The core argument from McCain is that the cable industry needs to be more like iTunes or Netflix. It should allow customers to consume entertainment when and how they want. He laments that the cable industry is fighting against convenience by using federal regulation to push expensive bundles on consumers.

Reinforcing this fundamental unfairness is a federal regulatory and legal framework that tilts in favor of cable companies and television programmers at the expense of consumers.

This framework, which includes arcane but important benefits such as “compulsory copyright licenses,” “syndicated exclusivity,” “network non-duplication” and “retransmission consent,” was originally developed to help the fledgling industry grow. Today, these benefits, vigorously defended by armies of well-paid lobbyists, are helping sustain the status quo while failing to push the industry to meet modern consumers’ evolving demands.

All of this, McCain says, leads to consumers having to pay what he calls the “EPSN tax.” While some consumers may want to watch ESPN, millions of others don’t care about sports. Despite the fact that they never watch ESPN, they are still forced to pay, by his calculations, $5 a month for the channel.

He says that the practice of making consumers pay for channels they don’t want must come to an end. Of course, he realizes this this is harder than it sounds. He says that the cable industry is “firing up their legions of lobbyists” to fight the bill to the bitter end. To them, he has but a simple warning:

Many industries over the years — from the stagecoach builders and saddle makers to those who made the eight-track tape and the Sony Walkman — didn’t much like the change forced on them by the tide of history. Sooner or later, companies standing in the way today will face a similar choice: Meet consumers’ demands or become obsolete.

Some may have issues with McCain’s current bill, but it’s heart is in the right place. There is far too little consumer choice in entertainment these days. If he’s successful in taking on the cable industry, we could see wide sweeping reform in other entertainment industries as well. Being pro-consumer can only help bolster profits in the long run and it’s about time these industries learned that.

McCain recently spoke to Bloomberg TV about his new bill, the TV Consumer Freedom Act, which aims to “allow multichannel video programming distributors to provide video programming to subscribers on an a la carte basis, and for other purposes.”

In the interview, McCain likens the current system of subscription-based television to a restaurant with a menu full of pricey packages:

“When I go into a restaurant…I’m given a menu and I can select from it. And the waiter doesn’t come up and say ‘which package do you want, of different courses?’ Now there may be a menu there that you can select, that has entree, appetizers, etc., but you don’t have to pay for things you don’t order. Now, because these people have monopolies…and why don’t restaurants do this? Because other restaurants don’t so therefore they can’t force you to.”

McCain goes on to discuss the efforts against his legislation.

“Are we gonna win? I dunno. I’ll tell you, their lobbyists, when I testified this morning, they were there in their $500 dollar suits…It’s gonna be awful hard to beat them, but they look nice though,” said McCain.

Check out the interview below:

Unfortunately for fans of HBO, the network doesn’t get to call all the shots. The network is owned by Time Warner, and its CEO, Jeff Bewkes, says that a standalone streaming service just isn’t happening. He told Deadline that they would do it if it was “in [their] economic best interest.” He further elaborated by saying that the potential market for such a service isn’t yet big enough in the U.S.

In short, Time Warner is ignoring the rising trend of cable cutters opting instead to pretend that it’s not a market worth investing in. It’s a strategy that will work out over the short term, but data suggests that cable subscriptions are quickly becoming obsolete as more people look to services like Netflix and Hulu for content consumption.

It’s a fact that HBO will have to follow suit sooner or later. The problem for it is that competitors, like Netflix, are now creating content that rivals the kind of quality content that HBO offers. That strategy has already paid off for Netflix as its latest earnings report revealed that it now has about half a million more subscribers than HBO. That gap may widen even more as series like Arrested Development and Orange Is The New Black start airing on the service.

It will be interesting to see what happens when HBO finally does get with the times. The network must lament the fact that Game of Thrones is the most pirated content on the Web, but its lack of a standalone streaming services leaves many fans with no choice. Netflix recently found that piracy rates over BitTorrent go down when it introduces its instant streaming service in countries, and it’s a given that the HBO would see a similar reduction in piracy if only it offered a standalone service.

You’re never going to see that reduction in piracy, however, until Time Warner realizes that its potential market in the US are all those who are pirating Game of Thrones for lack of a better option.

