On November 18, the FCC released its report to Congress on the cable a la carte pricing model. The report was requested by several members of Congress, including Senate Commerce Chairman John McCain, who has been particularly keen on the idea.

The Commission concluded that "although an a la carte option would allow consumers to pay for only the programming they choose, given current viewing practices, few consumers would experience lower bills for multi-channel programming."

In comments filed with the FCC last July, my colleague Tom Lenard and I explained why it would be bad for consumers to have the government dictate the pricing and program packaging of cable services. In its report, the FCC cites our comments in explaining that "when viewers purchase a bundle of programs, they have the option of watching programming that they might not have purchased separately."

Let the marketplace work!