• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 4, 2016

Canceling your pay TV monthly package sounds enticing -- but it takes work.  You’ll need to make a phone call, and that conversation isn’t likely to go well.

A recently introduced California bill would allow consumers to cancel their service online -- not just over the phone.

This comes after an incident in July 2014 when a Comcast Corp. service representative harangued a customer who wanted to cancel. Ryan Block spent nearly 20 minutes with the Comcast customer service representative who refused to let Block cancel. He recorded the conversation and complained.

Comcast apologized -- and made amends. But you get the sense this wasn’t the service rep’s idea. Remember, companies have “retention” strategies for their business, part of their corporate culture.

Still, in the modern digital media world, you can easily sign up for  -- and cancel -- many services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. And of course “cord-cutting” and “cord shaving” can be regular consumer behavior now.

You have to believe that if forward-looking pay TV providers, Comcast and others, want to compete in the growing digital world, new kinds of customer services will be mandatory. Think about the ease of ordering or canceling a ride with Uber or Lyft versus that of hailing or phoning for a taxi -- and then figuring out the tip.

Future pay TV consumers will demand this transparency; millennials will insist on it.  In fact, we already know those young consumers are increasingly  convinced that signing up for 150 channels in a traditional monthly pay TV package doesn’t always make sense.

Right now if you want to cancel your pay TV package, you have to have a strategy, many say. The best way? Lie. Say, “I’m moving out of the country.” Why? If you tell them you're moving to another city, it may be a place where your cable operator is available -- and you’ll be in for another sales pitch.

Rethink how media is bought and sold to consumers. Right now media-shaming in a digital media world isn’t it.<