Dear cable companies...
Dear Cable companies,
You see this thing here? Where Hulu is going to offer subscriptions to full seasons of TV?
Please try a variation of that. How about instead of charging me $70/month for a slew of channels I don't want, you charge me $3/month for each channel I do want. Add bundles: $10/month for a group of 4 channels owned by the same parent corporation, or a buy-four-get-one-free arrangement off an a la carte menu.
Because really, $70 is outrageous. I would feel a lot better about the channels I do watch if I got to pick them and directly relate their value to my enjoyment of them. So I wouldn't pick some of the channels that I watch on rare occasion; I could live with that. And customers who couldn't live with that would go back to the $70/month scheme, and be happier about it. Isn't that what you want? Happy customers who willingly part with their cash?
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If I had these options, there are some no-brainers on my list:
Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, TNT, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, Science Channel, ABC. At least two PBS stations (currently I have four, I think).
I would probably want BBC-A, and DIY, and perhaps Animal Planet and NatGeo. TBS is pretty good, too.
By bundling channels with common corporate parents (e.g. Discovery, Science Channel, and Animal Planet; Food Network and DIY; TNT and TBS, who would I hope also throw in TCM), this list would cost me about $30 by my little scheme. I would go from "maybe I'll just cancel cable and watch everything on the computer" to "I love my cable provider!"