Channel Choice: Diverse Voices for Cable Choice

A wide array of groups and individuals are supporting cable channel choice. 

Below are key quotes from just some of them:

• The conduct of the media conglomerates related to securing retransmission consent agreements places the small cable operator at a competitive disadvantage and hinders consumer choice.
  -Alameda Power & Telecom

• A la carte attempts to correct significant problems in the television industry, most notably: (a) rising costs to the consumer and payment for networks not wanted by the consumer; and (b) the quality, nature and appropriateness of content that is allowed into our family rooms and the corollary lack of consumer control.
  -America Channel

• Unfortunately the Black Education Network has had an incredibly difficult time trying to access African American viewers because the distribution means to reach that customer base have been blocked. Viewers have never been given the opportunity to choose Black Education Network's programming because the elite of cable ownership have chosen not to offer it. Our network has endured an unbearable distribution system at the expense of the millions of African American families that would be enriched by our content.
  
  We urge Congress to ensure that the next generation of telecommunications laws makes access to distribution and enhanced consumer choice central principles. We are confident that if African American consumers had the choice, they would choose our programming.
  -Black Education Network

• Cable and satellite programming packages are inherently un-diverse, larded with networks unwanted by consumers that are in the package only because they are affiliated with broadcast media conglomerates or cable operators. These "bundles" are shaped not by consumer demand, but by the conglomerates' and operators' demands, thus distorting the marketplace….Voluntary a la carte cable empowers consumers to create their own menu of diverse network options, without regard to network ownership. We believe this can only increase viewpoint diversity for the public.
  A la carte … is a far better structural solution to indecency concerns than government regulation of program content, which chills Constitutionally-protected free, original, creative expression – the very speech the Commission should encourage.
  -Center for Creative Voices in Media

• The proposal for A La Carte channel choice on cable television has a number of excellent benefits and a variety of things that commend it. Chief among them is the choice of channel selection provided to the consumer, and the associated price options it should also provide the subscriber. An A La Carte system is also much more consistent with a market-driven economy than one that has semblances or likenesses of a monopoly. Cable television has evolved into a form of natural monopoly today.
  -Christian Television Network

• The common sense solution to the decency debate is to let the marketplace decide. Let consumers actually decide what pay TV channels they want to purchase, just as they do magazines. "Choose Your Channels" or a la carte pricing will rationalize pricing and permit customers to keep programming they find offensive out of their homes.
  -Common Sense Media

• I believe 'a la carte' programming may be necessary to control the rising cost of television, cable and satellite network programming.
  -John Littleton, Medford Oregon

• A properly designed a la carte system has the potential to empower both African American consumers and African American Programmers. The current system of begging an inherently conflicted cable or satellite system, in order to win favorable access to consumers continues to drive African American programmers closer and closer to extinction. Instead of going out of business, African American programmers will take their chances with a la carte, where they have a fighting chance.
  -Brian Woolfolk, Mattox and Woofolk

• NATOA supports policies that enable subscribers to choose video services that meet their individual needs with regard to a multitude of diverse programming and content, at prices that would be experienced in a truly competitive market among a variety of both wireline and wireless providers.
  -National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors

• The approach advocated by the Committee, providing consumers with the maximum level of competition while still providing the cable operators with the ability to "package" channels, strikes the Board as an extremely pro-consumer opportunity such that continued exploration along those lines is warranted by the Commission.
  -New Jersey Board of Public Utilities

• The Ratepayer Advocate has been a longstanding supporter of a la carte pricing because cable prices have risen to alarming levels in New Jersey and this trend of skyrocketing cable prices has spread to other parts of the country and competition from satellite television has failed to effectively control these runaway cable prices. Therefore, the time has come to give consumers more choice in picking the cable channels they want instead of being forced into buying a tier of channels, some of which they never watch.
  -New Jersey Ratepayer Advocate

• The Parents Television Council recommends to Congress that if the Cable industry is not willing to give consumers a choice regarding the programming coming into their homes, then Congress must act to ensure American's are not having to subsidize indecent and pornographic material broadcasting into their homes via their basic expanded package. There is no reason why this extortion needs to continue.
  -Parents TV Council

