Sampling the whole menu can be fun
Already the younger set is downloading and burning its own music, subscribing to its own selections on satellite radio, and building its own list of favorites on all the new gizmos.
If the FCC has its way, cable companies will have to start offering channels (beyond the most basic tier) on a piecemeal basis, enabling sports fans to pig out on ESPN, kids on cartoons, news junkies on Fox, CNN and MSNBC, and so on.
The impetus behind the FCC's shift in position has more to do with indecency concerns than with economic logic, but, if implemented, will indeed have both financial and cultural ramifications.
I know the a la carte concept is all about freedom of choice, but surely some element of surprise and discovery will be lost when everything is customized and everyone is his or her own exclusive programmer.
Beleaguered parents are still much more likely to feel empowered to urge their kids "to eat their vegetables" than they are to say "watch this and don't watch that." The so-called family-friendly package the FCC hopes will catch on with viewers, (or be imposed by parents), will, I bet, languish like brussels sprouts on the edge of a child's plate.
As for teenagers, many are already using television just as background noise, while interacting with four or five other high-tech gizmos. How to get them back to watching and absorbing anything onscreen is a daunting proposition.
Don't get me wrong: I do think folks who live in dictatorships deserve a diet beyond military parades and hoary reruns of "Hogan's Heroes." And I do think pubcasters in "advanced countries" have occasionally served up the pabulum they think the public ought to watch rather than what it wants to watch.
But still. When grazing and sampling become as old-fashioned as watching exclusively the Big Three networks once was, then how often will viewers happen upon something they hadn't expected or bargained for -- something riveting that extends their attention span or, heaven forbid, expands their mind?
I guess there really won't be much time for or interest in anything except what a consumer has predetermined is tailor-made for his taste. To paraphrase Lewis Carroll, folks may become less curiouser than ever.
And that change could in turn eventually squeeze out less popular programming genres and even whole channels. After all, in the cable world, the carriage fees of some channels (think ESPN and USA Network) effectively subsidize some of the very narrow niche channels.
No doubt there are other long-term ramifications of these individualized choices -- though cablers themselves are right now divided over the pros and cons of the a la carte plan.
But I for one would be sorry not to stumble upon one of those WWII docs on the History Channel, or a trashy telepic on Oxygen, or tips on how to do rack of lamb on the Food Channel, or a Bollywood movie on the International Channel.
Perhaps I'm just too passive, but the idea of having to put together a program package just for myself is daunting. (They say 17 channels is the magic number that most folks ever watch.) And I'm willing to bet that in the end it won't cost me any less than having hundreds of channels beaming in to me.
