This is a PSN to all my friends out there. If you happen to have a cable or satellite television service, and don't really use or need it - DROP THEM AND DO NOT SWITCH.
You can literally put "PROVIDER channel dsiputes" or "PROVIDER programmer dsiputes" into a google search and find at least 5 disputes that affects all providers who re-broadcast the shows either through a cable or via satellite a YEAR!!!
I literally just looked this up thanks to http://directvpromise.com and our loss of WGN, which Mixy used to watch for Monk.
One thing I have noticed while comparing the news articles for DirecTV, Dish, and Comcast - the 3 largest providers I'm aware of - is rather interesting. The re-broadcasting provider will blame the channel provider for "drastically" raising rates, which in turn would equate bigger bills to customers. The channel provider will blame the re-broadcasting provider for "failing to pay" or "not paying _standard_ rates" which typically include an increase between 1-5 cents per customer per DAY!!
Yet, at the same time, almost all these channel providers will be extremely commercial laden, since the provide their channels to local viewers FOR FREE!!
Only to turn around and DEMAND money from providers who already have to invest to be able to provide these channels to users on a larger scale. (A vast majority of the disputes have been between "local" programmers and the provider. Which tends to lead to the local programmer swinging the power of their national oversight - FOX for instance - with threats to remove the channels from the re-broadcast.)
So, in some areas where a channel would be local to us, but unavailable over the air due to range issues of antennas -- we have to pay to get commercials?? When if they made their broadcast towers more powerful it would be FREE?? This has been the case in literally every place I have lived... and I was raised in SEATTLE!! (Yes, we had to pay Comcast $75 a month for BASIC service just to get our LOCAL news!)
The programmers already make MILLIONS on advertising revenue, and are demanding MILLIONS more in fees to services that offer to re-broadcast their channels? So that we have to pay to get 20 minutes of show for a full hour of service?
Thats fucking stupid... and will be the first thing I drop if I have to take over the bills in this house.
Why, because I can get all the shows I need for FREE over the internet - LEGALLY! (www.hulu.com) And theres a lot less commercials.
This is ridiculus, we should call our local stations and tell them to stop being greedy assholes. They already make enough money from their commercials, AND the product placement in their lousy ass shows...
To top that off, I can get INTERACTIVE local news and weather also over the internet for FREE, with even less commercials than the local news over the air!! And almost all news networks offer news videos on their own sites now. So if you are paying for a high speed connection, you have all you need right there.
Why pay for a TV service to add to the large amounts of TV, news, weather, and videos you can get over the net??
So unless you really need that TV service, tell the broadcasters to stop being stupid and drop the service.
