# Where's the a la carte cable TV **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 21, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882 "2009-04-21T19:36:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/21 "2009-04-22T01:02:37Z")
My cable provider has an “à la carte” service, but it’s actually just a customizable package. We pay a base rate for the same channels as basic/analog cable, and then pay another rate for 30 channels of our choice (out of the majority of the available lineup… some sports and movie channels have to be selected as packages). In our case, it allows us to have more English-language channels that interest us than the “Anglo” package does (the company has a “franco” package as well). ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/22 "2009-04-22T01:19:41Z")
> [@Furious\_Marmot](#): > > Why are cable companies allowed to have local monopolies? I have never livbed anywhere with more than one choice for cable. Even a little competition isn’t enough. We are in the land of Optimum Online. In comes Verizon FIOS. The bastards charge effectively the same price for comparable service as Optimum. I smell collusion but who’s to say? My guess is unless there’s 3 or 4 choices you are screwed. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/23 "2009-04-22T01:40:17Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Cable companies fought that tooth and nail, they are probably still fighting it. I was in our local cable office a couple of months back setting up internet service and I asked the lady at the counter when they were going to start offering a la carte programming. From the look she gave me you’d think I’d asked to borrow her underage daughter for the weekend. What really hacks me about the current model is that I had to move to the next tier of programming to get one channel that I really wanted. Reminds me that I need to go look at the current listings to see if I can move back down. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/24 "2009-04-22T03:54:40Z")
> [@Furious\_Marmot](#): > > Why are cable companies allowed to have local monopolies? I have never livbed anywhere with more than one choice for cable. We’ve had multiple cable companies where I live for at least a decade. Didn’t really fix anything. Either company A screws you over or company B does. Or you can chuck them both and go with satellite company C or D and get screwed over by them. ---
**Author:** ![HorseloverFat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/25 "2009-04-22T04:06:40Z")
\>What really hacks me about the current model is that I had to move to the next tier of programming to get one channel that I really wanted. Yep, thats by design. For instance, I was looking at switching to dish tv and found their entry level HD programming to be tempting but one or two popular channels were missing, but there they were in the second tier. It was something like Animal Planet or Discovery. A channel that I and others really want in HD. A part of me thinks that with netflix watch now, hulu, torrents, etc the shift to ala carte will happen whether these companies like it or not. The music industry pretty much no longer sells full albums, everything is a single mp3 but there’s special album pricing. In the past you couldnt just buy track 5, 8, and 4. You’d have to buy the whole album. The same thing is slowly happening to TV. ---
**Author:** ![Levolor\_the\_Blind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc8723/32.png) [@Levolor\_the\_Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Levolor_the_Blind)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/26 "2009-04-22T05:46:12Z")
> [@HorseloverFat](#): > > \>A part of me thinks that with netflix watch now, hulu, torrents, etc the shift to ala carte will happen whether these companies like it or not. We’ve done this at our house. We realized that almost all our news comes from the internet and NPR and we no longer (now that BSG is done) watch any regular series plus we have a huge library of movies on VHS and DVD (thanks to library and garage sales). So we canceled the satellite and bought an Xbox. We download movies and old series through netflix. Current stuff I catch on Hulu. And we’re not the first among our friends who’ve done this. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/27 "2009-04-22T06:28:57Z")
> [@Quintas](#): > > Ugh. the more I think about my above post, the more ridiculous it seems. I pay 60 dollars to watch the Daily Show once or twice a week and sometimes the History Channel if something new is being shown on a sunday evening. All of these are available on the net. I currently don’t pay for cable/satellite because I can get so much content online. And it is alreadyon demand! In fact, the on demand part is what I consider the down side. I always have to plan what I want to watch, instead of being able to just flip to see what’s on (when I’m too tired to think, for example). And if I find a show I like, I have to fight to have the self-restraint not to just watch them all at once, which decreases the amount of time I have to enjoy them. ---
**Author:** ![batsto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b2d939/32.png) [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/28 "2009-04-22T18:02:52Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > All of these are available on the net. I currently don’t pay for cable/satellite because I can get so much content online. And it is alreadyon demand! > > In fact, the on demand part is what I consider the down side. I always have to plan what I want to watch, instead of being able to just flip to see what’s on (when I’m too tired to think, for example). And if I find a show I like, I have to fight to have the self-restraint not to just watch them all at once, which decreases the amount of time I have to enjoy them. I always got the impression from the reps who visited our company from various channels that this is is the part advertisers don’t like to hear. Fewer people will watch a show if they have to out of their way to order it up, as opposed to people who watch whatever happens to come on next because they’re too lazy to look for something else. The more networks and cable companies can inflate the numbers of people who are supposedly watching a channel, the more than can charge for advertising on it. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/29 "2009-04-22T18:30:21Z")
IIRC Adelphia (before they were bought by Comcast) did offer a la carte, but due to the structure there really wasn’t any significant price advantage over basic cable. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/30 "2009-04-22T18:41:53Z")
If the shopping channels and religious channels came off, I could flip around a lot faster. Just making them go away would be so nice. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/31 "2009-04-22T18:45:48Z")
> [@Quintas](#): > > Does it actually cost them anything once the cable lines are in place? They pay a per-subscriber fee for each channel they carry, so yes. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/32 "2009-04-22T19:30:49Z")
On a semi-related topic cell phone companies fought very hard against allowing people to take their cell phone number to another company. They got that change delayed by 2 or 3 years. They knew that people would stick with a company so they could keep their number. ---
**Author:** ![Mudz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@Mudz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudz)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/33 "2009-04-22T21:06:27Z")
[Hulu.com](http://Hulu.com) is the answer. Daily Show, Family Guy, The Office, tons of movies and other TV shows. It’s all free and legal. I thought I’d hate giving up Dish Network, but really, most shows I would have missed are free online. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/34 "2009-04-22T21:23:49Z")
> [@HorseloverFat](#): > > A part of me thinks that with netflix watch now, hulu, torrents, etc the shift to ala carte will happen whether these companies like it or not. Absolutely. If not for live sports, I wouldn’t need TV service. And hell, I could just subscribe to live sports online, but I don’t trust [MLB.com](http://MLB.com) to stream video worth a damn, since they can barely cobble together a usable homepage. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882/35 "2009-04-23T04:39:40Z")
> [@Furious\_Marmot](#): > > Why are cable companies allowed to have local monopolies? I have never livbed anywhere with more than one choice for cable. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I believe here the city board of directors lets a contract. In Chicago, it’s not a matter of local monopolies; RCN, Comcast, AT&T, plus Dish and DirectTV are all available to every _homeowner_. The catch is that rental buildings only offer one cable and no satellite. While there may be exceptions, for the most part the building owners don’t want to give all the residents their free choice because that would mean wiring the building with EVERY PROVIDER’S individual wiring (3 cable outlets, and 2 dishes per unit). That would be expensive and silly. So renters are stuck with whichever cable company got to the owner first. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-a-la-carte-cable-tv/493882.md?page=1)