Unsportsmanlike Conduct by Cable Companys

[GBRulz]

Like I said NFL network in my area is the top of the food chain. It is the last channel you can add and only after you have paid for every possible channel including Spanish movies, porn, tons of music channels etc.

This is the first year I didn't drop cable after the draft and start again 1 Aug.

If there was al la carte billing I would get up to 10 of my favorite channels and that would be it. Who needs Lifetime or QVC?

The NFL network has so much repeated programming it cannot be that expensive.

That is SO wrong, to have to buy all that extra programming, which has nothing to do with a sports package, in order to get NFLN.

BTW, I like QVC - you can get some really good deals on there

[retailguy]

Mainly, I'm just pissed I don't have the option. For an extra $5 a month I'd pay for the NFLN in a second and I'm pissed I have no options.

Switch to DirectTV and never look back. They really don't care about you, or your wants, AT ALL. It's all about stockholders and making money.... If you fit in the puzzle, fine, if you don't, too bad.

[Bretsky]

Mainly, I'm just pissed I don't have the option. For an extra $5 a month I'd pay for the NFLN in a second and I'm pissed I have no options.

Switch to DirectTV and never look back. They really don't care about you, or your wants, AT ALL. It's all about stockholders and making money.... If you fit in the puzzle, fine, if you don't, too bad.

But Rain/Snow= Terrible or No reception. That is why I have not switched

I was at Pizza Hut the other day; they have a TV and the Brewers were on. Rain hit, and the TV blacked out.

I could not handle that if it were a GB game

[cpk1994]

Here is what I don't quite understand about the whole thing. Why is it that Direct TV and Dish Network have the NFL network, but cable companies do not? Cable companies are refusing to pay what the NFLN wants, yet this has never been an issue with satellite?

I dunno, the whole thing is nothing but greed. But what sucks is that many cable customers don't even have the option to pay extra for it, even if they wanted to.

I have gotten so sick of Time Warner Cable and their constant rate hikes, I left them for good last year. They gave me a good deal to come back to them a couple years ago, then after a year they doubled my rates and just basic digital cable went up to $70/mo. Screw that.

In the case of DirectTV, it is partly owned by News Corp., which also owns the FOX network, a television partner of the NFL. What a cowinky dink.

[GBRulz]

Mainly, I'm just pissed I don't have the option. For an extra $5 a month I'd pay for the NFLN in a second and I'm pissed I have no options.

Switch to DirectTV and never look back. They really don't care about you, or your wants, AT ALL. It's all about stockholders and making money.... If you fit in the puzzle, fine, if you don't, too bad.

But Rain/Snow= Terrible or No reception. That is why I have not switched

I was at Pizza Hut the other day; they have a TV and the Brewers were on. Rain hit, and the TV blacked out.

I could not handle that if it were a GB game

Once in a while my satellite goes out during a heavy rain, but is back on in a few minutes. Besides, you live in a WI market and can easily bypass satellite and tune into a local channel to watch the game. That is what I do actually, I don't pay the extra $5 a month for locals because I want to watch them in HD.... and the only way to do that is tuning in directly through an off-air attenna.

[Scott Campbell]

Mainly, I'm just pissed I don't have the option. For an extra $5 a month I'd pay for the NFLN in a second and I'm pissed I have no options.

Switch to DirectTV and never look back. They really don't care about you, or your wants, AT ALL. It's all about stockholders and making money.... If you fit in the puzzle, fine, if you don't, too bad.

Or, lobby for improved regulation. Consumers should be able to choose channels ala carte, i.e. I don't want to have to buy 15 food channels just to get the NFL network.

[woodbuck27]

Charter, IMO, is the pond scum of the Cable Industry. I'm just curious if anybody has tried calling them regarding the NFL Network and if so what they have responded with.

The Big Ten Network has a very similar situation and is trying to get Cable Networks to add their station.

From the sounds of it based on the radio, for Charter Pond Scum Cable Network to add the NFL Network............

NFL N would cost subscribers an extra .85 per month.
Big Ten Network is would cost an extra 1.10 per month.

While I'm a Big Ten Junkie, I"d rather have the NFL Network w/o a doubt.

ANYBODY have any advice on how to get these Cable Yahoos to listen to my rant ???????????????

