Comcast sues Maine to stop law requiring sale of individual TV channels

[brooklynite]

34. Be careful what you ask for...

Many cable channels are sold to your cable company as part of a package from the channel provider. For example, Discovery produces:

Discovery Channel
The Learning Channel
Animal Planet
Discovery Kids
Discovery Travel & Living
Discovery Civilization
Travel Channel
Discovery en Español
Discovery Wings
Discovery Health Channel

Let's say that Discovery is paid $1 per channel per subscriber by your cable company, which passes the cost onto you.

Now, let's say you go to your cable company and say you only want Animal Planet. You may find that the price for a single channel is $8 rather than $1, because Discovery is losing exposure to all of its advertising slots. In the grand scheme of things, may end up spending as much or more for fewer channels.