Overheard on Facebook:
<@BadMojo> Maybe TWC could apply their metered bandwidth to TV and charge me based on what I watch.
In a food metaphor for metered bandwidth, Time Warner Cable COO Landel Hobbs asks, “When you go to lunch with a friend, do you split the bill in half if he gets the steak and you have a salad?”
Indeed. Why should light TV watchers subsidize the heavy TV watchers?
(h/t RangerRick)
I would like to pick and choose which channels I get, but directv will not let me do it like that.
Mark,
Sounds like another good reason to drop TWC and get your programming and/or internet somewhere else.
Actually, I am not a TWC customer.
If TWC pisses off enough customers, they will start to hurt financially when subscribers (not you) go elsewhere for their programming/internet.
Todd, your theory has some holes. Name me a place that has two competing (commercial) cable TV providers.
I don’t see the holes. You don’t have to use cable TV. There is satellite TV available in most places. I don’t have TWC, but I have over 200 channels to choose from.
Cable TV is so 20th century!
You don’t have to drive your Ferrari to work: you can always take the bus.
Satellite TV = Bus
Cable = Ferrari
Fiber = Rocket
Mark, as you imply, there are very few places that have two competing cable TV providers. Wilson, with Greenlight, is probably the best example of somewhere that has good competition. Also, the places where AT&T uVerse and Verizon’s FiOS are available. I’d love to see more of that everywhere!
People that watch a lot of TV do pay more than people who don’t watch much, they do so in the amount of time that can be sold to advertisers.
The amount of TV you watch doesn’t really affect the cost to the cable/satellite provider, since the content is mostly broadcast to all customers regardless of whether or not anybody is watching it. For internet access, the amount of bandwidth that customers use definitely does have an affect on the costs to the provider.