So, how is that different from any other industry? Cars? Clothes? Movies? Records? The cable companies always tell us that a-la-carte would be the death of everything, but I haven't seen any reason why bundling is critical for cable tv but not for every other business. I think tv would be just fine either way, it's just that the cable companies have a tougher time convincing you to pay a bunch of money for junk when you can specifically pick what you want to pay for.
I think you replied to the wrong poster
. I wasn't arguing for the cable bundling v. a la carte. I'd take a la carte channels all day long.
I was arguing that funding content creation and distribution of television shows, many of which can get quite expensive, on a per-episode or per-season basis, would make a novel idea even more risky than it is today, and that funding per channel, content publisher, or content creator, rather than per work, can provide a buffer against that risk, not unlike a regulated futures market.
Now, as networks continue to devolve into reality shows and bad sitcoms, it won't matter either way. Chasing cheap profits over interested viewership is as much of the problem with cable cancellations as new distribution methods are. For all the cheap ratings Survivor provides, as much is lost, much more quietly, as we
don't watch Discovery, TLC, A&E, History, etc., nearly as much. In following the same path, they may have created single shows with high short-term value each, but the total library is not being improved overall nearly as much as it used to be, year over year, and the costs don't reflect that quality.
And yes, they are not like cars. Cars are an economic necessity, in much of the U.S.. That's a fundamental difference. They are not like clothes. Public nudity is not legal everywhere, and most private businesses won't have it, either. They are not like records, because those are relatively cheap to make
(people who perform on the side can often pool enough money together to make a decently recorded and mastered album). The expense is largely promotional (if a well-known producer is used, FI, that may cost, but that's not going to happen unless the artist has made plenty of money already, and/or the label plans it to be very popular).
Movies they are fairly like. I would even point to all the bad and so-so remakes we've had over the last ~15 years as an example of what I was talking about with risk-aversion.
Unlike movies, a big budget TV show will not have theater sales and promotion. There may be alternatives, but I don't know what they'd be. A good bit of big budget movie promotion involves the novelty of the movie, especially movies heavy on action, CG, made in 3D, etc., which for a TV show, will be lost after a couple episodes.