• As a small, local operator, our interests are tied immediately to those of our customers, and Pioneer, too, supports the investigation and proposed development of an option of a la carte or themed-tier programming selection in addition to the traditional tiers. However, the current environment strictly prohibits the development of such a consumer choice-driven concept.
  …[W]ith our customers' interests in mind, Pioneer urges the Commission, and Congress, to assist us in developing a climate that is freed of the overbearing and dominating interests of the media giants, and refashioned to be more amenable to needs of small, rural operators, and more in tune with the preferences of our customers, and those across the nation.
  - Pioneer Communications

• [P]roviding options that allow a subscriber the possibility of reducing his or her monthly cable bill while continuing to be able to obtain essential local programming is worthy of some level of consideration.
  -Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission (serving Multnomah County and the cities of Fairview, Gresham, Portland, Troutdale and Wood Village

• The PCTA does not believe that a la carte carriage would have a significant negative impact upon the ability of consumers to receive independent, niche, religious, and ethnic programming. In reality, programming carriage decisions are made today by the cable operator based upon a revenue enhancement model. Within the boundaries of the PCTA, significant minority groups, including, without limitation, Hispanics, Viet Namese, and other Southeast Asians, have been historically underserved in terms of ethnic programming options. Although their plight might not improve in terms of a la carte carriage, the PCTA does not believe that their lot would be significantly worsened.
  Because neither current practices nor a la carte carriage truly incentivizes niche and ethnic programming, this argument should not be utilized, in the opinion of the PCTA, to stifle consumer choice.
  -Public Cable California (serving Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Stanton, and Westminster)

• For a number of years, large vertically integrated media companies have been using their control over both local broadcast outlets and marquee cable programming services to dictate tiering and pricing requirements for carriage of their services…. Consumers have been forced to pay escalating prices for service tiers bloated by tiering and product tying requirements that are hidden behind contractual non-disclosure provisions.
  --CT Communications Network, Inc.; Chesnee Communications, Inc.; Cim Tel Cable, LLC; Citizens Cable Communications, Inc.; Kaplan Telephone Company, Inc.; Kalona Cooperative Telephone Company; Lexcom Cable Services, LLC; Paul Bunyan Rural Telephone Company; Sierra Telephone Company, Inc.; Silver Star Telephone Company; Warwick Valley Telephone Company; XIT Rural Telephone Cooperative

• The OCC believes that giving subscribers the opportunity to customize their own packages would actually lower the overall cost of their cable service.
  -Office of Cable Communications, Seattle Washington

• Allowing for a la carte purchasing of programming would also satisfy customer demands for unbundled programming. Customers today are faced with unprecedented choice in viewing options. While choice is generally a good thing, being forced to take and pay for programming options for which a customer has little or no interest is hardly beneficial. Allowing for a la carte programming would provide rural customers with meaningful choices.
  - National Telecommunications Cooperative Association

• There is so much trash on cable, in order for me to get a major Christian channel, I had to pay more monthly. I don't watch really any of the other channel(s), due to the obscenities. I'm a 38 year old, African American divorced mother, I don't think I should pay to have all the obscene things that are on TV.
  -Tracy Valentine Newark, CA

• I founded UBC because the cable industry has failed miserably to satisfy many of the viewing needs of people of color. For the most part, the cable industry has ignored the call of people of color to provide meaningful programming that appeals to more than their musical and athletic interests. UBC is working hard to distribute such programming. UBC also has difficulty obtaining carriage deals, because many cable television carriers find little to no value in meaningful and tasteful programming that targets people of color. This is unfortunate, because people of color have actual stories that need to be told. These stories go well beyond the sensational and stereotypical.
  In the end, UBC is denied carriage deals. Cable carriers often tell minority cable television networks that there is already enough programming that targets people of color. Cable carriers also tell minority cable television networks that too many consumers are not willing to pay for minority cable networks to be added to their already expensive cable television packages.
  In short, the current cable television system simply does not work for minority cable television networks. It either shuts them out completely or squeezes them until they are only shells of what they were originally intended to be. Many African Americans have expressed to me their disappointment with the current cable television system providing African Americans primarily music programming, as if singing and dancing is all that interests them.
  Fortunately, a la carte could open up the cable industry to minority cable television networks, such as UBC. If consumers were able to purchase minority cable television networks on an a la carte basis, cable carriers would have no excuse not to enter into carriage deals with minority cable television networks. Currently, cable carriers claim that they do not enter into such deals, because, as mentioned above, too many consumers are not willing to pay for minority cable networks to be added to their cable packages. This would not be an issue if minority cable television networks were offered on an al carte basis, because then only consumers who want minority cable networks would have to pay for them.
  - Urban Broadcasting Company