Joe Nocera, writing for the New York Times, has a column discussing the concept of a la carte pricing for cable channels. He says that an FCC study suggests that people’s cable prices would go up under a la carte pricing, even if they selected far fewer channels.

I don’t really follow the logic though.

The reason is that unmoored from the cable bundle, individual networks would have to charge vastly more money per subscriber. Under the current system, in which cable companies like Comcast pay the networks for carriage — and then pass on the cost to their customers — networks get to charge on the basis of everyone who subscribes to cable television, whether they watch the network or not. The system has the effect of generating more money than a network “deserves” based purely on viewership. Networks also get to charge more for advertising than they would if they were not part of the bundle.

Take, for instance, ESPN, which charges the highest amount of any cable network: $3 per subscriber per month. (I’m borrowing this example from a recent research note by Craig Moffett, the Sanford C. Bernstein cable analyst.) Suppose in an à la carte world, 25 percent of the nation’s cable subscribers take ESPN. If that were the case, the network would have to charge each subscriber not $3, but $12 a month to keep its revenue the same. (And don’t forget: with its $1.1 billion annual bill to the National Football League alone, ESPN is hardly in a position to tolerate declining revenues.)

What this suggests to me is that for every hard core ESPN viewer, there are 3 others who are getting charged $3 apiece under the bundled system to subsidize the hard core viewer’s reception of ESPN. (Thanks guys!) The ESPN viewer is apparently getting a $12 value for $3. But, the money is coming from somewhere. What value are these non-ESPN viewers getting for their $9? If the channels weren’t bundled, would that money otherwise go to the History channel? Are some channels getting less than they would otherwise because of the bundling?

Maybe I missed something obvious or maybe the writer failed to explain a crucial detail, but I’m not yet prepared to write off a la carte pricing as a good option for cable subscribers.

Cops: Neighbor misses dog, shoots woman

A woman who was chasing her dog was fatally shot by a neighbor after the dog ran through the neighbor’s property, police said.

Posey County Sheriff James Folz said Melinda Lindauer apparently was trying to shoot the dog, which had ventured on her property near Wadesville, about 15 miles northwest of Evansville. Instead, the bullet struck 29-year-old Nicole Stroud, who was visiting her grandmother’s home Thursday.

Stroud was pronounced dead at Deaconess Hospital in Evansville. Deputies arrested Lindauer on preliminary charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide.

Charlie Averill: Taking Back Our Economy-Part 9 What Do They Really Mean?

What they say:

“We need labor market flexibility to run a profitable business.”

What they really mean:

* We want to use temporary employees instead of permanent employees; we want to contract the work out to other companies.
* We don’t want to pay overtime.
* We want to schedule employees at the last minute and on irregular shifts. And, we want to mandate overtime.
* We don’t want to pay health care or provide defined benefit pension plans.
* In short, we don’t want any binding commitments to our employees. We want to use them as we want, when we want, and pay them what we want.
* And, most importantly, we don’t want a union or the government interfering with our doing so.

The Slacktivist has a nice post on those annoying in-line ads the Indy Star is so fond of. Among other things, if these links become the norm in online newspaper articles, that will pretty much prevent those article from ever adopting useful linking practices.

In 1620 a band of religious separatists who weren’t happy with their situation in England (Church of England) or Amsterdam or Leiden (cultural influences) departed for the New World. For some reason, they planned their trip such that they arrived in Massachusetts in December. They found land that had been cleared by a prior Indian settlement and subsequently decimated by disease — most likely smallpox — and were able to settle there during the winter.

Fortunately, a native Patuxet named Squanto who had twice been kidnapped and enslaved by Englishmen was able and willing to translate for the Pilgrims and teach them how to raise corn and catch eel. Having survived their first year by the skin of their teeth and brought in their first harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving 386 years ago.

So, today, as you enjoy your turkey and mashed potatoes and what have you, give thanks to God and/or Squanto as your preferences dictate.

I was in a nine hour deposition today. About pigs. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.