&quot;1 in 6 watches it, 6 in 6 pay for it&quot;.<p>Except that the marginal cost of providing ESPN service to people who do not watch ESPN is nearly zero.<p>A-la-carte pricing makes sense if the corporation is spending a-la-carte costs, but they&#x27;re not: the cable hookup and maintenance costs almost the same either way.  There are some issues with a cap on the number of channels that can be simultaneously transmitted in a cable pipe, but it&#x27;s perfectly feasible to launch a few hundred simulcast channels on current tech.  You&#x27;re not paying for the stuff you don&#x27;t watch, you&#x27;re paying for what you do watch;  Providing the selection of things that you can refuse to watch, is basically free.