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?
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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...