3 ms·

Depends on 30-40 channels of what -- if Showtime, HBO and Stars are in that price then it's competitive with buying those a subscriptions from Amazon. Thirty-f

Depends on 30-40 channels of what -- if Showtime, HBO and Stars are in that price then it's competitive with buying those a subscriptions from Amazon. Thirty-fourty channels of non-premium content like reality TV shows and sports is a non-starter for me, anyway. Reading the article which claims "...including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, Bravo, Disney Channel, Fox News, FX, MSNBC, Sprout and USA Network." I can definitely say at least for me it ain't worth it. A cheap antenna will get the broadcast networks and Bravo, Disney, Sprout, etc don't have any compelling content for me. Far cheaper to buy one or two shows off of Amazon if I want to see them semi-realtime, otherwise it's just fine to wait until they are available to stream off of Netflix or Amazon Prime. Just one nerd's opinion.

throwanem 10y ago
I don't care about that stuff either, but I know a hell of a lot of people who do. In particular, I suspect you overlook access to sports content, in particular live games. That by itself matters enough to a whole lot of people to sell the service at this price point.
- technofiend 10y ago
  You say that, but it's my understanding that sports-only subscriptions would be far more expensive than they are today because all cable subscribers subsidize things like ESPN. This is my complaint about unbundling: content creators want to charge the same or more than their offerings cost on cable. Back in the heady days of Big Ugly Dishes (BUDs) the providers were unbundled and far cheaper. The price creep we've seen has been aggregators (cable companies and small dish providers) charging a premium + markup simply because they could. Content providers would like to decouple from cable whilst retaining the premium. I remain skeptical of someone like Comcast ever unbundling ESPN because they'd lose ESPN customers in droves when the real costs were exposed and most likely they (Comcast) would simply set the new base package price as the old one.

throwanem 10y ago

I don't care about that stuff either, but I know a hell of a lot of people who do. In particular, I suspect you overlook access to sports content, in particular live games. That by itself matters enough to a whole lot of people to sell the service at this price point.

technofiend 10y ago
You say that, but it's my understanding that sports-only subscriptions would be far more expensive than they are today because all cable subscribers subsidize things like ESPN. This is my complaint about unbundling: content creators want to charge the same or more than their offerings cost on cable. Back in the heady days of Big Ugly Dishes (BUDs) the providers were unbundled and far cheaper. The price creep we've seen has been aggregators (cable companies and small dish providers) charging a premium + markup simply because they could. Content providers would like to decouple from cable whilst retaining the premium. I remain skeptical of someone like Comcast ever unbundling ESPN because they'd lose ESPN customers in droves when the real costs were exposed and most likely they (Comcast) would simply set the new base package price as the old one.