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The Salt Lake Tribune Television column
(Salt Lake Tribune, The (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jun. 13--Last week, Nielsen Media Research released a study that says the average U.S. home now has a record high of 118 cable channels to choose from.
Which immediately had me thinking, "Great, 118 channels, and there's still nothing to watch."
The really unnerving part about it is that cable prices continue to skyrocket. The cost of cable TV shot up 77 percent since 1996, nearly double the rate of inflation, according to new figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to The New York Times, the revenue cable provider Cablevision got from each subscriber rose $10 in just two years. At another provider, Time Warner, revenue went from $54.50 to $64 for each customer.
It's ironic that in the world of technology where the ability to watch programs improves dramatically -- TVs get larger, portable devices get smaller, the picture gets better -- while prices fall, the content we watch on them is getting more expensive. And some argue the quality of that programming is getting worse. Just exactly how many reality shows about washed-up Z-list celebrities do we have to endure?
So the media companies and Hollywood networks are getting richer. The subscribers are getting poorer because we're dishing out more for roughly the same programming, and there's nothing we can do about it except seriously consider pulling the plug.
But is that really feasible?
Asking families practically raised on cable TV to yank their main source of entertainment is like asking them to disconnect their electricity or water. For many of us, cable television is not a luxury, it's another utility. We're willing to pay for it -- within reason.
Yet something has to be done about the rising cost of entertainment.
Let's start at the top. Stars don't need multimillion-dollar contracts to be in shows. The same goes for producers.
Networks don't have to wave extravagant salary deals in front of executives to attract the best talent. And the chief executives of the media companies that own the networks don't have to live off salaries and bonuses in the hundreds of millions. Maybe if we start there, the cost of producing shows won't be as high.
Then we can ask the same of the top people running the television providers. And we can kill the kinds of revenue-sharing relationships between the cable providers and the networks that have resulted in higher cable prices.
Consider this a warning from the customers down at the bottom who are fed up with paying an average of $60 per month for cable or $10 a ticket to go to what is usually a miserable movie: Do something now or more people will turn to the Internet for free videos or illegally download movies through bit torrent sites.
I'm not there yet, and I don't think the Internet is going to be the source of more entertaining video -- frankly, I don't consider homemade videos of the cat drinking from the toilet to be fun.
Cable networks still have a lot to offer, from AMC's "Mad Men" to FX's "The Shield" and half of HBO's lineup. And it's worth paying to have quality programming wired into my home that I can see -- sometimes in high definition -- on my big-screen TV, instead of on a smaller computer monitor.
With the cost of gasoline (and airline fares) forcing families to stay home this summer, we shouldn't also be hit in the pocketbook so unfairly for at-home entertainment.
--VINCE HORIUCHI'S column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at vince@sltrib.com or 801-257-8607.
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Copyright (c) 2008, The Salt Lake Tribune
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