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Time Warner Cable plans one of the most ambitious efforts yet to combat the rising cost of sports channels: It’s preparing to introduce a low-cost service tier that won’t include expensive networks such as ESPN. Time Warner Cable has said that it’s exploring the “TV Essentials” package that would cost between $30-$40 a month. President Rob Marcus says it will be introduced within weeks in the company’s East Coast systems. Marcus told the Goldman Sachs Communicopia Conference that the initiative has been tested for almost a year in two systems and is designed to keep subscribers who are considering cutting the cable TV cord “partly due to affordability.”
Time Warner Cable To Offer Low-Cost Service Plan, Without ESPN
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Even though I want my ESPN, I applaud TW for doing this.
Yeah, except it costs $50 a month here in NYC, so the only way I’d be clapping my hands together for TWC for this is if Rob Marcus’ face was in between them.
Here’s a crazy idea – let us chose which channels we want and pay a la carte!! (a boy can dream)
Well stated and that should be the way TV should work, but sadly, it won’t ever be that way…like buying a CD of a few songs you want but yet get stuck with other garbage titles. Same should apply for broadcast networks…pick and choose and let us determine what we want to view.
but that’s not how you have to buy music anymore
Funny..the same people DEMANDING that cable goes ala carte (which would mean that you wld pay $8 for every channel you want) are always the same people to scream bloody murder at the thought of tiered internet service. VERY hypocritical to say that cable should be “all you can eat” buffet style (so light internet users can subsidize your heavy usage) but that cable should be ala carte since YOU don’t watch a lot of channel.
it is a great idea. start offering a smaller package of channels, maybe networks will reconsider all those $4-5 a month per subscriber costs that ESPN has. Honestly, a lot of networks also charge a premium for cable/Sat providers to offer HD feeds of the same content. IT IS TIME TO END THE HDTV carriage tax.
Content ought to be the same price on TV whether HD or NTSC. END THE HDTV TAX!
honestly think this could really backfire in a few years. this is just going to lead to a more fragmented, a la carte cable service offering. Granted ESPNs monthly fees are high, but it’s those few key channels that keep people buying cable (and supporting all the other smaller players in the market). There’s a reason you have to be authenticated to get HBO Go and it isn’t bc HBO cares about you getting cable (they’d rather have a direct relationship w/ consumers), it’s because they’re protecting their relationship with the MSOs. If the MSOs turn around and start fucking over the hand that feeds (aka ESPN, HBO, etc) they’re only going to hasten the jump to those channels delivering directly to consumers through web TVs, etc.
Five years from now, if you could spend $100 a month on cable OR have a web tv and pay $10 a month each to HBO/ESPN/Netflix/Hulu (though ESPN would prob cost closer to $25) to get that content via the web, I think that A LOT of people are going to take the second option. Which mean the networks will start going D2C and packaging with their cable channels…all the sudden everyone’s paying for their content directly from the content providers and the MSOs are fucked. I think it’s inevitable anyway, but seems like a strategic misstep from TWC that can potentially expedite the shift.
Everybody envisions this cable co as dumb pipeline/a la carte world, but the math just doesn’t add up. Even if they go a la carte on their pricing, the chance that that will actually *save* anybody money is pretty small, unless that person only wants one or two channels (ESPN would probably be the prime beneficiary there). And as for the content delivery part of the equation, DSL is incapable of providing the bandwidth necessary to cut your cable cord, which leaves the cable companies (yeah, they’ll let that happen) or FiOS (which also offers TV). I just don’t see this panning out as the perfect vision people have, much as I’d like it to be true.
HBO is more than $10 NOW..it certianly wouldn’t get cheaper. The fact is, if there was ala carte, it would only take about 5 or 6 channels under the new ala carte pricing before you would be paying pretty much the same as you do now under the current system. If you are a sports fan, forget about it. It would not just be ESPN, which is crap for sports anyway. It would be the local sports channels like MSG and Fox Sports. Those would be another $15. Each. So you’d be paying $50 for three channels and getting nothing but sports.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Please, Cox, DO THIS.
I have Comcast but Id go for something like this – I don’t watch ESPN or ESPN2 or ESPN 3 or ESPNews or ESPNCollege etc etc etc….so Id love something like this but I fear other channels I want – whether its Bravo or MSNBC or CNN would not be in the package
I hope Comcast and Fios do the same thing! A true ala carte system would be awesome. I don’t have cable because I don;t want to pay for crap I don’t want to watch. Let me pay for the 5 channels I wish I had and I would be happy.
