MSU Red Cedar Message Board

"ala carte cable" is/was a huge issue for the FCC and Congress with a lot of lobby money being spent by both sides of the discussion circa 2006 or so...wonder where that went.

I think it died when proponent FCC chief Kevin Martin left for an Obama appointee that apparently does not think its as big an issue. The support/no support ads in DC were every where in the mid-late 2000's.

I'm siding with directv on this one - anything to keep our rates somewhat reasonable. Viacom wants a 30% increase while their ratings are in general on the decline.

i think both dish and direct do this as a gimmick to make people think that they are on their side. it's a way to increase customer service scores. everyone knows that the channels will be back in a day or so and your bills will go up. not fooling anyone...

I've given this serious thought. What do you do for live sports that aren't available over the air? (I'm thinking ESPN and Big Ten Network items mostly, but also Red Wings and Tigers). Also, do you never have friends over to hang out and watch a sporting event? Do you basically always have to go somewhere else if you're getting together with friends?

I figure with a decent antenna I can watching Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC here in Detroit and that keeps me covered

Also, are you single? married? gf? I'm not 100% sure my wife could handle cutting off cable/dish completely.

Here is the language from my contract...

"(d) Our Programming Changes. Many factors affect the availability, cost and quality of programming and may influence the decision to raise prices and the amount of any increase. These include, among others, programming and other costs, consumer demand, market and shareholder expectations, and changing business conditions. Accordingly, we must reserve the unrestricted right to change, rearrange, add or delete our programming packages, the selections in those packages, our prices, and any other Service we offer, at any time. We will endeavor to notify you of any change that is within our reasonable control and its effective date. In most cases this notice will be about one month in advance. You always have the right to cancel your Service, in whole or in part, if you do not accept the change (see Section 5). If you cancel your Service, a deactivation fee (described in Sections 2 & 5(b)) or other charges may apply. Credits, if any, to your account will be posted as described in Section 5. If you do not cancel, your continued receipt of our Service will constitute acceptance"

So basically - they will try to give you 30 days notice, but they arent required to. You could probably argue some upgrades or a reduced breakage, but not going to get out of it without a fee.

But on the flip side, Viacom knows they have an incredible amount of leverage on cable & satellite providers. If you're a DirecTV, Comcast, DishNetwork, et al you simply can't compete with a list of channels that doesn't include any of: Comedy Central, BET, Spike, TV Land, Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, CMT, and half a dozen others.

Anybody that doesn't care if they have access to any of those networks probably isn't someone that is going to spend money on cable/satellite to begin with. Thus, all of the providers are pretty much forced to ultimately buy what Viacom is selling, whether they are getting bent over or not.

If you have DirecTV, then turn it to:

Comedy Central
MTV
BET
Spike
VH1
Any of the Nickelodeon channels.

You are paying the same rate you were yesterday. Today, you no longer have those channels.

oh ok, so i didnt know it was all those. I certainly dont care about MTV, BET, VH1 or nickelodean (although we have twins due in october, so maybe i will soon), I guess i would pay $7/yr for comedy central and spike, though. that kind of blows

hey, i asked a question earlier about wtf was going on and nobody responded, i didnt know viacom had those channels.

The FCC/Congress is the only one that can make that happen.

This is what I'll be attempting.

This is a big one - the first sign of whats going to happen with the scraps with declining audiences. I don't think it will be long before cable/satellite is pretty much a premium live sports platform and everything else is delivered over the Internet.

Nobody wants to pay "pennies per day" for crappy cable channels anymore when you can get their best content for free on the Internet, and DirecTV doesnt wanna pay more money for crappier channels with less audience. I dont blame em.