According to this article, Bob Gessner, President of MCTV, can’t offer Ala Carte programming, because government regs won’t allow it? The FCC is really overstepping their bounds on this one. That organization was created solely for the purpose of making sure that radio stations didn’t all try to broadcast on the same frequency. They’re not supposed to be protecting old style media outlets from disruptive technologies. The reason I use that term, is because digital cable is a disruptive technology to traditional cable channels. Sure, digital cable offers more choices to consumers. More importantly, it makes ala carte programming technically feasible. The digital channels can simply be turned on or off by the cable provider on a per customer basis. With analog cable the only way to do this would be to install a band pass filter on the cable line, attempting to block the frequency range that carries a specific channel. Anyone who’s ever watched scrambled PPV porn can attest to the successfulness of this approach.
So why are the media providers afraid of ala carte programming? It’s because, business, understandably hates change. Change represents a threat to bottom lines. For decades, they’ve operated in a market sandboxed by regulations and technical feasibility. To enter the free market, where all products must stand on their own, and only the good survive, must be terrifying to them. This is a capitalist country, it is not the government’s job to protect business from the market. If that’s what they want, maybe they should set up shop in Cuba.
