So just read a very interesting article about the price of sports programing for cable providers such as Comcast. Apperently sports programing is far and away the most expensive programing to buy, with ESPN leading the way at 5 dollars per cable subscriber. I had no idea that one non preimum station could make up such a large part of my monthly bill. Now to the fascinating part. The question becomes why make people who have no desire to watch such programing pay for it? And were not talking about a small group either, 3 out of 4 cable subscribers have no interest in sports. The answer is they have no choice. To be relevent in the marketplace cable providers must have sports programing and since the actual group of folks watching is so small it would result in a likley unacceptable rise in costs for those subscribers. Oh ontop of that, content providers like Disney who owns ESPN also like to bundle their channels together, so if Comcast wants ESPN they have to buy the whole suite of Disney programing. The whole thing really makes me wonder how much longer cable TV will be relivent as online based services get better and better. And if u look at content consumption and the way its changed recently its really all about specialized media these days. When I want my sports news I don't by today's issue of the Chronicle along with the host of other news it comes bundled with. I go to not just a sports site but a sports site just about baseball and in many cases one focused on fantasy baseball. How much longer will people continue to buy their TV this way? I guess ultimately its up to the content providers and what road they see leading to the most spoils which must be scarry for the cable providers...
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