Choice, decency and Cable TV
TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By Beverly LaHaye
January 19, 2006

At the end of every month, millions of Americans find themselves writing out a check to their cable provider. As the pen rolls across the paper, one cannot help but wonder, "Why am I paying this kind of money for channels I barely watch?" Welcome to the antithesis of America's free market ideals. You can choose to have cable, but you cannot choose what comes with it.

In every part of this country, the cable companies have a virtual lock on our home televisions. The current franchising rules have allowed one cable company to control nearly every local market in the country without any alternatives. Because of these agreements and outmoded laws, cable television offers only a "take it or leave it" proposition. Either you subsidize every channel included in the offered package or you simply choose not to have cable at all. With this kind of power lorded over our television viewing, cable companies have no need to be more responsive to consumers. The rest