Technical nightmare? (Score 2, Insightful)

There is a MAJOR technical reason that none of this is going to happen for quite a while. Cable companies are in the weird position of being both an analog and a digital media provider. Digital media lends itself to alacarte/ondemand services, for analog it is a nightmare. There is not a single user of anlog media who can choose what content they get offered. You buy a magazine, you get a magazine, not only the articles of interest to you. Same goes for print, radio, over the air TV and analog cable (which still accounts for the bulk of cable customers). A cable TV signal is multiplexed to a carrier wave that travels along coax. The only way to add/remove certain services is to notch out certain frequencies. To notch out frequencies to your house in most areas requires a technician to install a device between your set and the source of the signal. Next time you go out - check up on the telephone pole outside your house - you'll see a few barrel-shaped devices that control service levels. If the cable company had to roll a truck out every time a customer decided that this is the week they actually want the sports channels, or that uncle Harv is supposed to be on that news channel tonight, it could only drive overall prices up. If and when FCC mandated digital switchover that we've all been hearing about for at least a decade arrives, then this will probably take off, but then the complaint is going to be that you have to rent a box even to watch TV.