Access to the mass media gets you what? Crap suitable for mass consumption - the Beastie Boys and Carmen Electra.

It is only recently that markets existed on the scale that Stones concerts happen. Musicians, great musicians from Mahler to Gershwin played to a couple of hundered seats at a time. Now the expectation is that an act will play to 10,000 or 50,000 or 25 million over the television.

What can you put out that will appeal to 25 million people across the country? The lowest order of popular pap. Good stuff was, is and always be at the margins - don't look for it on ABC at 9 PM Wednesdays.

And as far as your cable example goes - think about it, there's over-air, 2 satellite networks, internet tv feeds and video rental thru the mail as well as whole seasons of tv series from Amazon, Circuit City and the like - you have plenty of choices if you want to exercise them.