Viacom: A La Carte a 'Consumer Welfare-Destroying Death Spiral' Canadian Heritage Minister Shelley Glover last year made waves by promising that Canadian regulators would start pushing Canadian Pay TV providers toward offering a la carte TV programming. Like in the States, Canadian consumers desire greater flexibility in the prices and programming lineups they're offered. What they get instead is an endless stream of excuses why none of this can happen, followed by another rate hike. On the heels of Canadian hearings on the subject, broadcasters are threatening government that if they force them to offer more flexible programming options, they may very well leave Canada. Viacom policy man Keith Murphy took hyperbole to an entirely new level in a filing with regulators: quote: Making it rather clear that he doesn't support new rules proposed by Canada's version of the FCC that would unbundle pay-TV programming, Viacom's Keith Murphy, SVP of government relations has told the commission that so-called "pick and play" mandates would set off a "consumer welfare-destroying death spiral" for the Great White North's TV industry. What's more, Viacom says that if Canadian requires a la carte programming they'll *gasp* be forced to offer more content to over the top services like Netflix: quote: "Due to this lack of regulation, Viacom is seriously considering distribution in Canada through [over-the-top streaming] or the Internet as a possible solution if traditional distribution becomes uneconomical due to new rules being imposed by the Commission," Murphy wrote. Rogers executives have What's more, Viacom says that if Canadian requires a la carte programming they'll *gasp* be forced to offer more content to over the top services like Netflix:Rogers executives have similarly insisted that the Canadian TV industry will collapse if consumers are suddenly faced with less expensive and more flexible programming options. Legacy industries claiming that they'll "take their ball and go home" is of course nothing new, and the claim that a la carte TV is some kind of apocalyptic devil has been a common refrain for going on a decade.







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Most recommended from 31 comments



viperpa33s

Why Me?

Premium Member

join:2002-12-20

Bradenton, FL 2 recommendations viperpa33s Premium Member Why the hell I watch about 3 channels, the rest of the time I watch Netflix. I watch ION TV because of Criminal Minds, A&E because of The Walking Dead, and Nickelodeon because of my grandson. I may watch another channel that has NCIS but that's about it. The rest of the channels are just garbage, like those reality shows.



The Sci-Fi channel use to be good in the beginning until they stopped showing Sci-Fi and started showing the WWE. I guess the WWE are a bunch of aliens. You ever notice they are showing more commercials and less show?



So why the hell would I want to pay for all this garbage and commercials on t.v.? b10010011

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join:2004-09-07

Bellingham, WA 2 recommendations b10010011 Member To an extent Viacom is right... Bundles basically subsidize niche channels like Golf Channel or OLN. These channels and many like it would not exist if it were not for bundling.



But the problem is it's not these niche channels that are raising cable TV prices. It the sports channels in the bundle like ESPN that charge over $5 per subscriber.



In 25 years of having cable TV I can not say I ever once watched ESPN.