Pages

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Another Year End, Another Contract Negotiation

The year is almost over and once again a cable company faces another programming contract negotiation. This time it involves Time Warner Cable and Sinclair Broadcasting. "A blackout would affect 33 stations reaching more than 5 million Time Warner Cable customers and block channels such as Fox and ABC in Columbus, Ohio, and CBS in Portland, Maine, Sinclair said." Have we become hardened to such news. Typical stuff. And when it doesn't affect your own particular home, do we even care. Eventually every increase in fees eventually translates to higher cable rates to the home. And with no wall in sight, it looks like these rates will only continue to rise.

The solution, obviously is disruptive change. New technology, new service providers, new sources for content that cause us as consumers to bypass our current platform for a new one. Today, it is called cord cutting. Rates are only rising and consumers must either pay the piper or stop feeding it.