Change cable menu to a la carte: Our view

Imagine going to a grocery store and being told that you had to buy a basket of preselected items. It includes some things you want, like milk and eggs, but also a brand of cereal you despise and two pounds of rib-eye steak, which is a problem because it's expensive and because you are a vegetarian.

Fortunately, that's not the way Americans buy groceries. But it is the way they buy television. They get a bundle of channels from their cable, satellite or DSL providers with no way of opting out of those they don't want.

Particularly for viewers who do not like sports, the cable bill can be an unappetizing affair. Through their providers, customers pay $6.61 per month for ESPN, according to media data firm SNL Kagan. That's 10% of a typical monthly bill. Other sports networks — including NFL Network, NBA TV, NBCSN, ESPN2 and Fox Sports 1 & 2 — add a few more dollars.

Thanks to technology and inflated costs, this pay-TV model is being undermined by various streaming services that allow viewers to watch their favorite shows without having to subscribe to scores of channels they never watch.

As more people cut the cable cord, the smarter providers are doing what smart companies do, which is try to adapt. Verizon recently announced that its high-speed Fios service would offer a-la-carte plans. Subscribers would get a much-reduced bundle of channels and have the option to buy additional ones.

Fios blundered badly recently by dropping The Weather Channel — which can save lives during severe weather outbreaks such as the one on Monday — while keeping less essential offerings such as Jewelry Television and the Liquidation Channel. But its a-la-carte program, called Custom TV, represents long overdue progress.

ESPN has the most to lose because it costs four times as much as the second most expensive channel (TNT), and because it would be left out of the Verizon basic bundle. It responded by suing. Other channels could join the litigation later because they see the threat to their revenue streams if consumers actually get to buy what they want.

In a narrow, legal sense ESPN could have a case. It has contracts with all of its providers, and those contracts may require ESPN to be part of a basic bundle. But for the sake of free markets and consumer choice, it's impossible not to hope that Verizon prevails. ESPN's suit essentially tells Verizon it has to continue forcing people to pay for something that they might or might not like.

The richest of the channels have continuously hiked their fees in ways that ensure cable rates rise much faster than inflation. Kevin Martin, the Federal Communications Commission chairman during the Bush administration, saw the direction television was heading and proposed rules requiring providers to offer a-la-carte pricing. The idea died, in part because it seemed heavy-handed of government to tell an industry how to run its business.

Now the providers themselves recognize that they need to change. Let's hope they will be allowed to.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

To read more editorials, go to the Opinion front page or sign up for the daily Opinion e-mail newsletter.