I wish we could have a la carte channels. And choice of commercial ratings as well, at least during the day. For example, I think Star Trek: TNG is suitable for young teens (if they're already into Science Fiction anyway) but there shouldn't be any commercials for Girls Gone Wild during it (at least during daylight hours).
And this from the article is just bizarre, because you can set up your favorites list to exclude what you're not interested in watching, so it seems like some of those stations and advertisers are paying for a big fat nothing because they aren't reaching their audience anyway.
Cable networks prefer the "bundled" system because they can charge more for advertising if they're distributed to as many homes as possible. Plus, cable companies pay them a monthly fee for each home they're in.
Here's the article as to why the cable industry doesn't want a la carte:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060224/ap_on_bi_ge/tv_a_la_carte_getting_there
One other complaint I have is considering some useless channel like HSN programming. None of those shopping channels are anything more than commercials. Yup, they get deleted too.
Not to mention that there is no true 24/7 programming to speak of, which is a bummer if you work different hours and watch TV later.
If the Cable companies can provide pay-per-view events and manage to somehow deal with the volumes of people who pay, they can provide a la carte channel selection.
We can hope, anyway.
And this from the article is just bizarre, because you can set up your favorites list to exclude what you're not interested in watching, so it seems like some of those stations and advertisers are paying for a big fat nothing because they aren't reaching their audience anyway.
Cable networks prefer the "bundled" system because they can charge more for advertising if they're distributed to as many homes as possible. Plus, cable companies pay them a monthly fee for each home they're in.
Here's the article as to why the cable industry doesn't want a la carte:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060224/ap_on_bi_ge/tv_a_la_carte_getting_there
One other complaint I have is considering some useless channel like HSN programming. None of those shopping channels are anything more than commercials. Yup, they get deleted too.
Not to mention that there is no true 24/7 programming to speak of, which is a bummer if you work different hours and watch TV later.
If the Cable companies can provide pay-per-view events and manage to somehow deal with the volumes of people who pay, they can provide a la carte channel selection.
We can hope, anyway.