Cable TV companies, I would like to offer a suggestion that might make it possible for you to keep customers. I stopped getting cable TV a year ago. Believe me, I miss watching MSNBC live or even getting soiled by watching FoxNews for a few minutes. I miss watching bad science fiction TV shows on SciFi (not calling it SyFy). I miss The Food Network and HGTV.

That's it. Other than the occasional Star Wars marathon on SpikeTV there's not a lot of networks I watch on cable. When I gave myself a little leeway on some stations I came up with 10 channels I would need, other than local stations. I don't need 5 sports channels, I can do without MTV, and while I like Law and Order and all of its offspring I don't need to have it 24 hours.

One of the many problems with cable is there is no catering to the a la cart consumer. When moving to my new place I thought about getting cable again. It was going to be with a new carrier and I looked at their plans. To get to the news channels I wanted, and I mean CNN, MSNBC and FOXNews, I would have to get the second tiered package which proclaimed I would have access to 150 channels for the low price of $59 a month. I went through the list and for what I wanted to see, even channels I might be mildly interested in, I came up with 20 channels including the local stations. The next two tiers had three channels I was curious about, but no way am I going to pay another $10 a month to satisfy my curiosity.

So to get the 20 channels I wanted the cable company wants me to pay roughly $60 a month and that would support the 130 channels I don't want. Broken down, with the $60 price I'm only paying $0.40 a month per channel. It seems like a bargain if I were watching all the channels, even half the channels would make it seem good but it's 20. By my calculations, for the channels I want at the breakdown would be $8 a month.

Now if there was a program set up where I could pay for the channels I want at a reasonable price, or even if there was a package where you could have, say 10 channels plus local for a price and then 20 and local for a price, something like that, it might be a consideration to get service for me and I would suspect many others might be interested in a package like that.

Despite the advertizement by other cable outfits and satellite networks that claimed they had lower prices, it was surprising looking past the bold introductory offer and seeing what the regular price was and that most companies have similar prices. For the channels I wanted, I checked with two cable and two satellite companies and the prices were around $60 a month. No one offered a selection plan.

So how have I solved the dilemma? I simply went to Fry's electronics and bought a $40 TV tuner for my computer, which allowed me to get local stations. The internet is great for getting quick clip items from news stations like MSNBC and FoxNews.