Pay per channel cable is an idea that I first heard about in the 1970s before Chicago was wired. Here the author argues that it will hurt diversity and suggests that in a pay per channel world the Civil Rights movement would have faltered.

I think that this is written from the perspective of a middle man who wants to make money in between the content producer and the broadcast "pipe" itself. I argue that the broadcast media needs to be recast as a "common carrier" like the phone lines or highways and the trucking system. Disentangling the pipe from what it carries permits content producers of all points of view to get access. I'll be writing more about this in the future. A la carte cable could be death knell for TV diversity