Comcast CEO: Aereo Illegal, A La Carte Never Happening Comcast CEO Brian Roberts told PBS in an interview this week that broadband live TV streaming company Aereo is breaking the law by refusing to pay retransmission-consent fees. "Here comes a company that says, 'I don't want to pay that fee.' Well, I understand that, but I don't think that's the law of the land," Roberts told PBS NewsHour in a segment about the future of television.

Comcast's NBCUniversal is one of several broadcasters who have sued Aereo on multiple fronts in an effort to have the streaming operator shut down. So far, the courts have allowed Aereo to continue operations, refusing broadcaster injunction attempts. Roberts also joined a chorus of cable and broadcast executives who've lately made it clear that despite consumer interest, they will never offer cable channels a la carte. "If you had to pay separately for just PBS, probably, sadly, not a majority of Americans would do that," argued Roberts. "So there's many channels, whether it's Discovery Channel or C-SPAN or many, many others, that just aren't viable. You can't just buy the sports section of The New York Times. You take the whole paper." It's telling when a legacy TV CEO uses the newspaper industry as an example of why Comcast can't offer more innovative channel bundling options. While broadcasters claim a la carte will never happen, the reality is they've fought pretty much every attempt at innovative channel bundling, a la carte or otherwise. While Roberts was paying lip service to pricing innovation via PBS this week, for example, his company was quietly cancelling their lower-cost, sports-free MyChoice TV offering. While a la carte might kill niche channels, not everybody is sure that's a bad thing. Most analysts agree the current model is unsustainable. There's an argument to be made for blowing the whole existing model up, with niche options migrating online to options like YouTube's new subscription TV service. Despite the hand-wringing by opponents of a la carte, niche options are already dying under the current model, with under-performing channels like Ovation being kicked off cable lineups to counter soaring broadcast network retransmission fees and ESPN rate hikes. Regardless, for an interview on what the future of television holds, Roberts spends an awful lot of time talking about ideas, innovations and services Comcast doesn't want you to have. Regardless, for an interview on what the future of television holds, Roberts spends an awful lot of time talking about ideas, innovations and services Comcast doesn't want you to have.







News Jump California Defends Its Net Neutrality Law; AT&T's Traffic Up 20% Despite Data Traffic Actually Being Down; + more news Are The Comcast-Charter X1 Talks Dead In The Water?; AT&T May Offer Phone Plans With Ads For Discounts; + more news Europe's Top Court: Net Neutrality Rules Bar Zero Rating; ViacomCBS To Rebrand CBS All Access As Paramount+; + more news Verizon To Buy Reseller TracFone For $7B; 5G Not The Competitive Threat To Cable Many Thought It Would Be; + more news MS.Wants Records From AT&T On $300M Project; Google Fiber Outages In Austin, Houston, Other Texan Cities; + more news States With The Biggest Decreases In Speed; AT&T Hopes You'll Forget Its Fight Against Accurate Maps; + more news AT&T's CEO Has A Familiar $olution To US Broadband Woes; EarthLink Files Suit Against Charter; + more news 5G Doesn't Live Up To Hype, AT&T's 5G Slower Than Its 4G; Cord-Cutting Now In 37% of Broadband Households; + more news FCC Cited False Broadband Data Despite Warnings; ZTE, Huawei Replacement Cost Is $1.87B, But Only $1B Allocated; + more Cogeco Rejects Altice USA's Atlantic Broadband Bid; AT&T Is Astroturfing The FCC In Support Of Trump Attack; + more news ---------------------- this week last week most discussed

Most recommended from 116 comments

Grantb2

join:2002-12-10

Carlsbad, CA 8 recommendations Grantb2 Member "You can't just buy the sports section of The New York Times This analogy is utterly invalid and frankly shows both a little deceptiveness and a little stupidity on the part of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.



Comcast just is not the NY Times. The NY Times is on the hook for CREATING CONTENT that they choose to bundle into a daily paper. They have fixed costs to recover from publishing that entire bundle. There is no mechanism for changing those costs based on which sections are read... Though clearly they COULD sell sections a la carte if they cared to.



Comcast creates nothing. They are a distributor, like the local newsstand. The local newsstand does not make you buy 5 other magazines just because you want the NY Times. Comcast has no fixed costs of publishing to recover. If next year's negotiation with ESPN says that a la carte pricing will yield only half as many viewers, then they negotiate with ESPN on that basis. Whether they get a better price or not, Comcast is capable of providing a service that does not require non-ESPN viewers to pay for ESPN. whoyourdaddy

join:2013-02-20

Honey Brook, PA 5 recommendations whoyourdaddy Member lol i cut the cord brian I cut the cord do to your greed brian I want A La Carte till then I wont buy your service and the channels that I don't want

camper

just visiting this planet

Premium Member

join:2010-03-21

Bethel, CT 3 recommendations camper Premium Member ... and newspapers are doing so well nowadays... Comcast CEO: "...You can't just buy the sports section of The New York Times. You take the whole paper."..."



Mr. Roberts is spitting in the face of his customers when he acknowledges that they want a la carte programming, but he will never give the customers what they want. AVonGauss

Premium Member

join:2007-11-01

Boynton Beach, FL 2 recommendations AVonGauss Premium Member He's Right Brian Roberts is probably right, a la carte channels are probably never going to happen and the marketplace has already responded. You could almost say NBC, Universal and friends helped make services such as NetFlix such a success.



I do find the newspaper analogy interesting, he is absolutely correct you cannot buy just the sports section you have to buy the entire paper. That said, traditional media such as newspapers are on the decline and have been so for a long time. Maybe this is another case where the marketplace looked elsewhere to fulfill a desire/need?