HDTV Almanac - Making a Case for a la Carte

[alfredpoor]

Earlier this year, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court threw out a class action antitrust lawsuit (Brantley v. NBC Universal) that held that bundling of cable channels unfairly forces consumers to pay for programming that they don’t want. The ruling stated that while consumers may be damaged by the practice, there is not evidence that competition [...]

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[ccclvib]

...and we're back again to the problem of marginal entertainment channels that wouldn't be able to stand on their own. Lots of people have one or two of these they watch - sometimes for only one program (Mythbusters for me.) I'm willing to pay what is probably only a little more to have the channel(s) I probably wouldn't have available at all otherwise. I wonder how many viewers who also want unbundling have a program they would never get to see if they got that chance. The old "cake and eat it, too" situation. Of course, it may come down to how many absolutely want unbundling and how many want what they have. ...and how much additional expense it would be for the video services (cable and satellite) to offer both? Yeah, I know: the programs we like well enough could all be streamed, but would they be able to recoup production costs that way? Technology keeps resolving questions like this, but creating new ones at the same time. We'll see, I guess.