I’m failry certain we’ll never get to à la carte cable. Certainly not in the next several years… given the current content hegemony that requires channels on certain tiers and/or bundling of multiple properties. Having said that, industry has taken notice as consumers look to exert more control over their content choices and seek more value from their entertainment expenditures. And Verizon announced a new permutation of FiOS… that, interestingly, most closely resembles Sling TV.
Double play plans start at $55/month with both existing or new Verizon FiOS customers choosing the data speeds they want, including the base 34 Custom HD channel lineup, with the possibility to add “channel packs” for $10/pop. Triple play, for voice, is also an option. The new plans do not require a 2-year agreement, as so many other FiOS packages do, but the most interesting aspect is, of course, the ability to more finely tune the stations you receive.
While ESPN has made some noise about their offerings not being made available within the core Custom HD FiOS package, I’ve been on Select HD (without ESPN) since last August. After spending more than I’d like buying BBC America content from Amazon Instant, instead of upgrading from Preferred HD to Extreme HD at a cost increase of $15/month, I dropped down to Select HD to pick up BBCA… by giving up ESPN (and some other channels). Which brings me to the point of this post: NONE of the new packs include BBC America nor BBC News. So, although my monthly bill wouldn’t go up with a new $75/mo two-pack 50/50 Custom HD package, I’d lose one channel I feel pretty strongly about.
Anyone else do the math?
I took a look at it. I have younger kids, so I’d need the “kids” pack. From there, between my wife and I, the “lifestyle” and “entertainment” packs are almost hers versus his. I don’t think it saves much if you start adding “packs”, except maybe on a temporary basis.
I may try it in a couple months when my contract is up. I am curious to see if they add promos to it. I would put my wife’s channels on versus mine since I don’t mind waiting for netflix on a lot of those shows, and her interest is more channel surfing. South Park is the other casualty (comedy central is the only thing I’d want from “pop culture”), I think they put a lot of their content online anyways.
Regarding BBCA. I also D/L my BBC content. I was unwilling to pay $15/mo at the time for BBCA, which was the one channel I’d use. One modest savings is I use discover card “cashback” redeemed to VUDU certificates $25 cert for $20 of cashback. Every bit helps. Keep in mind the certificates expire within a year, so I do them one or two at a time. We also use VUDU for our “family movie night”, if we decide to do an on-demand rental, so leaving up to $25 on credit works well for us. Every Q4 is “online” sales, so you get 5% on $1500 of “online purchases”, so that is an easy $75 of credit. Pick up another $5 and you have $100 of VUDU spend.
I am looking at it, but it looks their channel listing is still a little borked. I don’t see SyFy anywhere when I was trying to figure out what i wanted (I don’t care too much about it, I was just trying to figure out what makes sense)
My only issues is paying for Pop Culture just to get Comedy Central. I am wondering I the app is sufficient otherwise it seems to save me 40 bucks a month, of course I lose all the premuim channels except HBO, and the news channels, which I don’t really watch and probably not having will make me happier. I am going to wait to see how this shakes out first before switching.
“Which brings me to the point of this post: NONE of the new packs include BBC America nor BBC News.”
Well, theoretically, if you could save enough with this plan, and you could live without BBC News, then you could plow the savings into buying select BBC America shows a-la-carte.
But that probably wouldn’t work out in practice. And BBC News is kinda essential, IMHO.
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For me, the real catch-22 is as follows:
While I watch zero other sports, I’m an NBA junkie, and just to get my NBA slate, I’d have to subscribe to 3 separate ‘packs’. Crazy, huh? Of course, I could ditch 2 of those packs during the off-season, but the off-season only lasts four months at very best, depending on my billing cycle. So, no savings for me.
(And weirdly, while the Sports Plus ‘pack’ sez it “Includes all Regional Sports Networks”, when I check my local channel availability, the local sports networks carrying my NBA teams are listed as not available in any ‘pack’. Typo, or more weirdness.)
But the real problem with these bundles for me is that they are ‘internet only’, meaning it forecloses my biannual negotiation with Verizon that always saves me a large amount over the rack rate. So, the whole concept breaks down for me.
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All that said, if you’re not into sports at all, I could see this being a quite compelling alternative to Sling TV type options, considering the far superior UX and channel flexibility.
Of course, that assumes the Verizon lawyers weren’t as drunk as normal when they signed off on this…
Well, since I’m all caught up on Luther and Sherlock, with maybe not a whole lot more in the pipeline, after Orphan Black concludes, I’ll revisit the packages at that point. I watch a lot less college football than I used to and much is on broadcast or on the ESPN streaming tier I get via the boradband portion of my account. Mayve two or three times last year, I did borrow my mom’s WatchESPN credentials – which I’ve rationalized, since her condo makes her pay for it. In the early 2000s, for a few years, I only subscribed to cable during college football season. Way too hard to pull off these days with contracts, CableCARDs, and the like. Also, there’s currently way more compelling cable programming.
Ananth, SyFy is in the Entertainment bucket:
http://www.verizon.com/home/fiostv/custom-hd-lineup
“Mayve two or three times last year, I did borrow my mom’s WatchESPN credentials – which I’ve rationalized, since her condo makes her pay for it.”
All your cellmates in Guantanamo will have “rationalized” their actions too, y’know…
“In the early 2000s, for a few years, I only subscribed to cable during college football season. Way too hard to pull off these days with contracts, CableCARDs, and the like. Also, there’s currently way more compelling cable programming.”
