PTC to Verizon: Your “Unbundling” Isn’t Really Unbundling

The Parents Television Council called Verizon’s announcement that it will drop cable bundles a “distinction without a difference,” and urged the company to embrace giving consumers a la carte cable choice.“ Verizon’s announcement that it will drop the requirement for consumers to purchase full cable bundles in order to access TV and Internet service still doesn’t give consumers real choice in terms of programming. While the company may be offering smaller bundles of network programming, Verizon is just the latest distributor to be fooling itself about what consumer choice really means. Unless and until consumers get to pick and choose – and pay for – the television networks they want to bring into their homes, what they’re proposing is only a distinction without a difference. The irony is that the network programmers are increasingly offering their own content on an a la carte basis via apps and other subscription services, yet they prohibit the cable, satellite and telco distributors from having the ability to sell networks on an a la carte basis. As long as customers are forced to pay for bundles of unwanted networks, cords will continue to be cut,” said PTC President Tim Winter.