Will Congress and Senate ever agree on a more consumer choice oriented Cable/Satellite tv law?
March 25th, 2009
Pettyfan asked:
They debated about forcing Cable and Satellite companies to give consumers choice about the channels they wanted instead of Consumers being forced by cable and satellite companies to pay for channels they never watch. Do you think this will be a pipe dream forever or will the government step in to give consumers more rights?
The local cable company has a nice basic cable package with about 25 channels but half of them I wouldn’t even watch so I still get my TV over the air. I don’t see the point in paying for channels I won’t watch.
© 2008 by Jeff ® said:
I wish they would. Not a very help-full answer but if it was up to me, there’d be a smorgasbord menu type of service.
great one said:
highly unlikely they will ever be any consumer choice at all over what the cable companys mandate we have or not have as choice.
we the consumers are not given choice at all.
jjki_11738 said:
First, if they were to have a “basic” cable package where customers could choose, then the customers would each have a cable box so that the company could control who got what channel. That would add $3 to $6 for each TV.
Second, a significant part of the basic cable bill is paying for the amortization and upkeep of the cable system. You’d have to pay that even if you only wanted one channel.
By the time you got through, it would wind-up costing you more than it does now,
I’m no fan of the cable companies, I hate mine-but it doesn’t make sense to stick your head in the sand. Congress is great at pandering to the uninformed public; but even they aren’t dumb enough to pass something that will raise their constituents cable bills the day after it took effect-or are they?