@magicalthinking @alex I don't think there's much magical thinking required here. Forget about the political aspect, the people responsible, etc. What problems did private channels introduce for their operations? Here are some that come to mind:

Private channels could have presented content that they couldn't properly monitor, censor, or profit from. Perhaps some unsavory content got through, or content that they otherwise wanted to stop from spreading for ideological reasons. I'm 100% sure that some of the private channels allowed for piracy, as I witnessed people with such channels on their Roku TVs. Perhaps they didn't feel they were making enough money from the private channels.

I think these are reasonable presumptions, even if they aren't guaranteed to be the full picture. Forcing people to use their corporate channels is almost certainly more profitable than allowing for the use of private channels.