I'd Like To Keep My Job, Please

A couple bloggers I respect are pushing the idea of "a la carte," pay-by-channel cable television, mainly because TV preachers are dead set against it.

The only reason I don't want to see a la carte cable because it would likely put me out of a job. Many, many cable networks would go out of business, primarily the niche ones. The religious programming would be propped up by donations, but the tennis channel, golf channel, videogame channel, and at least two dozen others would have to go. They wouldn't be able to attract advertisers with such meager numbers. If you're in 30 million homes you can say "we're in 30 million homes" even if nobody's watching. But you can't fake "we're in 150,000 homes!" Although if satellite remains the same (still the bulk of the subscription base for young channels) they might try to fake it. However, the end result of a la carte cable supposedly offering "more choices" would be less choices.

It would also be the end of any startup television, period. Name ID would be everything, and the new kids on the block wouldn't have a chance.

I see what these bloggers are sayin' but this would mean the loss of between 3 and 5 thousand jobs, conservatively, in what I like to call "the only manufacturing industry left in America." And it's not like it's welfare or something: advertisers are paying for the product.