• NY Times, Monday, December 12, 2005 10:45 AM

Joseph Nocera, writing in The New York Times, makes an impassioned, if not entirely reasoned, case against the widespread introduction of a la carte programming on cable. In a column in which he expresses doubts about some of the new technologies, such as VOD, saying "decades of ingrained viewing habits" are not about to go away, Nocera argues that American consumers, even teens, are happy to have scores of niche channels packed into their cable packages. That even includes channels they don't love, because, well, that's the way it's long been. And because modern life is rife with complexity, it's essentially easier to pick a cable tier than to go down a menu of programs and check off only the ones you actually care to pay for. So says Nocera.  "Will there eventually be broadly available video-on-demand?" asks Nocera. "Undoubtedly.  But does it mean that television as we know it is coming to an end?  Not likely."

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