Unbundling Pay TV -- An Exercise in Game Design

Progressivism Comes To TV Bills

I looked at my satellite TV bill recently and was surprised to see it had climbed another few rungs on its way to $100-a-month.

Like everyone else who pays for TV (cable or satellite), I'm essentially offered three or four levels of programming, with the cheapest not including one particularly watched channel and the most expensive shoveling every last unwatchable offering at me.

Lately, there's been talk in Congress of forcing pay TV to offer customers a la carte programming where consumers pick and pay for only those channels they watch.  This has seemed like a sensible change to most, until they hear about the consequences.  Only a few sadsacks would pay for channels like the Home Shopping Network, for example, meaning less revenue for channel bundlers and so, higher rates.  In other words, we'd likely lose the smaller, less mainstream channels and end up paying about the same price, but for less content.

So, why is this an exercise in game design?  Because both sides to the question assume it's either / or; that there's no middle ground.

And yet additional alternatives are possible.  For example, if subscribers were offered either 3/6/9/12, 15 or 'all', channels of their choosing, let's say, and at those levels cable / satellite companies were able to add in, say, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 channels of their choosing (essentially, these extras would be "Look at what you're missing."), everyone would get most of what they wanted.

Most importantly, consumers would feel like they were picking and choosing.

Perhaps just as important, the basic rate for picking just three channels would likely be lower than it is now for a basic package.  This would be a great boon for families that can't afford to pay for more.

And the cable and satellite companies would be able to offer channel companies they bargain with access to what would become the much desired 10, 20, 30... temporary, free slots.  These would then be juggled periodically, giving providers bargaining chips.

Ideally, a bite would be taken out of corporate profits, while those who can afford all the channels would pay more and those who are economizing would pay less.

Update: A contrarian take from the Atlantic

2nd Book Read

2nd In A Series: Citizenville, by Gavin Newsom

Here's another book I ordered--this time new--and have read with some interest.

The author, former mayor of San Francisco and present Lt. Governor of California, identifies a desired transparency in government and the eventual public participation this will engender, as a new way forward for politics.

For example, if a city posts online all the information it gathers, citizens can then make use of the elements that interest them, and like app developers, the most popular compilations and uses rise to the top (a list of the oldest trees in the city, for instance, would be big with me).  All without a top-down approach that does the compilation and distribution on the taxpayer dime.

An approach that should appeal to Republicans (Newsom is a Democrat)!

The book's title is a reference to the online game Farmville that sees players caring for their imaginary rural spreads.  The author reasons that such a popular game suggests citizens would be happy to do something of the same thing in their own neighborhoods if given the chance at stewardship.

Excellent, except that if you've read my take on the eventual hook-up of public and polling, you'll know that rewarding the best new idea to be generated by a given neighborhood doesn't come close to the potential behind the thinking public mind, which is what I propose.