For years we have heard about all kinds of people urging the cable industry to switch to a la carte pricing. From what I am reading in the news about the Sirius-XM merger, it looks like the first companies to do so would be the satellite radio providers. That would be good news for customers like me.

However, for this kind of pricing to really be attractive and work for me, the price differential has to be a bit more substantial. I pay $13-$14 a month for the full set of channels from Sirius. If I were to just pick 10 or 15 of them, instead of the current 198, I would expect a significant drop in prices. What I hear is that the new offering of the combined companies might be a 50 channel package for $6 and change. That is okay but not good enough. I am not interested in listening to 15 out 50 channels. I would like greater differentiation in pricing. Perhaps I should stick with my current style of picking my channels, using the Favorites setting on my radio! That way, I know I am only going to listen to the channels I like.

What do you think?