If you hadn't already heard, the two competing satellite radio companies, XM and Sirius, finally completed their merger today after months of holdup because of government red tape.
I don't know exactly how many Auburn fans, or SEC fans for that matter, this affects, but it definitely was good news for me. The entire league's games were slated to be carried on XM only this year, after most all of them (including AU) had been on Sirius to this point.
I'm sure I wasn't the only one who chose Sirius specifically because it carried nearly all the football broadcasts from the SEC. It was a great toy for those Saturday afternoons when I'd be driving from Athens to Columbia to cover a night game and could still listen to Auburn play the JP game against Mississippi State on Sirius. Or last year driving back from UGA-Tennessee in Knoxville and listening to LSU-Florida. I could go on and on. It's a great resource for a beat writer who otherwise might not be able to know much about what's going on from around the league on Saturday night because it's not possible to sit down and watch it on TV like most everyone else.
They haven't announced exactly how the plan will work, but in the release they discuss how they'll offer a la carte packages under the new merged company. I'd assume there will be ways for listeners to receive both the NFL (previously carried on Sirius only) and MLB (XM only), or get Howard Stern (Sirius) as well as Oprah (XM)...although I doubt there'll be too much crossover between those two particular audiences...For me, I'll definitely be interested in keeping my Sirius music stations and adding SEC and MLB packages, as long as it's not too much more than the $11.95 per month I currently pay (although I'll definitely get the SEC stuff).
I love the idea of a la carte programming. I wish cable companies would subscribe to such a policy. It's ridiculous that they can subsidize some of these ridiculous cable stations by forcing them down your throat in some package that includes stations you actually want to watch. Unfortunately, if we were actually able to pay for only what we want to watch, they wouldn't make nearly as much money, I suppose, so there's no incentive for a cable company to do such a thing. A man can dream, though.
2 comments:
Looks to me like the cable/satellite comparison isn't so clear on the "a la carte" front. For one thing, the economics of the two businesses are totally different.
that sheds an interesting perspective on the issue, but I guess my thought is, for someone like me who doesn't care much about watching hyperspecific programming like animal planet, food network, the golf channel, whathaveyou, why do i care how much it drives up the price for them to do business?
i watch about 10 cable stations and they all do plenty of business. i can't imagine it would cost espn much extra to absorb the potential ad revenue losses of being offered a la carte because it would still be purchased by a vast majority of cable subscribers. Why can't Darwin's Theory work in cable television?
I realize you're obviously someone who understands that business better than I do. There are clear differences between the two services like you pointed out in your blog post, but I'm certain I'm not the only person who feels like they don't get their money's worth from being forced to pay for all these channels they'll never watch, just to get the ones they want to see. If there was any incentive for cable companies to make a la carte programming work, I'll bet your life that it would magically happen.
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