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21st Century Fox's Chase Carey: 'A La Carte Is A Fantasy'

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The prospect of consumers being able to pick and choose which channels they paid to have piped into their homes hangs over almost every major narrative in the television business, from the fight between Time Warner Cable and CBS to the push by Google and Intel to compete with cable and satellite TV providers.

But if executives at the media conglomerates whose fate would be affected most are losing sleep over it, they're not letting on, to judge from the posture of 21st Century Fox president Chase Carey. "A la carte is a fantasy," Carey declared Thursday at the company's first investor day since its split with News Corp . earlier this summer.

The trends fueling the discussion of a la carte are real enough, he acknowledged, in particular the ballooning cost of pay TV service and the aging into adulthood of so-called cord-nevers who are used to sourcing all their entertainment over the internet.

But, he said, "this is an issue that will play out over the next 10-plus years, not the next three years." For now, he said, "there isn't an alternative today, or even on the horizon. We see no meaningful cord-cutting activity."

In fact, given the opportunity for a la carte, Carey asserted, viewers would reject it -- provided the TV services on offer are tailored smartly enough. "Consumers actually want the bundle; they just want a different bundle," he said.

"The reality is that this content is such an important part of daily life that people will give up food and a roof over their head before they give up television."

I'll have more on this topic later.