Specialty Channels

I don't watch TV. We don't even have one in our apartment.

But I think something fascinating is going on in the world of cable/satellite television.

Sportsnet One -

The Blue Jays' fan base is up in arms over Rogers new sports channel, Sportsnet One. The problem: pretty much all Blue Jays games used to be available through basic cable. Now Rogers has made a percentage of them available only on Sportsnet One, which is not currently part of basic cable/satellite packages. Fans (yes some of us enjoy watching baseball on TV) are angry because they are unable to watch many Jays games.

Rogers' solution to the problem they created: get cable/satellite providers pay a little more and make Sportsnet One part of basic cable, or get fans to pay the extra X.99$/mo. to subscribe to the channel.

Either way they get more money without adding any content.

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This appears to be the trend in the cable/satellite industry, and I suppose the previous sentence is the reason why. So many channels, so much redundancies in programming... I guess it doesn't really matter for me. It just seem so inefficient.

Seems like this is part of the trend of media companies are trying to find the most profitable combination of advertising (Do you actually watch the program?) and subscription revenue (Do you want the ability to watch the program?) streams. I think the bracketed questions are important. Makes me wonder where this industry is going long-term.

Anyways... I guess this doesn't really affect me.