A la carte pricing for cable/satellite TV is an idea that's been around but is kinda stuck. This might get it moving.
Sirius and XM, the nation's two satellite radio services, want to hook up in the worst way. In order to get the FCC's blessing,
[the companies] said they would offer two "à la carte" pricing plans. One would enable consumers to purchase the best of the premium services now offered by each company — like professional football, baseball and basketball — for a monthly fee of $14.99. For $6.99 a month, the other would enable listeners to choose 50 of the nonpremium channels, with each additional channel costing 25 cents.
What this has to do with dkos and kossacks--and Fox News--on the flip.
A la carte pricing matters because it takes more than commercials to pay the bills of the cable channels. They also collect license fees from cable companies on their subscribers' behalf. If a channel is in your lineup, you pay--whether you watch or not.
In the case of Fox News, you could be paying up to 75 cents a month.
And Fox can run the whole network on license fees alone.
According to a graph from a Kagan Research study linked here, Fox News ran up $220 million in costs last year but took in $260 million in license fees alone. Ad revenue? Icing on the cake, but not the cake.
With numbers like these, Fox News might as well run underwriting announcements like PBS does:
Support for "The O'Reilly Factor" is provided by cable companies in the name of suckers subscribers like you.
Thank you.
I put up a poll last week in a diary about ending the Billo subsidy. Most popular response was "I'll wait until a la carte pricing kicks in, and then buh-bye Billo."
If that's your attitude, here's your chance to start kicking.
Call your congressional representative and push for a la carte cable. If Sirius and XM think a la carte's good for radio listeners, it's even better for TV viewers.
But that's my opinion. What's yours?