Historically we have paid for either service or content. In case of television, we have been paying for nothing as the content is advertisement supported and the service was free. With the passage of time we, consumers, got used to pay for the services as we migrated to cable, DTH and now IPTV.

We as consumers are paying both for content and the service in the present service models. For the service we pay directly to the service provider by way of fees and for the content we are paying indirectly for advertisements.

I think we are paying at two instances under present models for entertainment. There is no logic in charging us twice. After all, whatever is fixed by the service provider for the service includes the share of channel owners and they fix the fee based on the content. So why are we paying twice for it? Moreover, we are paying to view for the content and that should not be supported by advertisements. Take instance of the content available over Internet. If you are subscribing to free services, they are ad supported and it you go for a paid subscription there are not ads. Similarly, it should be in case of television now. If one wants to view the content by paying for it, there should be no pop-up ads. Under present model we are just being fleeced and all in the value chain are skimming the profits.