A large chunk of this is due to the media conglomerates that require the cable/satellite providers to carry entire blocks of their networks, even the unpopular ones- and then demand ever-higher fees for each one of them. Don’t want to carry “The All Crap Network”? Then you can’t have Discovery, SiFi, and whatever. Oh, and since we KNOW you want those others, you can pay us higher broadcast fees for all of them.
This is one of the biggest obstacles to ala-carte cable. Folks point fingers at cable and sat carriers, yet it the the mandated bundling that makes it impractical to offer only what consumers want.
I would say that DirecTV could remove over half of the channels in our package and I wouldn’t care- except they would come off in chunks- taking the desirable with the junk.
I don’t speak Spanish. I HATE Rap-crap. Not in love with TV Preachers. Yet, I pay for all that stuff in a “package.” No ala-carte. Ain’t right!
Totally sat TV-free since last June.
We have been catching up on science fiction series and movies via Netflix. We had dropped the alphabets back in 2004. Now, I realize that Syfy would take series episodes totally out of context, plus, they were so chopped up for ad breaks that it was difficult to follow the plot lines. Movies and mini-series, as well. The DVDs and streaming episodes/movies are a joy, with all the content, no commercials, the ability to pause or resume later and, more and more often, now, closed captions.
We watch The Real News from the Blaze for current news. We may cut our GBTV subscription back to $5/month, since we don’t watch their other offerings very often.
I wouldn’t pay $70 for DirecTV, why would I ever pay $200? We can also get many Food Network shows on streaming, NOVA, the few real history shows, etc, etc. Unless you _have_ to have the absolutely most current show in real time, there is no reason to sub to any TV service, IMO.