Summertime in the Void

OK so now the playoffs are over, I'm told that eventually summer will come to Halifax, and I'm just frustrated in general with the near-total lack of quality television available. I don't know if it's that the networks are actively trying to put out as much awful programming as possible to deter viewers or simply that my tastes have changed such that I have a very difficult time finding something enjoyable to watch. We've talked about getting rid of the digital cable for a while and just really scaling it back, and I'm hoping that things come to a head fairly soon.
I went over to Eastlink's site today to check the basic cable rates and packages. They're very clever in the manner in which they arrange everything. For instance, if I want CNN I have to buy the whole package that includes: Spike TV, the Infomercial channel, TV5 (a French-language channel), and MuchMusic. That's four channels that I essentially never watch (I keep flipping to Much hoping desperately for something that isn't the manufactured, mass-produced garbage that is flooding the market and making the industry truly bloated and awful, but to no avail) that I MUST have in order to watch CNN. On the upside, the pack comes with TLC, so I can watch Trading Spaces (when I remember), and W (Anna Lou likes Gilmore Girls). So to get 1 channel and two shows, I'm saddled with loads of terrible television.
Moving along the line, if I want to get TSN or Sportsnet to watch the odd Jays game or find out what's happening in the NHL off-season, I also have to get, among others: the Speed Channel, the Golf Channel, TVTropolis, Star, BET, Space, and Outdoor Life. That's 7 channels I NEVER watch. For those keeping track, I'm at a total of 3 wanted channels, 2 television shows, and 11 completely undesired attachments.
It's a farce that we as consumers are forced to accept this. When it comes to digital cable, you can actually pick and choose certain channels that you want. Why can this not be done for regular TV? Why must I be made to pay for a disproportionately high number of channels that I will never, or at best, very rarely, watch in order to have the "luxury" of CNN or TSN? They oughta make it so that you can cherry pick this stuff, $1 or $2 per channel per month or whatever. They charge something like $3 for the premium stuff on digital (RDS and such), so it shouldn't be a stretch to get the basics at a much lower rate. Anybody else think that we're getting a raw deal from our television service providers here?