Ordering a la carte would make cable a tastier treat
When I go to the supermarket, I decide what to pay for and bring home. I choose my groceries on an a la carte basis and not in premade bundles that, like dollar grab bags, contain mysterious and useless items. I'm all about the vanilla bean ice cream, for example, and vehemently opposed to the -- gag -- Karamel Sutra.
And when I shop for cable TV channels, don't bully me into paying for TV I don't care for. If I don't want to invite a preacher, a gruesome medical operation, or -- gag -- Nancy Grace into my home, I shouldn't have to.
If I don't want to taste even a molecule of Karamel Sutra, I shouldn't have to -- you know, this being America and all. Don't make me buy what I don't want, don't like, don't need.
I tend to be skeptical about the FCC, whose decisions often cave to big business or moral conservatism. But late last year, FCC chairman Kevin Martin announced the commission's support of an ''a la carte" cable model, encouraging cable companies to make their services available to the public on a per-channel basis. Rather than forcing us to buy TV in crazy, mixed-up combos, where non-sports fans pay for ESPN and those without children buy Noggin, a la carte cable would enable us to make specific decisions about what gets piped into our homes. Parents would be able to make specific decisions about what gets piped into their kids' brains.
I think it's called freedom of choice.
A la carte is a more hard-core version of the remote control, and even the computer mouse; it gives us another way to click and choose. It's a step closer to the growing on-demand culture in which audiences have the power over what, when, and where they watch. Increasingly, we are able to ''go to," rather than get dumped on, as we were in the days of the Big Three networks. Why should cable company execs make decisions about what channels I pay for? Sure, I can click away from ''Cops" on Court TV, but why should I have to in the first place, since there's nothing on that tabloid-obsessed channel that I like? Why should I have to financially support the existence of Fox News, which turns me off, simply because it's in my cable package?
And why should you have channels that you dislike -- many of them probably different from those I dislike -- foisted upon you?
Even ''family-friendly" packages are manipulative. Naturally, cable companies don't like the idea of a la carte, since it will upend their financial balance, in which the costs of expensive channels are offset by cheaper ones. And so they're starting to offer family bundles in order to mollify the FCC and keep the passionate a la carters at bay. (Two weeks ago,
Of course, changing the cable model is complicated. A la carte could end up costing some consumers, at least at first. Cable companies probably aren't about to start making less money (indeed, cable rates have risen dramatically in the past decade), and you can bet they'll find ways to milk us even if we're buying fewer channels en masse. But then I suspect the companies will need to do the adjusting in the longer run. Indeed, as alternatives to cable gain momentum, and as Internet TV becomes increasingly viable, cable will need to remain competitive.
Another argument against a la carte is that small cable channels would suffer without riding the coattails of the more popular ones. I mean, many of us wouldn't actually pay for FitTV, even if we might stumble across it and watch it for a minute or two a month. The Golf Channel, the Game Show Network -- only a few of us are going to choose them from the fray. And that selectivity may bring down a harsh Darwinian reality in the cable arena.
A lot of taxpayers don't have children, but many of them do believe their taxes should support education and social services. You'd have to work hard to convince me, however, that the survival of Home & Garden or Encore is my responsibility.
Cable companies should certainly always offer prebuilt packages, in addition to a la carte. Those of us who like to browse will enjoy having random channels thrown our way, for those offbeat moments when we accidentally find ourselves lost in Style's ''How Do I Look" or watching a ''Sex and the City" rerun for the 10th time on TBS. Some of those packages could even have themes in addition to family, such as comedy, or style, or sports.
But with an a la carte option, the cable companies and channels will probably need to find new ways to let viewers know what each channel offers. Perhaps they could create a sampler channel so that those unfamiliar with, say, TNT, can try an episode of ''The Closer" or test the channel for a month. Perhaps they can restructure their promotional efforts to engender more word of mouth. That's their job.
So go ahead. Reach us, convince us, impress us into buying. Just don't make me stick any Karamel Sutra in my freezer.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.
