Canadians gobbling up a la carte cable offerings

While U.S. cable companies are fighting consumer choice in TV channels, their Canadian counterparts have been offering a la carte pricing – not forcing subscribers “to pay for channels that they do not watch in order to get access to those they do.”

Granted Canadian companies made this move  after regulators “strongly encouraged” the change, but it seems to be a hit with both consumers and the cable companies.

According to Reuters, “In the largely French-speaking province of Quebec, for example, industry sources estimate that 70 percent of viewers buy a very basic TV offering of mostly broadcast fare and then pay for small groups of cable channels from a long list ranging from Discovery Channel to BBC Canada.”

U.S. companies have told a la carte advocates that such a change would strip cable companies of some $70 billion in revenue and that few, if any, of the smaller channels would survive.

Right now, though, millions of subscribers are already opting out of the cable system – largely because of cost. Instead, said the analysis in Reuters, “More flexible programming packages may help U.S. cable companies prevent people from defecting to cheaper Internet-based offerings from the likes of Netflix and Amazon.com.”

So, will cable companies emulate their northern neighbor and try a la carte? Or will they hold tighter, continue to raise prices and lose customers to the Internet where the entire menu is a la carte?

Analysis: Canadian cable TV's ‘a la carte’ menu begins to take hold (Reuters, Sep. 19, 2013)