[mlocher]

I wonder how many of these stations boil down to the same set of investors (e.g. ESPN & ABC are owned by Disney). I am sure that these products (cable channels) are sold to distribution channels (cable companies) as package deals in many cases. As long as the consumer is willing to pay for package deals, this is not going to change.

I have had some luck over the last 5 years renegotiating my bill with my cable company. I can usually get 15 to 20% off my bill, but it has to be on their terms, meaning they have things they can discount but it may not be the item I want discounted. The cable companies spend a lot of money attracting new customers. They do not want to lose existing ones, so they will give a bit.

I think if more people put pressure on the cable companies, then they will have to go back and get cheaper products. Only then will a la carte programming be seriously considered.

[discostu]

Most of them. When you get right down to there’s only a handful of real cable channel companies: Disney (ESPN, ABC, Disney), Universal (USA, SyFy, some others), Discovery (Discovery, TLC), Viacom (MTV, VH1), Turner (CNN, TBS) and Fox (FoxNews, FX), maybe a couple others. And yes they sell in packages, packages that force the cable companies to package to us.