Should Cable TV Be A La Carte?

There's a push on in Congress and by the chairman of the FCC to force cable companies to sell their programming on an a la carte basis, instead of as packages of fifty or a hundred channels at a time. Steve Effros, former president of the cable industry's lobbying association, explained on my show why this is a bad idea that would end up costing you and me more money in the long run. Listen, then click here to subscribe to these podcasts via iTunes!

Before talking to Steve, I went through the list of channels I get in the Dish Network package we subscribe to. Sure, there are many of them that I never watch, but there were also several that I'd never heard of, including the Good Samaritan Network. I have no idea what that is, but I imagine it shows things like a car crash followed by 11 people coming out of a building to help the victims. Or a woman with a flat tire getting help from a kindly passerby. Or the CEO of a huge corporation protecting the jobs and retirement plans of his employees, even if it means he and the board of directors don't personally gain from it.

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