You should realize, if both the NFL and the Big Ten just allowed Charter and the other cable companies to put it on their digital sports tier, this whole issue would be solved. But no, we have the greed of the NFL and Big Ten in the way. They are just as much to blame for the mess as the cable companies are. BTW, this isssue is being contested at the corporate level, so phone calls or emails will not work. The NFL learned that the hard way last year and by the looks of it, still haven't learned their lesson.

Mainly, I'm just pissed I don't have the option. For an extra $5 a month I'd pay for the NFLN in a second and I'm pissed I have no options.

We all should have, at the very least that affordable option.

The cable networks would have their rate as high a season ticket for your team's home games if NFL fans don't get the bite on.

When are we able to truly identify with. . .it's getting better?

[Freak Out]

"The Hammer" ha ha ha....

..and you thought you had troubles with Comcast.

Taking a Whack Against Comcast
Mona Shaw Reached Her Breaking Point, Then for Her Hammer

By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 18, 2007; C01

Sometimes truly American virtues arise in outlaws who -- by dint of heroic but questionable endeavors -- display the mettle of the national character.

For instance: The Dillinger Gang, robbing banks (and destroying mortgages) when banks were foreclosing on the poor. Stephanie St. Clair, matron of the numbers racket during the Harlem Renaissance, striking a (dubious) blow for both gender and racial equality. Junior Johnson bootlegging liquor during Prohibition (the benefits of which were self-evident).

Fear not, fellow Americans! In these dark days of war, pestilence and Paris Hilton, a new hero has arisen. She is none other than 75-year-old Mona "The Hammer" Shaw, who took the aforementioned implement to her local Comcast office in Manassas to settle a score, and boy, did she!

This was after the company had scheduled installation of its much ballyhooed "Triple Play" service, which combines phone, cable and Internet services, in Shaw's brick home in nearby Bristow. But Shaw said they failed to show up on the appointed day, Monday, Aug. 13. They came two days later but left with the job half done. On Friday morning, they cut off all service.

This was the company that has had consumer service problems serious enough to prompt the trade magazine Advertising Age to editorialize that Comcast and other cable providers should spend less on advertising and more on customer service. And has spawned a blog called ComcastMustDie.com that's filled with posts from angry customers.

So on that Friday, Mona Shaw and her husband, Don, went to the local call center office to complain.

Let's pick it up, mid-action, according to Shaw:

Mona demands to speak to a manager. A customer service representative says someone will be right with them. Directs them to a bench, outside. (Remember, it's mid-August.) Mona and Don sit.

Tick, tick, tick, goes the clock. Sit, sit, sit, go Mona and Don.

For. Two. Hours.

And then -- this is the best part -- the customer rep leans out the door and says the manager has left for the day. Thanks for coming!

Oh, the sputtering outrage!

The insulting idea that, as Shaw puts it, "they thought just because we're old enough to get Social Security that we lack both brains and backbone."

So, after stewing over it all weekend, on the following Monday, she went downstairs, got Don's claw hammer and said: "C'mon, honey, we're going to Comcast."

Did you try to stop her, Mr. Shaw?

"Oh no, no," he says.

Hammer time: Shaw storms in the company's office. BAM! She whacks the keyboard of the customer service rep. BAM! Down goes the monitor. BAM! She totals the telephone. People scatter, scream, cops show up and what does she do? POW! A parting shot to the phone!

"They cuffed me right then," she says.

Her take on Comcast: "What a bunch of sub-moronic imbeciles."

Being a responsible newspaper, we must note that this is a misdemeanor, a crime, a completely inappropriate way of handling a business dispute.

Noted.

Who among us has not longed for a hammer in this age of incompetent "customer service representatives," of nimrods reading from a script at some 800-number location, of crumbs-in-their-beards plumbing installation people who tell you they'll grace you with their presence between 12 and 3, only never to show? And you'll call and call and finally some outsourced representative slings a dart at a calendar and tells you another guy will come back between 10 and 2 next Thursday? And when this guy comes, pants halfway down his behind, he'll tell you he brought the wrong part?

And there is nothing, nothing you can do.

Until there! On the horizon! It's Hammer Woman, avenger of oppressed cable subscribers everywhere! (Cue galloping "Lone Ranger" theme.)

