Editor's Choice: Excerpts from essays, blogs and other good stuff

Editor's Note: David Lazarus is a columnist with the Los Angeles Times.

Why not a la carte cable TV?

Cable TV rates keep rising, and federal regulators said last week that they're investigating -- again -- whether cable companies are gouging consumers.

Why bother? We're squandering limited regulatory resources policing an industry that's stubbornly clinging to an outdated business model (which, as a newspaperman, I know a little something about). It's time for the $79-billion cable industry to switch to a la carte pricing that would allow customers to pay only for the channels they want to watch. Beyond being a matter of fairness, it would bring cable in line with the wholesale shift in how consumers approach entertainment.

Call it the iPod factor. More on that in a moment.

First, an update from Washington, where Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said recently that he was concerned about cable companies' using the fast-approaching switch to digital TV broadcasts as an excuse to reach deeper into customers' pockets.

On Feb. 17, all TV stations will switch from analog broadcasts to digital signals. People who use rabbit-ear antennas to receive programming will need a converter box. Most cable and satellite subscribers will be unaffected, although some with older TVs might need to switch their set-top boxes.

Consumers Union warned that some cable companies were shifting analog stations to digital only, making them unavailable to customers who receive basic or standard cable service. The group said cable companies were prodding people to sign up for costlier digital packages.

"Ever-increasing cable prices is one of the most significant issues consumers face today," Martin told reporters. "They are getting less and being charged the same or more."

Whatever he does, Martin will have to act fast. The North Carolina native (and alumnus of Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill) is a Republican who will likely be replaced after President-elect Barack Obama, a Democrat, is inaugurated in January. Martin, 41, could choose to stay on the five-member commission until his term expires in 2011, but not as chairman.

The average U.S. home receives 118.6 TV channels, according to a recent report from Nielsen Co. But the dirty little secret of the cable industry is that the average subscriber watches only about 17 channels regularly.

That's more than 100 channels that most cable subscribers are paying for but seldom if ever watch.

Because of the number of cable systems nationwide, it's hard to get a fix on the average monthly bill. But many estimates place this figure at $60 to $70.

This means, if all channels cost the same, the typical cable subscriber is spending about $9 a month for the 17 channels he wants to watch and about $55 for the 101 channels he never sees.

But all channels don't cost the same. By most accounts, ESPN is one of the most expensive carried by cable systems, costing by some estimates more than $3 a month per subscriber. Many other channels are said to cost as little as 25 cents monthly.

I never watch ESPN. When I watch TV, it's usually CNN, CNBC or a movie channel. On an a la carte basis, I probably could get the handful of channels I like for pocket change.

That, of course, is not what the cable industry wants.

Brian Dietz, a spokesman for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, offered an Alice-in-Wonderland rationale for why cable subscribers benefit from fat programming packages. "The channels that you don't watch help pay for the channels that you do watch," he said.