Having lived through the transition from broadcast-only tv to widespread cable tv, that's not at all how it was sold. Cable was sold on the merits of primarily:

Having lived through the transition from broadcast-only tv to widespread cable tv, that's not at all how it was sold. Cable was sold on the merits of primarily: better reception (no more antenna!) and many more available channels. The dollars that you spent on "cable" were for those features, primarily. The channels themselves were "free" and carried the advertising they always had. It was kind of like buying internet access, in that most people don't expect that all content accessed via the internet will be ad-free. The unbundled CBS isn't really akin to paying for cable. You're already paying for your internet access yourself. If anything, CBS online will be like a "premium channel" in cable tv terms. Which, historically, have been generally ad-free. I assume the reason for that is the market figured out that people don't like to both pay for some particular channel and see ads.