"I scared the tar out of some people, at least," she says. "It had never occurred to me to take a hammer to a phone company before, but I was just so upset. . . . After I hit the keyboard, I turned to this blonde who had been there the previous Friday, the one who told me to wait for the manager, and I said, ' Now do I have your attention?' "

It wasn't all fun.

"My blood pressure went up around my ears. I started hyperventilating. They had to call the rescue squad and put me on a litter."

By the time it was over, she recalls, there were an ambulance, two police cruisers and a sergeant's car in the parking lot. Shaw received a three-month suspended sentence for disorderly conduct, a $345 fine in restitution and a year-long restraining order barring her from the Comcast office.

"Truly a unique and inappropriate situation," says Beth Bacha, a vice president for Comcast. She says company policy forbids disclosure of clients' records, but did say their files note that the service record wasn't exactly what Shaw has indicated. Besides, "nothing justifies this sort of dangerous behavior."

Bacha noted that Comcast has more than 25 million customers, the overwhelming majority of which are very satistified with their service.

Manassas police spokesman Sgt. Tim Neumann says there have been other police calls to that Comcast office, but he doesn't know what prompted them.

Bob Garfield, who runs ComcastMustDie.com, wrote last week he was happy the site had become an outlet for "so much deep-seated rage," but hoped customers would "keep the hammer assaults down to a bare minimum."

From what we can tell, Mona Shaw is not, actually, a raving lunatic armed with construction tools.

She is a nice lady who lives in a nice house. She and Don are both retired from the Air Force (she was a registered nurse). They have been married 45 years. She is secretary of the local AARP, secretary of a square-dancing club and takes in strays for the local animal shelter (they have seven dogs at the moment). She has a heart condition. She lifts weights at a local gym. The couple attend a Unitarian Universalist church.

Police gave her the hammer back, though she swears she's content to ride off into the sunset of True Crime Stories in America, never again to go Com-smash-tic on her local cable provider.

She does, however, finally, have phone service.

On Verizon.

[mraynrand]

Who needs Lifetime or QVC?

Without Lifetime, Lori Nickle would have no outlet for most of her work.

[mraynrand]

Or, lobby for improved regulation. Consumers should be able to choose channels ala carte, i.e. I don't want to have to buy 15 food channels just to get the NFL network.

SC,

I'd love to be able to buy channels ala carte, but I suspect that's not the highest money making scheme/business model for the cable and sat companies and they certainly aren't obliged to make that available - and I don't see that requiring them to do so is a role of the government. I worry about too much governmental intrusion, but I guess it's inevitable - 'improved regulation' is a loaded phrase.

[mngolf19]

I have Directv so I can watch the Vikes. NFLN has HD channel that shows all same programming as regular NFLN. So any games they broadcast will be HD. Directv has like 40+ HD channels now and seems to be adding more each week, the deal is getting better all the time. And as far as rain/snow go, if you live in a state that rains all the time (florida, which I did) then you have more opportunities for the signal to fade. But up here rain storms are not that bad and the signal does not go out for every one. I think it happened to me 3 times this year and would only last for 15-20 min at the most(and seems to affect local FOX stations the worst). Heck, the Big Ten network has an HD channel as well. They have 5 channels overall but one is HD. Very nice.

[]{ilr]3]

Interesting reading this thread again. Back in Aug I was complaining about not having enough HD channels. 2 weeks into the regular season my cable company added FOX HD and NBC HD. So along with ESPN and CBS I am getting a nice variety of HD games every week.

Now if I did live in vikings territory I would get a Packers game nearly every week

Still, its nice that the Packers are still network golden boys and get decent national coverage.

[Scott Campbell]

.......I worry about too much governmental intrusion.......

Me too - right up to the point where I feel they've bent us all over and......uhhh, jammed it down our throats. Those companies know they're in business in a FCC regulated industry. Nobody forced them into it.

[Scott Campbell]

I have Directv so I can watch the Vikes.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just by a $3 ticket and go?

[mraynrand]

.......I worry about too much governmental intrusion.......

Me too - right up to the point where I feel they've bent us all over and......uhhh, jammed it down our throats. Those companies know they're in business in a FCC regulated industry. Nobody forced them into it.

OK, I know where you stand. Now, what do you propose - do you really think it's possible (and reasonable, correct, fair) for the government to force companies to provide ala cart programming? Or did you have something else in mind?