This WILL happen. And when it does I will sing hallelujah. This is something I've been dreaming about for a long time. Americans demand freedom and more choices, and this is exactly what will eventually happen. Why do I have to pay for 30 channels I don't want in order to get the 30 I do want? It's ridiculous, and it will go away someday. FanTAStic idea. Companies that develop cable channels will cry foul, saying there is no way to get advertising for a channel that doesn't already have the massive viewership that they would like. Bollocks. They have been living in a dream world. New channels included in a 60-channel expanded basic cable package are getting benefits without having earned them. Get people to buy your "product" (channel) the same way everyone else does in this country. Influence and convince them to through advertising and marketing. If you have a quality product, people will buy it -- it's that simple. Businesses and entertainment conglomerates will adapt and be successful with a la carte cable, just as they have with every other system we have had.
I have always wanted a la carte cable too but if it made FSW go the way of the dinosaur I'd be very upset.
This is, of course, a terrible idea, as free market economics have failed to have any measure of success in dealing with zero marginal cost resources such as music, drugs, and cable tv. And as mentioned, it will doom a lot of cable channels, including Gol, FSW, and ESPN Deportes. The idea that you're "paying" for channels you don't use WHICH HAVE ZERO (natural) MARGINAL COST, is like saying you pay for air you don't use. Cable should be regulated, as it was massively cheaper when it was, in a way that allows the digital age to continue to produce a wide assortment of quality broadcasting, some of which some people will of course not find "quality". Thankfully, internet technologies will make cable tv more like music these days, and the ability of cable manufactuers to trap costs and create artificial marginal costs are numbered regardless of how many times Congress tries to bail them out either through "pro-market" regulation or deregulation.