A la Carte TV: Consumer-Friendly Solution to Cable Dispute

With the Fox-Cablevision dispute fresh in the minds of consumers, what can be done to prevent content providers from cutting off content to cable companies and hurting their subscribers?

One simple, and permanent solution is "a la carte TV."

While consumers are generally boxed into paying for a package of channels determined by their cable provider, a la carte television would cut out the middleman. Customers could decide what individual channels they want to subscribe to, rather than paying for entire blocks of channels they may not necessarily want.

This alternative also removes the terse annual pricing negotiations from the equation.

"[When] consumers pay directly for the channels they want, content providers will have to deliver enough value to justify charging higher prices, otherwise they'll risk losing viewers ... Instead of having to deal with managing ever higher rates from content providers, [cable companies] could establish a model whereby they take their cut of whatever revenues are generated through their system and leave it up to the marketplace of content providers and consumers to determine what's a fair price for any given channel."

The Fox-Cablevision dispute centered around Cablevision refusing to pay Fox a higher rate for standard programming, which in turn would mean higher rates for subscribers and could hurt the cable provider in the long run. When Cablevision refused to pay, Fox cut content, and consumers were left in the dark. With this approach to TV, consumers are hurt either way — either they pay higher subscription rates or are left without the programming they want.

A la carte is a solution that returns choice to the consumer and makes content providers responsible for providing quality content at a price that keeps consumers happy.

The Communications Workers of America supports the a la carte pricing model and believes that if the Comcast-NBCUniversal deal goes through it should include a modified la carte regulatory requirement that would allow customers to "opt-out" of paying for channels they don't want to purchase.

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Only A la Carte Can Permanently Resolve Fox-Cablevision Dispute