Though there are economies of scale in bundling. Let's say you have a customer who would only buy three different series if you could buy series a la carte. It may make sense to give her 50 series -- all the series the seller has to offer perhaps -- for the same price. That's because once you decide you are only going to sell 3, it doesn't cost you much more to provide them all. And people like choice enough that they will often put a higher value on the package of 50 even if they only want 3. Indeed, they may well watch more than 3 if they get it, which could be a good or bad thing.

It certainly is more competitive. Now, is saying, "You can have all of them for the price of 3" an example of "forcing" you to buy a bunch of stuff you don't want? If it is priced the same as 3 a la carte, then no. For somebody who only wants 1 or 2 series, it is, but not nearly as much as it seems. For somebody who wants 4 or more it's actually a bargain.

Because selling it is easier, the market tends to like plans like this. However, on the net, single channels are not locked out, but they will never be able to match the meaningless "per channel" price of bundles. And people pay for channels the don't really want or barely want. Would I pay for Fox News? No. Do I watch it sometimes to see what sort of news they report? Yes. So would I find a package of all the news channels more attractive than a slightly cheaper package with just the channel I want? Quite possibly.