(04-10-2013 09:12 AM)bitcruncher Wrote: It won't happen as suddenly as you think. There are still a lot of us old farts around who will be resistant to change, since they didn't grow up in an age where electronics were readily available. I spend more time reading books than I do watching TV, and they aren't electronic books either. I have a massive private library, and I've read them all multiple times, except for the 26 books I've acquired in the last month or so. I'm slowly working my way through those...
I also don't think it will happen suddenly, although it's not so much about the "old farts" (albeit there's some of that).
Entertainment isn't a commodity. That's is, we're not talking about widgets. For the most part, we don't watch networks as much as we want specific shows and events (just as we rarely care about which studio releases a movie outside of maybe Disney/Pixar). The thing is that very few specific shows and events are self-sustaining on their own financially - in order for shows and events to ever be produced, you need the scale of other shows on a network or from a particular production company to pay for them. Mad Men could never, ever get produced in an environment that is truly a la carte. Never. It needs both the subscriber fees for AMC itself and the leverage of other AMC shows that Mad Men fans may or may not ever watch (e.g. The Walking Dead) for it to get produced. This is the case for well over 90% of the shows on TV. This is different than, say, music, which is a comparison that a lot of people like to make in terms of how the Internet has impacted distribution. Taylor Swift album sales aren't paying for Jay-Z productions at Universal Music Group (both artists are under that label). That's really the root of any issue with a la carte and how so many of the discussions about it are waaaaay too simplistic. Too many people are assuming that a la carte would mean that they get to choose from the lineup of networks and shows that exist today, which will end up NOT being the case. Instead, a la carte means that they would get to choose from a very limited number of networks and shows because only a small percentage of them could survive in that environment. Maybe people will argue that this is how it should work, but people need to realize in the vast majority of cases, the only reason why your own favorite network and TV shows exist is because a whole bunch of stuff that you're complaining that you never watch is paying for them.
At the end of the day, much of this is form over substance. We might end up receiving entertainment primarily via the Internet instead of cable/satellite. I could easily see that. What we now know as TV networks might drastically change. I could easily see that, as well. However, does that mean that we're going to be (a) paying less money for such entertainment or (b) really moving away from buffet pricing and towards an a la carte model? I would say no on both fronts. The push against basic subscriber fees is as much about corporate profits for the cable service providers as it is about supposed consumer choice. If you actually think that Comcast is going to be charging you less money in an a la carte world (considering that they also control much of the nation's Internet broadband infrastructure), I would call you INSANELY naive beyond all reproach.
On the second front, people WANT all-you-can-eat buffets of programming when looking at their actions. Look at the 2 dominant alternatives that people that have "cut the chord" use for watching shows: Hulu and Netflix. Hulu is the result of the TV networks having realized a few years ago that people don't want to go to individual network websites to watch shows (the essence of a la carte on the Internet), but rather they absolutely want them all in one place for one price. That is NOT a la carte. This is the exact same thing as cable pricing except that it's in the form of Internet streaming: I'm paying for access to hundreds of TV shows that I may not ever watch for the ability to watch the handful of shows that I actually do want to watch. The same principle is in place with Netflix - the value proposition for Netflix streaming is that it has the scale to provide thousands of options that you may or may not ever watch.
So, maybe the "networks" in the future will be Hulu, Netflix, and sports platforms like ESPN3 that are delivered on the Internet. Those are still all built on the principle of aggregating a ton of content on a buffet basis as opposed to a true a la carte model. The thing is that the price for each of those "networks" will rise as they obtain the same amount of content as exists on cable today, so I doubt that there will be any discount to the typical consumer once you add those all up in the future assuming that consumers still want all of the same shows and events that are available today. We've talked a lot about the form of receiving content (Internet vs. cable/satellite), but the substance and costs are eventually going to end up being the same.