You should just be able to pick and choose what you want included in your bundle. Everything will be ala cart.
Well, ideally. But I don't think that's how these companies like to roll. They always like to make you buy the things you don't want to get the few things you do.
@mom2rtk is right. It really doesn't work that way in reality. I went from one of Spectrum's higher tiered packages with over 200 channels to their 15 ala carte channel package called Spectrum Choice TV. I didn't even know they had this package. I was calling to suspend my cable for a few months as I try different streaming services. That's when the rep told me they have a package in which I could pick 15 channels I wanted from their list and they would lop off about $50/month. About another $12 off if I turned in my cable box.
In the 200 channel tier package, I had all the channels I usually watch programmed in my "Favorites" button on my remote. It's roughly about 12 channels. Every once in a while I'll scroll through to see if anything else is on. But, I usually end up watching one of my favorited channels anyway.
So I looked at the list they gave me and it's quite a meager list. Sure, it's got range and variety - so everyone gets a FEW channels they want. But many of them aren't the top channels that would go on my "top 15 list." I'm missing about 5 other channels I would have chosen if I had a chance. In fact, I almost couldn't choose the last two channels for my 15 choices, they were so meager. I was almost going to pick the Weather Channel just to fill out my list, even though I only check it during a blizzard.
So, even though there may be 200+ channels out there, you really won't get to CHOOSE from any or all of the 200+ channels for an ala carte menu. As we are seeing now from this Disney outage, each company makes deals with each other and get included or not in different packages.
I went down from paying $210 to around $160. (My Internet is $85.)
These were the choices given to me in the Metro NYC area:
A&E
Animal Planet
BBC America
BET
CNBC
CNN
Cartoon Network
Comedy Central
Discovery Channel
Disney Channel
E!
ESPN
FOX
FX
FX Movie Channel
FXX
Food Network
Freeform
HGTV
HISTORY
HLN News
Hallmark Channel
Hallmark Movies & Mysteries
LMN
Lifetime
MTV
Nickelodeon
OWN
Oxygen
Paramount Network
Syfy
TNT
Telemundo
The Weather Channel
USA Network
Included on top of the 15 channels chosen from above are the 3 broadcast network channels: NBC, CBS
& ABC, (Oops! Not during the Disney outage here,) and local PBS stations and a few free local over-the-air TV channels that play oldies that can be gotten off an antenna are tossed in.
A recent Spectrum email I received just before the Disney outage said they are now allowing us to swap out channels once every 30 days. I have a feeling they did this as they knew some of us may have chosen Freeform & FX. Instead of giving us some money for the outage of the Disney channels, we can simply "swap" to another channel.
But, as I said, I could barely pick out channels 14 & 15 to begin with.
I went with the deal as it saved me the $50 per month and I could then choose a streaming service instead with the savings, and swap it out as I run out of things on that service to watch. That would make up for the meager selection of channels I got to choose from.
But, if I lose ABC more or less permanently, that's a real deal-breaker for me. Hello Streaming!