Sen. John McCain Pushes 'A La Carte' Cable Choice Legislation

Sen. John McCain Pushes 'A La Carte' Cable Choice Legislation

Hard to imagine cable customers don’t routinely look at their bills and wish they could pay for only the channels they watch.

Sen. John McCain feels your pain, and he’s plotting a bill that could give cable customers the sought after “a la carte” option–the choice to pay for channels individually.

The Arizona Republican is preparing legislation that would let cable customers buy channels individually, according to a report in The Hill….

Under the current system, cable companies charge customers for bundles of channels. In turn, media companies package their content to cable providers so that they are forced to pay for  less popular channels in order to get access to more desirable ones like ESPN or AMC.

The pay-per-channel solution may sound ideal, but cable companies could still make it a less than worthwhile option. SiriusXM offers a variation on the pay per channel option for its radio-style services, but when this reporter did some number crunching a few years ago the savings never materialized.

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