Los Angeles Times media columnist David Lazarus tried to get a Cablevision spokesperson to say whether a victory in the Viacom case would lead the company to switch to alacarteprogramming.
Cable operators could switch to alacarteprogramming but if consumers responded by dumping every cable channel but ESPN, Comedy Central and NFL football, the cost of Internet access would likely go up.
But the contradiction remains: alacarte cable or stand-alone services would save customers money, but would also vastly restrict what sort of quality programming would be available.
If alacarte pricing were the way to go, then we would still be in the infancy of the cable industry when programming was pay-per-view and there were far fewer choices for consumers.