The fees the cable companies pay for programming are based on the number of customers reached. The broader the carriage the lowers the cost to the company.
If they went a la carte you would have about six channels people would be willing to pay for...and you’d pay about the same. Don’t forget you are paying for the plant as well. And that ain’t cheap to construct and maintain.
I think we’re headed to ala carte service. Remains to be seen what form.
Netflix, amazon, huku and others are offering a wide variety. Netflix will be showing 15 new episodes of Arrested Development.
We have everything on DirecTv, but could do without most of it.
Even HBO and others offer episodes on line. Perhaps the cost will someday be less than a monthly subscription to 5-10 different HBO channels. Most just repeating their first run programs.
I look forward to first run movies. Give it to me for less than two movie channels and I’ll order up.