I would pay exactly what I pay now to have:
-Exactly the channel lineup I want
- no bs channels, ie. religious, shopping
-Everything available on-demand on same day as it airs, so no in-home DVR required
And please add a premium charge to get rid of all commercials and I'll pay that too, my channel skipping finger is getting tired.
Do tell (everyone), what is that right price per al-a-carte channel? And what is that premium some will pay for "commercial free"?
The math in al-a-carte will not be (number of channels "I" get now)/(what I pay now) = cost-per-channel... then (cost-per-channel)*(number of channels I actually want) = (new, heavily reduced monthly fee). For example 200 channels/$100 = 50 cents per channel. I want 10 channels so my new monthly bill should drop from $100 to $5. You can't pull 85-95% out of the revenue stream and expect the same quality & breadth of depth of programming to continue. You can't pull 85-95% out of the revenue stream and expect the same ROI potential to remain to keep motivating new show entrepreneurs to take the high risks of trying to bring new shows to market.
Instead, al-a-carte would probably be set up to make all existing players MORE money-
not less-than they make now. Else, why are they motivated to actually change? On top of that, add Apple's 30% so that they can plug in as the new Comcast, Time Warner, etc.
Through who's pipes does Apple's replacement completely depend? Aren't the owners of those pipes the very companies that would feel the great pain if Apple was allowed to take
their video subscription businesses? How can we possibly imagine that even if Apple somehow delivered a cheaper option, the cable companies that are also our broadband providers would not just make up the difference in higher broadband rates? You know they would. Why wouldn't they? Where you going to go?
And then there is this near complete ignorance to the whole television subsidy model. Commercials throw a TON of money into the system to make it all go. That's other people (the companies that buy all that commercial space) paying into the system to help subsidize the total cost of all that programming we covet. How much is that? I've done the math. To eliminate the commercials but not kill that revenue, every household in America would need to pay more than $50 per month. Is $50 per month a "premium" people would pay for commercial free?
All this commercial revenue subsidy is mostly made by the commercials that play on those "hundreds of channels
we never watch." So we don't even have to tolerate seeing those commercials for the revenue they generate to help pay for some of the stuff that we do want to watch. Instead of killing the (subsidy) golden goose, the better option is to use the technology probably already in your satt/cable box to hide the channels you don't want to watch. Then, your guides will show only the channels you actually want to watch and all of those other channels can still run invisibly in the background, playing commercials you'll never see, throwing money into the machine so that the Studios that make the stuff you do want to watch keep making what they need to deliver the same quality & breadth & depth of programming that you like.
So many of us seem so foolish when it comes to this dream. We somehow think that Apple can inject itself (and take it's big cut), the Studios that make the stuff we actually want will not take the hit, our broadband providers will just roll over and let Apple take their TV revenues and not raise rates and that somehow we will end up paying a fraction of what we pay now. Read that a few times and realize how unlikely that is.
To have any chance as dreamed, a companion rumor is needed that would allow Apple's replacement to bypass those middlemen (cable companies that are also the broadband providers). Apple cannot strike some magical deal with content providers to get around the fact that our link to iCloud flows through the toll booths of companies named Comcast, Time Warner, etc. Just as Apple innovating an iPhone did not result in 85-95% lower cell service costs for us masses, there is no 85-95% savings solution in Apple inventing a new
TV or television with internet-delivered service.