Ditto. I was constantly canceling/resubscribing during that time period, with more time spent off than on. Considering I had the ‘max’ Netlfix DVD plan, (was it 12 discs?), that kinda covered my viewing needs pretty well when The Sopranos, NBA playoffs, or Presidential campaigns/impeachments weren’t on. Plus, I hung out in bars far more in those days. (I was off cable when the twin towers attack happened, had no OTA reception, but loved hooking my Mac up to my teevee to get the ABC live-feed. So much time watching George Stephanopoulos drink coffee and fix his hair when local news was airing, which was oddly mesmerizing.)
But yeah, today I wouldn’t even consider it, even if there were no hassles. And not only because cable programming has genuinely gotten so much more compelling; the DVR was the big revolution in making a cable sub essential in my eyes. Harvest that multicast!
Damn. The settings on your current moderation queue are utterly baffling to me. Just length?
It’s mostly automated, I have very few manual settings in play. Don’t think it’s length. Maybe posting multiple times in close proximity?
My current package is Prime HD + 50/50 + phone at $110, so it looks like I could potentially save close to $25 per month. Although, when I select the custom package online I get the same $110 price. Plus, as Chucky points out, recommitting to a 2-year agreement every other year has been achieving better savings without losing a bunch of channels.
Mike, thanks for reminding me to mention that I think the configurator may be busted because my prices weren’t coming up exactly right either.
I might save $15 but that is to much of a sacrifice. I will lose my $99 bundle that includes Showtime. Basically I would be saving less than 10% on my bill at the end of the day and lose so many channels.
I just got off chatting with verizon customer support. They said the prices are for new customers only. Since I’m existing verizon customer with fios but out of contract, it will cost me $135 instead instead of $95 for triple play 25/25 with 4 tiers which is $5 more per month than I’m paying right now for all of the channels.
So possibly good for new customers, not really good for existing customers.
$40 savings for new customers which is the prices they are advertising.
I would be able to survive with the main setup and 2 packages (sports – espn and nbcsn and news – cnbc). But I don’t see HBO listed so that will be another $20/month probably. In theory that would be dropping my bill from $135 at Comcast to $55. in thoery
James, hm interesting. Wasn’t clear to me via outreach or the lineup pages that’s how it worked. When I’m in my account online, it’s like the same price for 25/25, 50/50, and 75/75 which makes me think something is broken. Although I haven’t looked again in probably 24 hours. Either way, I’m staying put on my plan – at least until Orphan Black concludes this season.
yes those prices are for new customers only as I found out on Sunday. I had been excited because the price of $115 for 75/75, phone, and four channel packs would have saved me $25 over the Ultimate HD, 75/75, and phone. But since I’m an exisiting customer the price was $135. So not worth it to me for a $5 savings since with the Ultimate HD I get all the channels and most of the non-premium ones.
I had been really excited about these channel packs but Verizon really knows how to let the steam out of something. i should have known there was a catch.
Right now, I pay $5 more and it includes HBO, Showtime, and BBCA. So I think I am good for now.
Thanks Dave, I don’t think it was there originally, but maybe I was just blind.
If they could just move Comedy Central into entertainment, I think I could make this work…
“maybe I was just blind. If they could just move Comedy Central into entertainment, I think I could make this work”
If you can verify that blindness with a doctor, and have no other sighted persons in your household, Chucky World Industries would be happy to offer you an incredible deal on cable TV services…
I called to renew my 2 year agreement and you can get the same price deals as a new subscriber if you inform them you are thinking about switching over to Comcast’s new package deal. They seem to have the details of their latest promotions on hand just to argue the specifics. I would call Comcast first and find out what they can offer to switch.
“I called to renew my 2 year agreement and you can get the same price deals as a new subscriber if you inform them you are thinking about switching over to Comcast’s new package deal … I would call Comcast first and find out what they can offer to switch.”
Sure. But you’re able to cheat by being Superman, “Daily Planet”.
(Of course, that’s the exact same strategy I employ every 2 years, always with great success. Get the best price elsewhere, and then call Verizon. Highly recommended to all in multi-wireline markets. Rack rates are for suckers. And as much as I love FIOS, and would hate going over to an MSO with tuning adapters and restrictive CCI byte policies, I’d be willing to actually do so if FIOS changed policy and wasn’t willing to be at least vaguely competitive with the best rate I can get elsewhere.)
Maybe I have benefited too much over the years but I had no luck with that approach. The first time I switched from Cox to Fios, I got a $300 HP gift card (for a desktop computer), 2 years later, I got $400 Visa gift card for playing the I’m leaving game. This past time once my 2 years was up, I haven’t been able to get them to budge. I will try the leaving route because I do think I could save $40 per month using the tiers system.
They’ve let me take it as far as scheduling a disconnect date. Then customer retention called me and offered me my current deal.
“They’ve let me take it as far as scheduling a disconnect date. Then customer retention called me and offered me my current deal.”
Wow. I’ve never gotten that far. (Though, like I said, I’m not bluffing when I call, and would certainly let things go that far, and even all the way if that’s how it played out.)
When I call, I’ve already done my homework on the best rate elsewhere, (by calling the competitors and getting something under their rack rate), stay strictly within the truth in reporting that rate to the FIOS folks, and within the first five minutes of the FIOS call, tell them I want to cancel and ask to be transferred immediately to the retention department. That’s always been enough to get things done on a single call. All the real time and effort comes before the FIOS call. The hardest thing is always getting retention to send me an email confirming the details while we’re still on the phone, which they really try to avoid doing, but will do if you keep insisting.
(And while it’s all a bit of a hassle, your time gets paid at an hourly rate that would make a white-shoe lawyer incredibly envious.)