FXX is here...plus another sign we have too many cable channels

So I complained last week about the unimaginative launch of Fox's new FXX channel, and now that it's here, I feel the same, but it made a good impression on me last night. I decided to roam the dial searching for it just to see what was on, and it was the recent movie "Easy A."

Now, this movie has been on various TV channels already, it's not any kind of special "get," and I've already seen it. Still, I can't help but give FXX some credit. Anytime I turn a channel on and the first thing I see is Emma Stone, I am going to cut that channel some slack.

I do find it amusing that since this channel takes over the real estate of what was Fox Soccer Plus, I have all these sports channels, some of them not even available without a different subscription package, and then finally, bam, there's FXX. Cable systems put some effort into crafting a reasonable lineup with some kind of flow and convenience for the consumer, and then it gets screwed up like this. If this experience is typical, it;s going to be very difficult for people to find "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" tonight.

While I'm talking about the ridiculousness of modern cable realities, let me talk about modern family. That is, Modern Family, as in the hit ABC sitcom. I've been reading and hearing for weeks about the show's pending rerun debut on USA Network. Seems more like a TBS thing, but fine. Well, last week I saw an ad on a local Fox broadcast affiliate touting the show's arrival on ITS lineup this fall.

So "Modern Family" is coming to USA but not exclusively. Well, what's the point? First of all, I don't need to see reruns of it already. It's only been on a few years! I'll watch the new episodes each week this season, and for me, yeah. that's enough.

But maybe some people are ready to watch these recent episodes again and again. Why do they need to see them on USA and their local Fox station? I get that not everyone has cable. OK, well, then they can ditch USA and watch it on their locals. This looks to me like another sign that there just isn't enough programming to fill these cable channels--even the really successful ones.