We’re still about a week away from the summer solstice, but it sure feels like summer already. The massive heatwave in Washington, D.C. this week helped set the tone, but the available programming on broadcast television also contributes.

It’s no secret that cable programming has been doing very well in recent years, especially as compared to broadcast television. Just one example is the growing number of honors that cable has won over the years.

Lost, The Big Bang Theory and The Office have gone bye-bye for a while and instead we can look forward to I Survived A Japanese Game Show and Dance Machine. But one way to make it through the summer TV doldrums is to turn to cable television. I am reminded of this by two items from this week. On Monday, the NY Times‘ David Carr pointed out it’s a Golden Age for TV? Yes, on Cable. Yesterday, Hamilton Nolan noted on Gawker: Cable: The Old New Big Thing.

Carr said this:

However, for anybody with cable — and that includes most of us — television is in something of a golden age. Cable networks other than the fancy subscription services like HBO and Showtime used to be the realm of stupid human tricks and commercials for six-minute abs, but networks have shot by them in the race to the bottom.

Channels like TNT, AMC, FX and others came up with their own versions of “Trading Places” and carved out niches, sometimes huge ones, by letting viewers know that narrative, quality and drama have not gone off the grid.

And Hamilton said this:

Networks must, by design, try for mass appeal. Cable channels can target their audiences much more effectively. The scary thing for networks is that even specialized cable channels no longer represent just a niche audience any more; they are almost as plugged into the mainstream as the networks themselves.

The success of cable is built on serving niches. As Carr said, those niches can get collectively pretty big.

The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau has a handy chart on its website showing the effect of summer: Ad-Supported Cable Viewing Shares Heat Up In The Summertime. It looks at all dayparts, but if we examine just one metric, we see that primetime ratings for ad-supported cable networks increased 17% from November ‘06 to July ‘07, while broadcast ratings went down 33% for that same time period.

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It’s worth revisiting a topic that never goes off the radar: Concern about content. Everybody can agree that cable transformed the television landscape by vastly expanding viewing choices, but not every viewing option is to everybody’s taste.

But the important point to remember that what cable delivers is choice. You get a ton of options and then you pick out the ones that appeal to you. Spouses, partners, kids, friends and neighbors all are likely to make different choices. But by starting with a wide initial set of options, everybody can have a better chance of being satisfied.

Some people are very concerned about certain programs. This is very understandable, because not all programming is appropriate for all ages. Some content may not be to your taste or may even offend you. Fortunately, there is a solution: parental control features.

You can find out more at our website Control Your TV or from a report prepared by the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s Adam Thierer. Suffice it to say that between your television’s V-chip controls and those of cable’s digital set-top boxes, you have the ability to block by channel, rating or show. (Also, read this chronology to see how long the cable industry has been addressing this issue.)

Philosophical argument #1: I don’t like a piece of content, so it ought to be stopped. The problem with this approach is that what’s a problem for you may not be a problem for me and vice versa. The best solution is not to ban, but to allow me to choose that content and allow you to block it out.

Philosophical argument #2: That piece of content is so offensive that it’s wrong that I’m “forced to subsidize it” with my cable subscription. Currently, the best and most economically efficient way to deliver a broad array of viewing options is through bundles of channels. You may feel like you’re “subsidizing” the channels you don’t watch, but your fellow subscribers who don’t watch your favorites may be “subsidizing” yours. There is plenty of evidence to show that a mandatory a la carte system would lead to fewer viewing options, less diversity of content, and higher prices overall.

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The issue of mandatory “a la carte” for cable television service continues to be a hot topic. This is actually a pretty broad and complex topic, so I’d like to break it down a bit.

For some people, when they think of “a la carte,” they simply mean, “I feel that my cable bill is too high and I’d like to pay less.” Just remember than any discussion of price ought to include an examination of value. Is the product or service delivering value in proportion to its price? (For more on the relationship of value to price, see this earlier post.)

But, let’s accept the premise for a second. You think your cable bill is “too high.” Many fans of a la carte are making this calculation.

