A study of TV viewers shows that viewers would choose ABC, CBS and Discovery Channel over other networks if they had the opportunity to buy them à la carte. While no pay TV provider offers customers to pick and choose the networks they want to watch, this gives us an idea of which channels are most valued.

The fourth-quarter study from Digitalsmiths show that ABC was the most popular network at 65.8%, CBS was next among 63.5% of the respondents and Discovery was third at 61.8%.

NBC was fourth falling one place from third from the third-quarter query. And History Channel was fifth. Round out the top ten was Fox, A&E, PBS, TNT and FX.

The only sports network listed in the top 20 desirable networks was ESPN chosen by 41.3% of those responding. And ESPN was 19th.

FS1 was the next sports network coming in at position 33, NFL Network was 36th while NBCSN was 38th. The next sports network in the survey is MLB Network at number 56. Golf Channel was 66th, Sportsman Channel was at number 68 and the last sports network on the survey was Tennnis Channel which was 77th.

So what was the takeaway here? That perhaps the majority of those surveyed are not sports fans. The most they would be willing to pay for those channels would be an average of $28.87, down 12.3% from the previous quarter.

It makes for some interesting discussion and the fact that sports is not in the top ten and lag far behind the other networks shows that these respondents rather have their entertainment first.

[Fierce Cable]