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I'm not sure where you got your information but it is not entirely accurate, and no I don't work for a cable company. I work for an integrator and our job is to update cable company headends and telco central offices.
Lets take ESPN/Disney for example. Not only do operators have to pay for each channel individually, they also have to carry second tier channels they don't want AND have pay for those also. That's why there are so many channels no one cares about.
OK, Comcast, Charter, Time Warner, etc decide $4.08 is too much for ESPN and refuse to pay. Disney doesn't budge so the operator drops ESPN from the line-up. It would take a grand total of 5 minutes for their CSR’s to be overwhelmed with angry customers. The programmers know this so they just wait the operators out.
But don't fret. If your patient enough you'll start seeing voice, video, and data sold in blocks of usage instead of the current “broadcast” package. For instance, 40 hours of on-demand video product (TV series, movies, sports), 40 hours of Internet access plus unlimited voice for $X. As soon as the competition between switched digital video and IPTV plays out (IPTV will eventually win) I think something similar to what I described will take place.

That’s basically what I said. They don’t just sell ESPN by itself, they sell the package with all the ESPNs, and part of those contracts includes how they’ll sell the tiers to the customers which includes these other ESPN parts that nobody watches.

The problem with IPTV is that basically the same people that are pushing packages on the cable companies will control the feed. They’ll sell the packages to the last mile guys of IPTV the same way they’re selling the packages to the last mile guys of cable. Not to mention the fact that half the high speed internet in this country is coming from the cable companies, who have already lost this fight with the channels. It’ll be same $#!+ different box for IPTV.