As for the reader comments from the L.A. Times website, it was not my intention to suggest that the comments were in favor of the cable industry, only that there were some comments that suggested this approach may not work.

As for the issue of whether cable operators are the newsstand or the publisher, we have long argued legally that a cable operator is a publisher, exercising editorial control of what programming services are offered and how they are packaged. You are, of course, free to disagree with this characterization.

Professor O’Connor seems singularly focused on the issue of programming quality, suggesting that crap ought to perish and subscribers should not be forced to support such content. I’ve yet to see much (well, anything) expressed in support of any cable programming. In other words, if you don’t like any of it, then why subscribe to cable at all? On the other hand, if there are programs and networks that you do like, then perhaps you may want to acknowledge that its existence is due to other subscribers paying for it, despite not watching.

Just a thought.

That’s just it. Nobody’s “mandating” that you buy anything. If you don’t think there’s anything good on cable, or not enough to make it worth the price, then nobody’s “mandating” that you buy it.

I remember the bad old days of cable when there were 40-60 analog channels and most of the time there was literally nothing good on. I get 150 channels now for what I consider a reasonable price, the picture quality is good, and there is ALWAYS something good on. And I can watch it anytime I like with DVR and on demand.

And your critique of the newspaper analogy doesn’t hold water. Forget about sections. Buy a newspaper or magazine at a newsstand at the cover price, then compare that to what you’d pay if you subscribed to it. You’ll ALWAYS get a better deal with a subscription than with an a la carte purchase. Same with cable tv or anything else.

By the way, 85% of the American public disagrees with you that subscription TV is not worth it. So instead of bashing cable, according to your standards you should be bashing the public for being stupid enough to pay for TV.

I too read the LA Times column on a la carte and every one of the comments. It’s clear to me that readers of the Times, aka cable customers, overwhelmingly favor a la carte. Your implication that the reader comments to Lazarus’ column oppose a la carte is disingenuous.

I’m also not accepting for an instant your analogy about buying the various sections of the LA Times on an a la carte basis. The Los Angeles Times represents one news source: one entity with one profit center. Think of it as CNN. Nobody is asking cable operators to let us buy only Anderson Cooper to the detriment of the rest of CNN. Rather, we’re saying that the cable operator is like the owner of the newsstand. The local newsstand does not force us to buy the LA Times, The New York Times, the Wall St. Journal, and Washington Post, as well as Sports Illustrated, People, Vogue, Car and Driver, and all the rest. But the cable operator does. The cable company gives us no choice but to buy all their titles, shoving products down our throats that we don’t want and, in the case of foreign language channels, products we don’t even understand, or, in the case of religious programming, ideologies we don’t support.

Furthermore, take a good, hard look at the crap on cable TV. Don’t delude yourself into thinking cable exists for the public good. Cable TV provides entertainment first and foremost. And when it comes to entertainment, cable TV leads the way in stupidity.

Exhibit A:

One of my students this semester has created a blog called “MTV Corrupts” in which she included this clip from one of MTV’s signature shows. After viewing it, please…please…tell me why the American consumer should be mandated to pay for this s-h-i-t (literally) of Sumner Redstone’s if all the consumer wants is news and sports? Check it out here: http://mtvcorrupts.blogspot.com/2008/11/mtv-promotes-poo-diving_12.html

Cable operators and programmers, beholden to one another and protected by quasi-monopolistic practices, have little incentive to be customer-centric, and so they are not. Their opposition to a la carte is just another way of saying “Customers be damned!”

Cory O’Connor
Assistant Professor of Advertising and Public Relations
Chapman University