider to transporter) are key to what we get. If our
"tranporter" were subject to "must-carry" rules (common carriage, anyone?) I
think choice would result in more specialty channels, not fewer.

     [ I've never said that speciality cable channels would *always*
       be killed by a la carte pricing.  And there's certainly lots of
       speciality content on YouTube.  But keep in mind that -- as far
       as I know -- much (or most) of the very widely viewed
       professional content on YouTube (and of course on Netflix) are
       part of corporate production environments that may themselves
       be heavily subsidized between divisions internally.  The question
       being, how much professional speciality content will survive
       in a fully a la carte model when the pie is being sliced into
       such thin pieces?

          -- Lauren Weinstein
             NNSquad Moderator ]
       

-- 
Rollie Cole
5315 Washington Blvd
Indianapolis, IN 46220-3062
317-727-8940