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[QUOTE="cuseinchina, post: 725857, member: 3079"]
Dude - the two main points of your prior post were that the customer never pays for something they don't want with bundling (eg bundling is good or at least neutral to consumers) and that an end to bundling will result in lower margins for all content providers (regardless of quality or market demand for their product). In this response you refute your whole premise.
 
As for your first paragraph here, money is fungible. It may be that the advertising division recognizes one revenue stream generated by content and another division recognizes subscriber revenue generated by that same content - but it is the total profit generated by that content that matters to the cable company.
 
Your second paragraph you say bargaining power doesn't matter, but then you also say my father-in-law shouldn't mind paying $90/month to watch bbc and pbs because ESPN pays too much for content and has bargaining power because he's paying a fair price for bbc and pbs. Those two concepts are mutually exclusive, they can't both be true.  With bundling the guy who watches 25 channels regularly and spends 4 hours a day rotting his mind, is certainly better off than my father in law who spends probably 5 hours a week watching 2 channels.   Maybe the aggregate consumer wins...so in total the group does better with bundling (though I doubt this) but we are not a socialist society where the aggregate good trumps your personal choices.
 
Fair point on your final paragraph except that the only thing that will drive the cable company to a la carte is if/when MASS MARKET content providers find alternative delivery over the internet. So the two are in a sense one and the same, though the timing may not be identical.
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