UtiliTV

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This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on December 9, 2008). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

As long as I’m babbling about the boob tube and whining about cable pricing, I might as well toss out my pie-in-the-sky, never-going-to-happen concept for what I want as an option. I actually have two possible concepts, both of which seem like they’d be very doable in the present or soon-to-exist all-digital world.

  1. A-la-carte: Get rid of these ridiculous “bundles” that give me seven channels that I’d pay attention to and sixty-three that I’d ignore. Show me your lineup and let me put my own bundle together. Give me what I want to watch (local channels, Discovery, History, Sci-Fi, etc.), and don’t force me to pay for crap that I’ll never pay attention to (the six thousand variations of QVC, foreign language channels, etc.). I don’t have any issues with paying for content that I’m interested in, but I do have issues with paying for content that I’m not interested in.

  2. TV as a Utility: Open the pipe and give me access to everything, but track what I watch and bill me for what I watch. Watching a few shows here and there is a small bill, feeling lonely and desperate for company and leaving the TV on 24/7 is a larger bill. Bill me for what I actually consume, not what you hope I might try to consume in my most desperate, anti-social, couch-potato moments of depression.

I don’t expect that either of these options are likely to appear anytime soon, if ever, but they make a lot more sense to me than any of the current pay-TV models do.