The FCC is thinking of allowing TV watchers to choose which cable channels they want and only pay for those. Individuals will not longer have to buy a bunch of channels that they never watch all bundled together with the ones they do watch.
Robin (on the Howard Stern show) was talking about a list of the 20 most watched cable channels, but I didn’t hear her source nor did she read the entire list.
Does any know of a site that has this list on it?
Don’t know if this is what she saw, but a quick googling brought up this list (on a damn ugly site).
That site’s a bit outdated (and pug fugly). The Nashville Network hasn’t been The Nashville Network in several years.
And what the hell is “Nike at Nite”? 
I found this site, which appears to be more updated (as of 4/05).
10-4 on the ugly! Shitty list, too.
We have reduced the dozens of channels we can actually receive to a Favorites list on TiVo which lets us pretend we don’t get some of the junk channels. But I’m afraid we have more than 20 on that favorites list. Now that our “basic” service includes 8 channels of Encore (which used to be Premium stuff) there’s 8 we would want on the list.
(Somehow I thought this thread was going to ask what our personal Top 20 would be.)
That list is the top 20 BY SUBSCRIBERS. That doesn’t mean the twenty most watched. ESPN2 is likely bundled with ESPN on many cable packages.
No list can truly claim to name the 20 “best” cable channels without having ESPN Classic on it somewhere.
[hijack]
If you could only have 20 cable channels (no premiums) what would they be?
1 ESPN
2 TNT
3 ESPN NEWS
4 CNN
5 CARTOON NETWORK
6 NICK
7 DISNEY
8 SCI FI
9 COMEDY CENTRAL
10 FOX SPORTS
11 ESPN2
12 CSPAN
13 E!
14 MSNBC
15 FOX NEWS (I GUESS)
16 USA
17 TBS
18 HEADLINE NEWS
19 GAME SHOW NETWORK
20 CSTV
To be honest, I could get by with the first 10 only.
[/hijack]
middleman,
hijack away! It’s a good idea to list your 20 favorites.
Zeldar,
Let’s hear yours!
These are my 20 and the only ones I would pay for:
History
Discovery
The Learning Channel
CNN
Headline News
Fox News
Weather Channel
VH1
Travel Channel
HGTV
Spike
Comedy
A & E
Fox Sports
Cartoon Network (for the kids)
Nick (for the kids)
Animal Planet (for the kids)
Disney (for the kids)
KCSI (Chinese, for my wife’s soaps and news)
QVC (Wife’s shopping)
Okay. My favorites fall into categories that themselves fall in and out of season, depending on circumstances. The most regular category would be movies. Of those channels my favorites are:
IFC
Sundance 1
Sundance 2
TCM
Flix 1
Flix 2
(There are now 8 Encore channels which I would include, but that would run me out of channels too quickly, so I’ll get the others in first)
When earth-shaking news (wars, catastrophes, weather threats, impeachments, assassinations, etc.) is in the air I go to:
CNN
MSNBC
PBS
NBC
ABC
C-SPAN
Weather
(There are two local 24-hour weather channels I’d have to keep, too, but as above, I’ll skip them now)
During college football season it’s:
ESPN
ESPN2
Fox Sports
CBS
For music it’s:
BET Jazz
That leaves 2!
I guess it would have to be:
Comedy (but just for The Daily Show and Colbert)
F/X (but just for The Shield)
I do watch 24, so I’d need Fox for that. If I had to dump one to keep Fox during 24 season, it would be C-SPAN.
Now and then A&E, History, Discovery, Spike, Bravo, National Geographic, and a few I’m having trouble remembering, will have shows I’ll watch, but I could dump them if I had to.
All the religious and pop music channels could go.
I’d be up the creek, it appears, if I had to dump all but 20. And I haven’t even considered my wife’s tastes here.
Thanks for letting me review my tastes, Mangosteen.
Top 20, no premiums:
Those I would pay for. What’s going to happen with ala carte programming is things like BET are going to disappear. Niche programming will vanish, and it will be harder and harder to launch a new channel.
If I were choosing (in no particular order, other than that #1):
That’s pretty much about it. I could probalby cut that list down a bit if I tried.
No particular order, and I can’t come up with 20.
I’m ok with that. I hate subsidizing a niche station with my subscription rate.
C-Band satellite used to be ala carte as well as offering reduced rate packages. Digital C Band tends to be just packages, and I can’t pay for the pizza dish and another package on C Band. I hope C Band returns to ala carte.
I would think there would still be a basic cable/satellite package with BET, VH1, Weather channel, USA and the like. The cheap stuff makes it easier to make basic packages.
1-ABC
2-CBS
3-NBC
4-Fox
5-UPN/WB (I hear they are merging)
6-BBCAmerica
7-SciFi
8-Bravo
9-A&E
10-Discovery
11-USA
12-TBS
13-CNN
14-Fox News
15-IFC
16-Sundance
17-Soap Network (I’m weak)
18-PBS (Can’t believe I forgot it.)
19-TNT
20- whatever I forgot
MTV and VH1 and their siblings do nothing for me - Loved MTV Europe when I was in Italy and miss it, but stateside - no. They do not play anything that interest me.
Based on what we are currently watching, and in no particular order…
1 Disney Channel
2 Toon Disney
3 Cartoon Network
4 Boomerang
5 BBC America
6 ESPN
7 Fox Sports
8 Food Network
9 USA
10 TNT
11 Bravo
12 CNN
13 Sci Fi Network
14 History Channel
15 Biography
16 Fine Living
17 The Travel Channel
18 The Discovery Channel
19 Animal Planet
20 A & E
This is assuming that we get the “basic” network and local independent stations for free. If not, scratch The Cartoon Network and The Disney Channel (my son deosn’t really need four channels of his own) and add the local CBS and NBC affiliates (for The Amazing Race and Law & Order).
I’d like to know, in this hypothetical situation, how often one gets to change their list of channels. For example, I don’t currently watch anything on the SCi Fi Network, but I will be watching Dr. Who starting next month. Once the season is over, I could drop it in favor of something else until next season. Similarly, I only need Fox Sports during baseball season.
I don’t necessarily think that a la carte programming would kill off the smaller channels. The pricing would just need to be structured so that the packages would still be attractive. For example, I currently pay about $45 for 164 channels, of which I regularly watch about a dozen, and occasionally watch another dozen or so. If a la carte programming were priced between $1.50 and $2 per channel, my two dozen channels might cost me somewhere around $40. That’s just fine, but for another five bucks I can get 140 more channels, and I don’t have to wory about not being able to see a particular program because I didn’t pick that particular channel.
People with particular tastes would take advantage of a la carte and purchase only the few channels they actually watch, but the vast majority of subscribers will still purchase packages simply because they are less trouble to figure out.
C Band satellite lets you buy a program for a month. It costs 10% less if you buy for a year.
1.) SciFi
2.) Comedy Central
3.) Cartoon Network
4.) History Channel
5.) History Channel International
6.) The Science Channel
7.) Discovery Times Channel
8.) National Geographic Channel
9.) Discovery Channel
10.) Spike TV
11.) CNN
12.) The Weather Channel
13.) MSNBC
14.) Logo
15.) FX
16.) TNT
…I pretty much stop there, and some of those (Spike, Cartoon Network) are more for my husband’s sake than for mine.
Obviously an network which runs old TV shows with shoe ads inserted. Who could forget that classic episode where Lucy tries to handle an out-of-control sweatshop assembly line?