Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans

unassimilatible writes "Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain seems to be leaning towards sponsoring legislation mandating something I have wanted for a long time: Forcing cable companies to offer "a la carte" programming packages. No U.S. cable or satellite currently offers such a plan. However, as the Washington Post reports, "That may change, if some lawmakers and consumer groups get their way, as the cable industry finds itself under increasing scrutiny. Lawmakers report that their constituents are angry about cable bills that have risen at three times the rate of inflation since the industry was largely deregulated in 1996." McCain money quote: "I go down to buy a loaf of bread. I don't have to buy broccoli and milk to go with it." Bottom line is, cable companies have a government-authorized monopoly, so maybe they need to recieve government-mandated "innovation." Why should I pay for 15 non-English channels?"

Comments

Unbelievable

[GileadGreene]

It is truly mind-boggling how wealthy, secure, and decadent we have become. It seems like every time I turn around there's some politician preparing to legislate about something that, while I'm sure it may be annoying, is
(a) not really life-threatening, and
(b) the result of the aggregate free choices of "the people".
Have we no bigger problems in the world than ensuring that people can get access to cable channels without having to buy entire packages, or keeping the world safe from telemarketers. These do not seem like Earth-shattering issues.

I wonder, do people actually write letters to their congress-critter begging them to tell those nasty cable companies to let them buy the channels they want without having to buy a package? Or is it simply the case that McCain wanted to get HBO without paying for Discovery, got annoyed that he couldn't, and decided that this was "an important issue" to legislate on.