Is she trying to convert him?

I´m all for it. Should have happened years ago.

If there´s anyone deserving of the impact from ´disruptive technology´ it´s the cable cartel.

Note that many cable systems have worked hand in glove with local governments to preserve and enforce a monopoly.

I´m not sure what I think about this ... yet. I need more details before I make a decision about whether I think this is a good deal.

But - I only watch about a dozen channels and our cable system channels go up into the 800s.

MTV will continue to exist under the new model. Record companies will subsidize it, just the way they gave payola to Dick Clark and his American Bandstand.
Other channels will wither and die on the vine. (Time Warner in the Erie Pa area offers as part of its package a Big 10 channel, where ancient football games are shown most of the time. I have no idea why TW offers it to us.)

I have DirecTV, and most of the time I turn on the TV, go through all the channels, and then turn it off again. Nothing but garbage. Perhaps we aren´t stupid enough to appreciate what passes for entertainment these days. I´m about to get rid of it. A cable company that would let us choose our channels would definately be good, as we don´t watch sports, shopping, children, black, hispanic, church or ABCNBCCBSMSNBC channels. Out of the 100 or more channels we get, we probably watch 2 or 3 shows.

Maybe this will be the new Apple TV. I don´t get cable, but I like my Smart TV. random minute videos on all kinds of niche subjects are a lot more interesting to me than the shaped Hollywood reality.

´Bout time.

If you read the whole article, you´ll see that there is resistance to this, not just from the cable companies but also from the individual channels. For instance, Disney charges cable companies $5 per subscriber for ESPN, even though most viewers don´t want ESPN. (Only 25% of them actually watch it.) If only the people who want an all-sports network got it, it would cost them $20 a month, which means a lot of them would do without. ESPN profits would fall and the cost to the subsribers who actually watch that trash would soar. Naturally Disney will dig in its heels. Most of the other content providers will also resist.
I like the Intel idea, but I think it will fail.

Could we really get this lucky?

This would eliminate at least half of the worthless channels on cable. Even if the cost remains the same it would be a advancement to cable watchers and release the support for the channels that only a very few watch therby causing them to get off the air and reduce the amount of useless waste of time and energy.

The liberals will block this as much as they can because most of their propaganda media would be dropped by most of the non-Kool-Aid drinkers.

Wait to see the pricing, Ala Carte is usually more expensive.

Cable and tv support socialism -- paying the cost of services used by someone else.

In the end, what really will destroy cable TV is the Internet. Most people under 40 couldn´t care less about what cable delivers, unless they´re that minority that wants TV sports. We have a TV. I use it mostly to watch DVD´s and to catch local news programs. I get the rest of my news from the web (including Lucianne). And I´m 66. Of my four kids (ages 28 to 38) only one has cable TV. Demographics isn´t on cable´s side.

We got rid of DirecTV nearly 2 yrs ago. We use ROKU (small one time fee) and get all the TV one could ask for. Netflix is $7.99 Mo. and Amazon prime is $80 yr with free shipping on most orders PLUS tons of decent TV. Then there is PlayOn which cost us $40 for lifetime use. It allows you to watch all present episodes of TV. If you love baseball, for $100 yr you get the entire season, including playoffs, for EVERY team. There are also football, hockey and BB apps. No need to pay satellite or cable fees. We have saved around $2k since doing this and have not missed one minute of cable.

I have not had cable for 17 years. When TV signals changed frequency or whatever, I could no longer get any TV. I have not missed it one bit. I have a collection of classic and DVDs from the BBC. I get along just fine with radio and the internet. Books are also so good.

I wish Direct TV would just let me pick the channel I want. Their nothing on the networks channels worth watching anymore...Major Network news is all Liberal bias so I QUIT watching that years ago....All I really need is abouty 10 channels to watch the rest is all garbage....

Ala Carte is more expensive. But - who needs all those faux channels? If I could pick 10 or 15 channels I would be happy.

If cable goes then much of the alphabets will shrink as well. Is there not a law that says cables have to carry the alphabet channels?

The cable model is socialism. You buy channels in bundles which include one desirable channel and dozens of garbage channels along for the ride. There are only about 2 or 3 channels I ever care to see and I would get them by satellite if any of the companies offered them a la cart. Satellite is a massively parallel way of distributing a data intensive signal compared to sending it over the internet to many individual subscribers. If the internet builds fiber capacity out to the edge it could handle all the TV shows individually. Let each show stand or fall on it´s own. I am all for the non cable model for TV.

This could be great news. When HuffPo publishes lists of the most popular cable news show, Fox offerings, even the second showings of O´Reilly and Hannity come in ahead of every show on msnbc and CNN. Those networks don´t usually appear until the double digit number on the lists. So obviously, many more people would pay for a conservative (relatively) news channel than would pay for a liberal one.

Like the poster above, my hubby and I cut the cable cord several months ago and now use Netflix, Hulu Plus and other apps on a roku box. We even have a Fox app that allows us to watch highlights from the evening shows the next day for free. We kept the cable for far too long and regret that our desire to keep Fox News did end up subsidizing crud like MSLSD, etc.

Remember that Andrew Breitbart said that culture is upstream from politics. If this works out, the conservative habit of withholding spending on that we disapprove of could gain a powerful new tool - the ability to selectively "buycott" channels we like. It´s clear that we have the numbers to shape the culture if we do.

I´ve always resented having to buy a package when all I wanted was Fox News, the cooking channels and a few movie channels. A la carte programming always should have been a first choice. If this does happen, I´ll bet on bigger profits for those companies who offer it.

Man, this is really, really great news. I´ve been waiting for a long time for this. I am sick of paying for channels we won´t watch or have no interest in, like BET and all the Mexican channels that clutter our choices for example!

Oh that would be great!!! Though it may end up killing some of the smaller stations that people don´t know much about.

I´ll take:

1-Speed Channel
2-FOX
3-FOX Business
4-The Blaze (212) Dish
5-TWC

That should cut my bill down by about 95% !

Wait...wait....

6-RFD Wahoooooooooo !

#15, wait until Obama´s government allows ISPs to charge by bandwidth usage (to support free service to the ´needy´). It´s gonna cost a lot to stream hours of TV content. The only free rides go to Obama´s people.

Um, where does the internet connection come from? PFM? DSL is too slow, and that little WiFi router over in your corner connects to somebody´s spigot. What are you all going to do, go to Starbucks?

It sure would be nice not to have to deal with the same six program choices to skip through multiple channels.

There is so much crap on the tube that is unworthy to spend my valuable time watching or not watching. And some channels of programming seem to be nothing but worthless info-mercials!

This would be great!

I already found a way to destroy the cable model. I kicked cable out of my home over a year ago. If enough Americans kicked TV out of their life it might send a message to the corrupt DemocRAT/Media complex.