A Sat/Cable Co wouldn't be in business very long, because consumers would really be bitching if they had to buy all the crap from every provider to get the one channel that they want. Today's forced bundles are not much more flexible, but at least with the tiers there is some savings, buy not having to pay for all the niche channels in the top packages.
The problem remains having to pay for channels that you don't want at all. Now if the media groups would break it down into Disney Sports, Disney Kids, Disney Family, CBS Sport, CBS Kids, CBS Drama, NBC Sports, NBC Kids, NBC Drama, Viacom Kids, Viacom Drama, Viacom Family, Fox Sports, Fox Kids, Fox Drama, etc and allow just purchasing a few of those small bundles, that would be making some progress.
These media groups are too big and keep creating more and more niche channels to dilute their programming libraries more and more. Forcing more and more junk upon the consumers and the consumers have no say in it. It is a take it all or leave it all notion, there is no common ground that benefits both consumers and providers equally or even somewhere close to equally.
Buying the programming by media group accomplishes nothing because every group has at least a dozen channels of crap that you would still be forced to buy. Sure I can skip all the junk Viacom sells that I have never tuned too in over 15 years with Dish, but I would still be forced to pay for a dozen channels of other stuff I've never tuned to from Disney, just to get espn for the 4 months a year I might watch a game on it