Senator Thune, the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, is crusading to force TV stations to offer their channels directly to pay-TV customers on an individual, ‘á la carte’ basis. Thune bills his ‘Local Choice’ proposal as a ‘new’ idea, but there is nothing new about government meddling in the relationships between cable networks and content providers. The intellectual basis for Thune’s á la carte proposal is no different from the basis which underpins arguments in favor of ‘net neutrality’.
Debates over á la carte access to individual TV channels and net neutrality appear to be unrelated on the surface. But beneath the overheated rhetoric, they share the same DNA. Cable operators are the central player in both dramas. They play the role of an ‘Internet service provider’ (ISP) who provides access to the Internet in net neutrality debates, and the role of a ‘multichannel video programming distributor’ (MVPD) who provides access to cable TV in á la carte debates, but the ‘pipes’ that cable operators use to provide both services are exactly the same — it is only the jargon (ISP versus MVPD) and the legal rules that change.
The fact that the intermediary roles played by cable operators as ‘ISPs’ and ‘MVPDs’ are fundamentally the same is why Senator Thune’s support for an á la carte mandate in his Local Choice proposal is so alarming. It would force cable operators to offer each local TV channel to their subscribers on an á la carte basis at an individual price set by the TV station and would prohibit any opportunity for cable operators and TV stations to engage in market negotiations regarding channel pricing and packaging. Read More