First of all, thank you for ALL of the awesome feedback on my first post last week lamenting the process my husband and I are going through as we decide whether or not to finally cut cable. I knew asking AV people would be the way to go.

Now, in a recent twist of coincidence, Senator John McCain introduced a bill last week that would essentially create an “a la carte” system for your cable bill. I won’t rehash all of the nitty gritty details of the bill in this post, you can read the coverage of it here. But, essentially, what Senator McCain is trying to do is do away with the “bundling” that the cable companies essentially force consumers to buy into and put the control in the consumers’ hands by allowing them to pick and choose what networks they subscribe to and purchase on a monthly basis.

This could DRASTICALLY reduce the average cable bill of the average American TV watcher.

But is it viable? Is, at the end of the day, a system like this actually viable?

I mean, I’ll be honest, I love the idea. The idea of being able to pick and choose what networks we get would be AWESOME. I know, for us, it’d be the ESPNs, History Channel, Discovery Channel, and maybe A&E because Duck Dynasty is hilarious. The rest of what’s on cable? Yeah, I could do without.

But, I’ll say again: is it actually viable? 

There would be networks dropping like flies. Why? Because let’s be real… who is going to CHOOSE to pay for Oprah’s Network? Or Oxygen? Or Lifetime? (I’m a woman, so I can poke fun at those channels…) Or heck, even G4? If it’s the difference between $20 a month and $50 a month or something like that (I’m just throwing numbers out there), I’m willing to bet not too many people would choose to subscribe to those channels.

Sure, a few years ago, an a la carte system like this would in no way be a plausible thing. However, with Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, etc. on the rise, the fact is the TV watching game has changed and the cable companies are going to HAVE to do something to keep up and stay relevant or else more and more people like me and my husband are going to be cutting the cable cord and opting for the over-the-air plus Internet viewing approach.

So, I don’t know. I don’t know what will come of this (if anything), but it’ll be interesting to follow as it unfolds.

What do you think? Do you think the a la carte option is a good idea or bad idea? Are you pro-a la carte or anti-a la carte?