• Dow Jones, Wednesday, July 1, 2009 10:08 PM

The cable television industry's move to bring its TV subscription model to the Internet is about to hit a wall of resistance from consumers who dislike the cable industry's bundled pricing.

Time Warner and Comcast are rallying support for "TV Everywhere," an industrywide system on the Web through which cable subscribers could access shows that would not be available to non-subscribers. In addition to discouraging customers from dropping their cable TV service, it is also an effort to move bundled pricing onto the Web.

Consumer advocates complain that bundling forces people to pay for many cable channels that they don't watch. They prefer an a la carte system. "The Internet and iTunes make up the ultimate a la carte universe. When the cable TV bundle is transferred onto the Internet, expect consumers to demand a la carte pricing," says Ben Scott, a media reform activist. "It's in the hands of the people now, and the technology and user-demand is there, so the [cable] industry will have to follow," agrees Avner Ronen, CEO of Boxee, an online video aggregator.

Read the whole story at Dow Jones »