There are three things you need to know about Chase Carey:
- He is the COO of 21st Century Fox, and therefore he has a vested interest in maintaining the present cable “bundle” package system, because it will keep more of his cable stations in front of viewers’ eyeballs.
- He has a really, really great mustache. (See banner image.)
- He is not a fan of the a-la-carte-style cable package that is gaining popularity among consumers, politicians, and even cable providers, which would allow viewers to select only the channels they want instead of getting a wheelbarrow-full dumped on their doorstep. (See first bullet point.)
From Deadline:
“It is a farce,” he told the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference. “People may want different bundles, but a la carte isn’t the answer. The bundle is still a great proposition for the consumer, when you compare it to the world of $5 lattes and cell phone bills.” [Deadline]
I can’t decide what my favorite part of that quote is, the fact that his primary defense of cable bundles is to just start naming other things that are almost universally regarded as wildly overpriced, or the fact that I pictured him saying it while twirling the corner of his mustache like an old-timey cartoon villain who just got done tying the hero’s love interest to some train tracks. I suppose it’s both. That’s a bundle I can get behind.