This is a great experiment!
Prediction: Come the next round of negotiations, ESPN will only license to carriers who carry them to 100% of their customers.
I agree. I need espn but the amount of subsidy people who never watch espn provide is crazy. I am in favor of this as well.
It is just the OPPOSITE of what you said. Without ESPN, fewer people would order cable…especially now with Hulu offering so many TV shows the next day. And if there were fewer cable subscribers, the providers would have to charge more for those that stay.
ESPN is the one subsidizing the crap you watch.
Espn and hbo are not similar at all. Hbo is ala carte except for the most premium all inclusive packages. People do not have to pay for hbo if they do not want hbo
Espn is basic tier and lots of people pay significant amounts even though they don’t use it. Worst case is espn revenue dips, they pay less rights fees sports team owners and players make less money
I stopped reading at TWC who doesn’t even have NFL Network. Cased closed you suck.
I got rid of cable two years because the price wasn’t worth the few channels I watched. I would definitely pay 40 bucks a month for fewer channels. Apparently cable systems will react when they lose even a slight percentage of subscribers.
This would open the door to television stations to put ESPN programming on secondary Digital Channels over the Air for FREE. They would pay ESPN for programming just like they currently do with any other programming they air. TV Stations could populate there secondary channels with currently cable only networks and create a muti-channel world without the cable.
I would love for this to happen…to have ESPN on the sub-channels of the ABC O&O affiliates but possible never going to happen.
WOW this is really great! Cant wait for this to hit the Dallas area! I been thinking about getting rid of the whole thing for months now because of the cost keeps going up and up. In this economy they got to have something to keep the people they have. Thank you Time Warner!!!!!
What? You mean people don’t want to pay an extra $30/mo. to hear us ramble on about sports even though none of us have ever played a day in our lives?
You don’t want to pay extra for the same 30min show reran 20 times a day?
You don’t want to see a bunch of self proclaimed experts go on and on about stuff they know nothing about?
That’s just crazy.
I think the answer is pretty simple. Give people what they want when they want it. If I buy the minimum plan I get a certain amount of tiered channels, meaning no HBO or major pay channels. But what they need to offer is instant choice. If the minimum channels you get our let’s say 35 different choices, your set top box should limit you to 35 choices in your tier that you can constantly switch on the fly right through your cable box.
If you don’t have let’s say Bravo, but want to check out a new show of theirs then you can hit the minus button on any of your 35 channels and add bravo yourself. No calling anyone and Bo changing plans. Just you and your remote.
If you are on a higher tier then you can do the sane thing but with more channels and more choices.
Instant access and being able to choose in your own home what people seem to want.
That is honestly the DUMBEST idea I have ever heard. Using that ridiculous logic, you should be able to put yourself on the 1 channel plan. And every time you choose to watch a new chanel, you just “minus” the previous one…since you are only watching ONE channel at a time.
It’s a start. Now make EVERY channel available on an a la carte basis. You too, DirecTV and DISH.
No more forced packages or channels we dont’ watch.
Is this why cable is so expensive? Sports! I hate sports. Get rid of it all and get your hand out of my pocket.
Where do you get the idea that DSL does not have the bandwidth? Genuine question. Either please cite a source or show the math.
AGREE!!! I got SO fed up by everything COMCAST – Oct will mark two years without Cable or TV. The expense got ridiculous considering the relatively lousy content. So far – I haven’t looked back.
@interesting By the time a person starts juggling 5-10 bills for TV channels, they will be happy to go to an aggregator. I don’t see the MSOs going away, but the business model may change.
I’ve been dying for a no-sports package for years, it easily would cut the cost of the monthly bill by $10
I hope soon enough all sports are moved where they belong, behind Sunday Ticket style paywalls
Yes…only the crap shows YOU like should be on basic cable. Everything should cater to YOU. (That is how a 5 year old thinks, by the way. But they usually grow out of it by age 7 or so)
I also think it’s about time. I haveva brother whould and has wathed tractor pulls . I would nof notice of alll
Sporting events were suddenly dssappeared from cable. I pay an extraordinary cable bill each month, i am
Disabled and it is my entertainment. It kills me but mobility is an issue. I would love to pay for those things
I watch and not substidize sports. I seriously doubt this will make it to the left coast.
I’m a big sport fan. But, this def makes sense since some people simply do not watch sports.
Bravo, Time Warner Cable! (This from a Comcast sub.)