Consumer Guide for Today's Media

By Jesse Temple

We all saw this coming from a mile away. Or, perhaps I should say about 1,345miles away, where ESPN's hub resides. The question has been posed many times, but an answer my finally be on the horizon. Could ESPN be served on an a la carte basis to the channel's loyal fan base in lieu of other, less important cable channels?

FCC Chariman Kevin Martin hopes so. Just don't count on it coming anytime soon.

According to the Multichannel News Web site "Martin, who will probably leave office when President Bush concludes next January, is determined in his waning days to influence how cable operators and their program suppliers go about providing some 64.7 million homes with video channels dedicated to an assortment of news, sports and entertainment."

Martin has continually complained about the spike in cable rates. Earlier this month, he broached the subject of allowing cable channels to be purchased on an a la carte basis. The plan would allow cable operators to remove from expanded basic service, which is the most widely purchased cable programming tier, any channel that charges wholesale license-fee rates of 75 cents or more per subscriber, per month, according to the Web site.

Well, guess what? ESPN's current rate blows that total out of the water. The channel, owned by The Walt Disney Co., has for many years been basic cable’s most-expensive network. It currently costs $3.65 a month per subscriber to distribute, according to SNL Kagan research. Just three years ago, that fee was $2.96, according to SNL Kagan's research.

Martin hasn’t tried to impose a la carte at the retail level for the simple reason that the FCC does not have the legal authority to do so, which he readily admits. But Martin now says the agency could have power under a 1992 cable-program access law to impose wholesale a la carte requirements on the industry.

Martin doesn't agree with the way cable operators assemble channels in packages called tiers and offer them on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, as we have discussed in class. Consumers need more options, according to Martin, who favors a system in which consumers pick and choose almost every channel one at a time.

But of course, there are drawbacks. Of particular concern is the fact that ESPN's loyal customers likely would drop EVERY OTHER cable channel, pay exorbitant sums for ESPN, and leave cable providers scrambling to make money in some other way.

That topic has been discussed by cable providers all over the country, including good old Sunflower Broadband here in Lawrence. According to Patrick Knorr, CEO of the company, an a la carte model is risky because it is expensive to deploy the technology.

As for the ESPN problem...

“Packaging [ESPN] that way would not be a business decision I would make,” Knorr said, agreeing that the consumer flight from expanded basic was a real risk.

For this reason alone, don't count on ordering from that a la carte menu in the near future, sports fans. It would be too convenient for the cable subscriber to pick and choose what channels he or she wanted to pay for. Instead, be sure to check your bill for that tier you didn't want, which could include any of the following from Sunflower Broadband: Home & Gardening, the Hallmark Channel, C-SPAN and Country Music Channel.

I'll stick with my ESPN. I think I'd even pay a little extra just to take those other channels off.