I'm trying to buy a small (20 - 27 LCD) with a Cablecard slot. I don't need a DVR and don't want to spend $10.95 a month for a HD only box. Seems like manafacturers stopped making smaller LCDS with cablecards. The fix is in? How much money did the cable companies throw to the CE's to stop making small LCDs with cablecards???

The cable companies didn't pay off anyone. The sad truth is that Cablecards never took off, thanks largely to a lack of features, lack of support, and no standard 2-way communication, meaning most cable users still got a cable box so they could have a TV guide and on-demand TV.

The Cable companies have recently attempted to fix this with tru2way, the new name for the “OpenCable Applications Platform” (OCAP), which is replacing Cablecard and offers universal 2-way communication support, meaning that a CE could build the tru2way tuner straight into the device and have all the major cable operators support it.
http://www.cablelabs.com/news/pr/200...OU_060908.html

If tru2way is successful, it's likely that in the future even smaller LCDs will have tru2way tuners for cable support in addition to ATSC tuners for OTA support.