[h/t: BGR]

“Jon Snow. Hannah Horvath. Sookie Stackhouse. If any of these names ring a bell for you, then you’re going to be very happy to hear that we’ve just added HBO to our TV lineup. Starting today, our Google Fiber TV customers will be able to add on our new HBO package to their plan for $20/month (plus tax). The plan will include HBO, HBO2, HBO Signature, HBO Family, HBO Latino, HBO Comedy, and HBO Zone,” says Product Head Larry Yang on the Google Fiber blog.

Not only HBO, but Google Fiber is now offering Cinemax (Max, MoreMax, ActionMax, ThrillerMax, WMax, @Max, 5-StarMax, and OuterMax) for $10 a month.

Google Fiber already offered Showtime and Starz for $10 a month, and now if you want to get all four premium channels you can do so for $40. If you were planning to get all four anyway, this saves you $10 a month on the HBO.

In all, this means that you can get Google’s 1 Gbps internet + TV and 4 premium channels (including HBO) for $160 a month in Kansas City (and soon, Austin). Talk to plenty of cable subscribers and you’ll find that that’s not a bad deal, comparatively.

Google hopes to start construction on Fiber in Austin in 2014, and should have their first customers up and running by the middle of that year.

The only difference with this ad is that it’s honest. It’s an ad for “Your Local High Speed Internet & Cable Provider,” and they tell it like it is. They’re going to suck you dry and provide passable service as best, and you’re going to like it.

[ExtremelyDecentFilms]

Because the content is so good, people are willing to do just about anything to get to it. For some, that means paying over $100 a month for a cable subscription + HBO. For others who have cut the cord on cable, that usually means pirating it.

But that’s not because they’re cheap, or because they think that the content isn’t worth paying for. Quite the contrary, actually. At least one online campaign showed that people are more than willing to pay HBO, directly, for their content.

And until now, HBO has shut down any and all hopes of their content moving out from under the cable subscription umbrella. Until now.

HBO CEO Richard Plepler gave cordcutters a glimmer of hope this week. Speaking at the Game of Thrones season 3 premiere, Plepler said that offering HBO content (via HBO GO, the company’s on demand content hub) without requiring a cable subscription could maybe possibly might just may be an option, down the line, maybe.

“Right now we have the right model,” Plepler told Reuters. “Maybe HBO GO, with our broadband partners, could evolve.”

He went on to say that they would “have to make the math work.”

Not exactly a signal that HBO is planning to give up on the lucrative cable subscription-based model that has served them so well for so many years, but it sounds like Plepler is aware that the times may be a’ changing. Although abandoning the traditional distirubtion system system may be a shaky business call, Plepler seems to understand that there is an availability issue with HBO content:

“Doesn’t mean we are not mindful that the problem exists,” he said.

If HBO decided to go this route with an internet-packaged HBO deal, they know that they would have plenty of support for the venture. Last summer, a viral campaign saw hundreds of thousands of people take to Twitter and shout, “Take my money, HBO!”

The campaign was simple. Give us a standalone HBO GO service, free of cable requirements, and take our money. As in we’re ready to pay you for your content if you will just let us. People tweeted the price that they might pay for such a service, and the average was an impressive $12+ per month – a couple bucks more than Netflix. Some people even said that they would pay well over $20 per month for a cordless HBO GO service.

The effort received over 163,000 supporters in just two days.

Shortly after, HBO dismissed the whole thing with a single tweet, basically saying that their model was the right model for now. Thanks, but no thanks.

But these few words from HBO’s CEO gives cordcutters a little bit of hope that HBO could break at least a few of their ties with cable. It’s not like it would be a first for the company. Last year they launched HBO Nordic, a standalone streaming service like HBO GO, in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark. It’s available for under 10 euros per month.

Hope. Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

The Bangor Daily News reports that Time Warner Cable customers in Maine have started to receive letters informing them of a price increase for cable services. Starting March 1, TWC customers will see their bills for basic and standard video service increase by $2.50 and those with digital only services will see an increase of $5.

Andrew Russel, TWC’s communications manager for the Northeast, told the Bangor Daily News that the price increase won’t actually effect the majority of its customers because they’re locked into a promotional package with a set price. The increase also doesn’t effect those who use TWC for Internet or Home Phone services. In short, only those with TV packages will see their prices increase.

So, why the change in pricing? Some people will undoubtedly automatically jump to the conclusion that lowering prices for customers near Google Fiber areas have forced it to raise prices in other areas. That actually doesn’t seem to be the case here as the price of Internet would have gone up if it were.