• Average Monthly Price for Expanded Basic Programming Packages: $42.76
• Average Number of Channels in Expanded Basic Package: 80
• Average U.S. Household Tunes to Channels per Month: 15.7

“So, wait,” the thought goes. “If I pay 43 bucks for 80 channels, but I’m only looking at 15 of them, than the other 65 are wasted. There are channels I never look at. Why am I paying for them? If only I could pay for exactly what I want and nothing more, surely I would pay less.”

Let’s also accept another premise. You like some cable channels. You probably don’t watch them all, and there may be a few you actively hate. But if you get some kind of multichannel video service, it’s because there are channels you enjoy and want to see continue and prosper. So, while you might want to pay less, you don’t want that to happen at the expense of the viewing choices you now enjoy.

There’s the conundrum. Mandatory a la carte won’t satisfy either of these desires. You probably won’t end up paying less and you’ll also endanger the economics of the channels you love.

The Yankee Group recently issued a report entitled “A-la-Carte: The Demise of Television as We Know It.” The Research Recap blog has highlights of the report. It’s important to remember that most cable networks - except for premium services such as HBO, Showtime and Starz - have multiple revenue streams. They make money from cable operators for allowing them to carry the service (i.e., to deliver it to you in your home) and they also get advertising revenue. Both of these revenue streams rely on being in as many households as possible, even separate from the issue of ratings.

If I am the president of the Fly Sneaker Channel, in an a la carte world, I now have to market to each household individually to convince you to buy my channel. So, my marketing costs go up. Plus, I won’t make my advertising revenue, because now I’m in zero households to start and I’ll probably never build up to a very large number except very slowly. You might like my channel; you might want to skim it occasionally to check it or there might be a positive review that makes you want to see a particular program. But because it’s not on your lineup unless you choose to subscribe to it, that won’t happen.

Now read the recap of the Yankee Group’s analysis.

• Under a la carte, programmers will lose their current economic model. Surviving networks will have to charge consumers between $5.00 and $10.00 per channel to overcome the decrease in carriage fees.
• With a la carte, casual viewers go away, decreasing both viewers and advertising revenue. Niche networks won’t have enough reach to survive.
• With mandatory a la carte, the 565 national video programming services and networks will dwindle.

Some networks will not be able to financially survive. Before you say “Good riddance,” don’t assume your favorites will survive. Many networks may not have the money to invest in new and innovative programming, so you may have to kiss your favorite shows goodbye as well. The networks that do survive may have to charge several bucks a month for subscription fees. Odds are you could select very few channels before you’re right back up to the price you’re paying now.

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This has more to do with cable programming than cable technology or policy, but I thought I’d share it.

The National Geographic channel is running a fascinating show this month called Aftermath: Population Zero.  If you’re interested in the impact human’s have on their natural environment - and what would happen to Earth if we disappeared - you should check it out.

I honestly didn’t know quite what to expect when I saw the preview for it.  The human race disappears one morning, and from there the program explores what would happen in the days, weeks, months, years and eons following.  NGC describes it as “the astounding story of a world we will never see… [a] world without humans.”

Almost immediately, the world begins to lose power as electric generating equipment realizes nobody is at the controls and fails or shuts down.  Within a few weeks, the diesel generators that keep water pumping to cool spent nuclear fuel also fail, resulting in a massive nuclear meltdown at the world’s nuclear facilities.

Zoo animals and family pets suddenly forced to fend for survival roam the streets and begin the process of relearning life in the wild.  Within a few years, nature begins to reclaim our biggest cities.  Within about 150 years, structures like high-rise buildings, the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower come crashing to the ground.  Within a few hundred years, all evidence of our existence is gone - save for the stainless steel fixtures that will take centuries more to disappear.

Hollywood has made more than a few movies that examine an apocalyptic scenario that leave few, if any, humans wandering the world.  Aftermath goes one step beyond and explores the process through which the Earth would repair itself.

It’s a two hour program, but well worth the time invested.

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