"I always wonder what's keeping ESPN, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, HBO, AMC, FX etc from just setting up websites. I realize most of these companies rely he

"I always wonder what's keeping ESPN, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, HBO, AMC, FX etc from just setting up websites. I realize most of these companies rely heavily on advertising, but why not just charge like $5/month and buy your shows a la carte." The distributors (cable and satellite cos) and media companies both have self interest in preserving the a la carte model (many people mistakenly assume it's just in the distributor's interest). Let's take a look at the examples you mentioned: ESPN (Disney), Comedy Central (Viacom), Cartoon Network (Turner/Time Warner), HBO (Time Warner), AMC (Cablevision), FX (Fox) are all owned either by distributors or by media conglomerates that own multiple channels and have an interest in pushing 'packaged content' so that when ESPN is placed in the standard package for DirecTV, DirecTV can also be forced to take ESPN2, ESPN3, Disney Kids, etc. into the same tier and pay an incremental per sub fee for each add'l channel. That's a big part of what's keeping media cos. from going a la carte; they've decided that jamming additional channels into lower tiered satellite packages makes them more money than offering individual over-the-top subscription access.