The price increase only affects cable subscribers, and that can be attributed to the rising cost of programming. TWC specifically points out the cost of local broadcast channels and sports programming as the culprits behind the higher prices.

That being said, it’s still unfortunate that subscribers in the areas affected have no choice but to accept the price hike. The lack of competition in Internet and cable television has effectively killed any chance of customers being able to demand better prices. Until more options are available to consumers across the country, you can either stick with it or cut the cord altogether. If you choose the latter, you might want to check out Netflix and its new original series House of Cards.

Part of the agreement includes new programming, including a group of “authenticated” (read: locked with digital rights management) channel-like products that can be accessed through the U-verse website or through mobile apps. Branded “WATCH” ESPN, ABC, and ABC family programming will be available through the service.

“The renewal with AT&T U-verse – our seventh top ten distributor agreement in just over two years – extends the value of the multichannel subscription model with the addition of new networks and services from The Walt Disney Company,” said David Preschlack, executive vice president of affiliate sales and marketing at Disney. “Viewers are increasingly living in a multi-screen world, and with this new deal, they will enjoy such benefits as live access to content via the WATCH Disney and WatchESPN services across platforms.”

Indeed, the multichannel subscription model is alive and continues to impede innovation in television programming. While trying to develop new TV models and technologies that incorporate the internet (and could possibly provide a la carte programming for consumers), both Apple and Intel have discovered just how monolithic the current cable model is.

Recent data from research firm TDG (by way of Paid Content) suggest that cordcutting is becoming more popular, as cable subscriptions are set to decline over the next few years.

But don’t think that it signals the end for payTV. Subscriptions aren’t set to fall off that dramatically. However, it does suggest that the golden age of payTV may be behind us.

The data from TDG shows that 2012 saw a total of 100.8 million U.S. payTV households. That was down roughly 100,000 from 2011, which registered 100.9 million.

They project that subscriptions will fall to 99.3 million in 2013, and keep falling from there.

As you can see, it’s not a massive plunge. They predict that by 2017, cable paid subscriptions will total 94.6 million U.S. households, about 6% less than what we see today. But TDG says that 2011 was the peak, and that the drop off has “long-term tectonic implications.”

That’s because online streaming options will only continue to improve over the next decade and beyond. As of right now, some popular content is monopolized by cable channels – think live sporting events and premium content from networks like HBO and Showtime. And customers are forced to buy big cable packages, even if they only want to watch a few channels. But even a company like HBO, who has kept themselves tucked under the wing of cable (quite stubbornly, we might add) has launched their HBO streaming service as a standalone product in Scandinavia.

Do you think the tide is turning? Have you cut the cord?

“Representing both the studio and the network as AMC does on this project, I speak for so many when I say ‘thank you’ and congratulations to everyone involved,” said AMC President Charlie Collier. The records that The Walking Dead shattered today represent an enormous achievement of which we are so proud.”

Sunday’s mid-season finale reached 10.5 million viewers during its premiere. When it encored an hour later, it attracted an additional 3.6 million. When it encored again, it reached another 1.1 million. In total, 15.2 million people watched it on TV that night.

Of course, those broadcast shows don’t have the benefit of such an encore schedule, but impressive nonetheless. Getting AMC back on Dish must have helped tremendously.

In a blog post, AMC says:

The Walking Dead Season 3 to date reigns as the number one ad supported drama series in basic cable history among total viewers, adults 18-49, adults 25-54, adults 18-34, men 18-49, men 25-54 and men 18-34. AMC resumes the final eight episodes of The Walking Dead Season 3 on Sun., Feb. 10 at 9/8c.

In addition, the Season 3 Midseason Finale of Talking Dead at 11PM attracted 2.2 million viewers. The live after show, hosted by Chris Hardwick, expands to a one-hour program on Sun., Feb. 10 at 10/9c immediately following The Walking Dead. Embassy Row’s Michael Davies and Jen Patton serve as executive producers and Brandon Monk is co-executive producer.

The show has over 12 and a half million Facebook likes, and is cable’s most mentioned show, based on Trendrr.tv data, according to AMC, who notes that it outranks WWE’s Monday Night Raw and ESPN’s Monday Night Football. That, too, is impressive.

For a look ahead at the second half of the season, which returns in February, check out these videos AMC put out.

More The Walking Dead fun here.