I didn't discuss program quality in the previous post because I believed it would've diluted the main point (that only governments can impose a tax).

Programming quality is a subjective assessment with as many opinions as there are viewers. For example, I find that most of the programming on the various Discovery Channels (I get 12 of them on DirectTV) are on par with that on PBS, only without the political baggage.

New cable/satellite networks (more like channels, actually) depend heavily on cheap programming. If they survive in the marketplace, many of them contract for original programming. Each channel is aiming at a niche market. For example, TV Land goes for nostalgia programming (old TV series), so of course they aren't going to have original programming. Other networks like USA regularily feature new series and movies, some of them quite good. The History Channel and the History Channel International have a lot of original programming and some of it is very good. I particularily enjoy their "Movies in Time" and "History vs. Hollywood" shows where they select a popular movie based on historical events and discuss it with several historians and sometimes even people who were there when the event took place. My wife loves the home improvement channels like HGTV as well as the Food Network for cooking shows. Being a nurse, she also watches a lot of the Discovery Health channel. There's something out there for almost everyone.

Niche marketing can be a successful business model. Advertisers can easily target their goods and services to an audience most likely to be interested in their products, like on the Golf channel or the many home improvement channels. Even on niche news channels like MSNBC (I call it niche because it has limited ratings), an advertiser can broadcast a commercial to a nationwide audience for a reasonable price. I've heard a couple years ago that showing a 30 second commercial on MSNBC costs less than $1000, compared to many times that amount on ordinary broadcast TV.

PBS still does some good programs, like Nova. Their recent program on the Joint Strike Fighter competition was superb. I doubt anyone else would've been granted that kind of behind the scenes access. In the end, I can go for weeks or even months without being interested in any of the PBS programming shown on the 2 TV channels available in our local area, but hardly a day goes by without me finding something to enjoy on the various Discovery Channels, the History Channel, and The Learning Channel.