I recently discovered my $29.99 monthly fee for Direct TV inflated to $60 a month. You've got to pay attention to those asterisks when you initially order I guess is the lesson. I negotiated them down to $39.99 and gave serious thought to killing my television again. But that box is addictive in a Pringles kind of way: once you start you can't stop; once you stop you don't want to start again.

The $39.99 package stripped me of a few familiar haunts I visit along my journey on the dial (only nobody uses a dial anymore). It replaced them with programming I never received in the original package. I get Logos, the gay channel (other than MTV and Bravo), but not Noggin, the little children's channel. I get Oxygen, the bitter woman channel, but not Spike, the left-side of the bell curve man channel. I have a multitude of shopping channels but no money to buy their cubic zirconia. If you are into religion, Direct TV has them all. It's strange that for the longest time Direct TV withheld Versus from me, but it always provided me a cornucopia of the most obscure religious sects.

"More channels/worse programming" is the great paradox of our age. When there were just three channels, you could watch The Twilight Zone, or Dragnet, or All in the Family. Now we have The Real Housewives of New Jersey (as if I don't encounter enough unpleasant people away from the television) and Most Shocking, a made-for-television ripoff of Faces of Death. It's indecent, yes. But worst of all it is a complete waste of time.

I want shows about serial killers and volcanoes and outer space. Any contest involving men beating each other up, I want to watch. A little science fiction would be nice. Is it too much to ask for a music channel to airs videos? But instead of all this, I get numerous Spanish-language stations, interchangable channels obsessed with reality television, and celebrity news on various networks purporting to be straight "news" networks. Bruce Springsteen is a prophet for having written "57 channels and nuthin' on." He just forgot to add a zero at the end of that number.

This brings me to my plea: the world needs a la carte cable now. If you can order HBO or bypass ordering it, why can't you create a personalized list of cable channels? Why can't I order VH1 Classic and not MTV2? A&E and not TruTV? Spike and not Lifetime? SyFy and not the E! Channel?

A la carte cable would be as revolutionary in encouraging freedom of choice as the remote control or cable television itself. Ironically, the cable companies are now playing the obstructionist role that the broadcast networks once played towards them. True competition isn't letting a thousand guys make the team and then vie for the starting job; true competition involves allowing the coaches to make cuts. Letting the viewer decide which channels make his team, and which ones deserve to get cut, will inevitably force channels to raise their game. Currently, not the best programming but the programming with a corporate affiliation with the cable or satellite provider stands the best chance of ending up among your viewing choices. That makes sense from the provider's point of view; it doesn't make sense from the customer's point of view. The customer is always right--except when a paternalistic corporation tells him he isn't.

Such an enlightened method of ordering cable television would not only expand consumer choice, but it would more accurately match price with product. Within the totality of my monthly bill, I currently pay for numerous channels I don't watch. Cable a la carte would ensure that you get what you pay for and you pay for what you get. It would also eliminate the charlie foxtrot that flipping the channels has become. Since when did we need a guide to channel surf? And if the cable or satellite company wishes to tack on all those horrible channels that pay them to air their content, then I would gladly accept them as part of the deal.

Ronald Reagan told Mr. Gorbachev to tear down that wall. I am telling GE, Comcast, Time Warner, and Dish Network: unbundle that bundle. Don't be so presumptuous to order your customers dinner from your menu. Let us choose our own food.

People try out all sorts of ridiculous theories: Communism, New Coke, and the Jamaican bobsled team are a few that come to mind. But the institutional inertia holding down a good notion seems immovable. Some ideas contain too much sense to be allowed to become reality.

The problem is that one company will own five or six channels and they require the providers to offer all their channels or none at all. If a provider doesn't offer ABC then they won't get the ESPN channels. Being able to only order the channels you want will never happen.

I haven't had cable or satellite tv for around four years now and unless they find a way to drop the prices I can't picture myself ever getting it again. Amazingly I really don't miss it that much.

Also, I think it would be tough for a cable company to make a profit with an A la Carte system. I think it's safe to say a lot of people would only choose 10-15 channels to pay for. So, either the cable company would make less money than now, or the price of only getting 10-15 channels would be roughly the same as what it costs to get them all right now. I'd rather pay the same amount and get more channels even if I only watch them occasionally.

did you seet the drudge link today about ray bradbury? http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/08/ray-bradbury-is-sick-of-big-government-our-country-is-in-need-of-a-revolution-.html

The problem is this in a nut shell. Hollywood is the biggest bunch of self promoting, do gooders, maing obscene gobs of money ever. ive got some friends in the business and its so funny hearing there parents gush over their overpaid 2 mth a year earning kids, who are turning out crap on the WB Network. Go to hollywood young man and get paid tons of money for working 2 mths a year. I love the xmas break they take for 3 mths. I'd love to be able to say to my clients hey were too cool, i am going to bora bora see you when i get back in march, in the meantime look at this tape recording of me ( re-runs).
God Bless hollywood.

"I negotiated them down to $39.99 and gave serious thought to killing my television again. But that box is addictive in a Pringles kind of way: once you start you can't stop; once you stop you don't want to start again."

I called them my cable company (Charter) in May and told them I wanted it shut off and to only leave the cable internet running. My wife and I were leaving town for all of June and July anyway, and I've been wanting to pull the plug on the idiot box so this seemed like the perfect time.

Well, I come back in August and what do I find. Although they are now billing me for only the internet, they never actually shut off my cable. I wonder if they do this on purpose since they know how addictive it is; like a junkie going to rehab and trying to kick the habit only to have his dealer offer him a free sample knowing it will draw him back in and he'll gladly pay once the pusher threatens to shut of the supply again.

The main reason I had it shut off is because my wife is hooked. I figured out that they didn't shut it off the day after we got back, but didn't tell her. She figured it out accidentally when trying to watch a DVD last night and now is back to watching again. I try to tell her to look at it like this: When you're on your death bed 70 or 80 years from now, you aren't going to say, "Y'know, I wish I'd watched more TV." You're going to wish you spent more time with your friends and family and less time rotting your brain in front of a glowing box.