TVSquad

Yeah, they took my MSNBC yesterday. I live in eastern MA.
I miss my MSNBC. I generally will try and watch all three to get the broadest scope of opinions.
I read somewhere that the CEO of Comcast has some sort of dispute with the liberal leanings of MSNBC, most notably Keith Oberman, so its not a surprise.
The worst part about it is I lost 10 channels and the price went up. I guess it time to look into FIOS TV. I really hate comcast.

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About two weeks ago several basic cable channels disappeared from Cablevision. In their place is a message that a digital cable box is needed to view these channels. Although our house has a box, it's only in one room. One of the TVs is an LCD in the kitchen - there's simply no room for the box.


Thank you, cable companies. As our TVs get smaller, your space requirements get greater. Your software gets slower. Your remotes get less responsive and less reliable. And your charges go up.

You won't be long in my house.

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$4000 a month!!!!!!!! What! :O I hope thats a typo!!!!!!!!

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"$4000 a month!!!!!!!! What! :O I hope thats a typo!!!!!!!!"

I think it's called sarcasm.

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Haha...I didnt read into that.

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Yeah, I like to watch TruTv every once in a while and noticed the same thing with that station as well. In Eastern Mass, comcast ran a text overlay saying that channel was moving to the digital lineup on July 15 or 16, I think.

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what fool would pay $4000 a month for tv?

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Comcast yanked SoapNet, ToonDisney, and ESPNEWS from the basic lineup here in Southern Illinois last week. Their claim is that they needed to open up more bandwidth on the analog side. At least they covered the spectrum by pissing off me (ESPNNEWS), my kids (ToonDisney), and my mother (SoapNet) with the move. Equal opportunity screwings.

At least the rates went up this year. I'd hate to lose channels and actually be charged less.

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Re: 4000 a month cable...http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hyperbole


Fortunately, we here in Charter-land still have MSNBC.

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I live in northern Virginia and subscribe to Comcast's basic cable. I've not notice any channels disappearing. I like watching TruTV which is on channel 34. I hope they don't take that away.

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Comcast's and other cable companies internal numbers are not available, so it's tough to judge what is really going on. It is a fact, however, that one analog channel uses far more bandwidth than a digital one, and one of the tech writers I follow pointed out several years ago that it would cost the cable companies less money to gain additional bandwidth simply by moving all analog channels to digital, even if they had to provide a free converter box to their remaining basic-cable-only subscribers, than it would to build the additional bandwidth.

Of course, that's not the way cable companies work--they are never going to give away anything, and as long as people believe that "digital" must mean higher quality, they will charge more for digital cable. They will build bandwidth to offer additional services, but allocate the cost to the consumers of existing services. They will free up additional bandwidth by moving selected analog channels to digital packages, which gives them the double whammy of more bandwidth to sell as well as higher subscriber revenues if customers choose to upgrade packages to keep a particular channel.

They may actually need the incremental bandwidth, or this may just be an in-your-face response to the FCC calling them on their previous attempt to "manage" bandwidth by throttling IP services which compete with their TV delivery business. It's impossible to know for sure, and the only alternative is to investigate competing services if you have them available.

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I'm starting to see why Leno leads the late-night ratings. Smart comedy is lost on you people.

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I am glad I went to DirecTV a long time ago. The cable companies can suck a big one.

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Comcast is the worst.

It's time to end these monopolies where there is no real competition unless you want to put a dish on your roof.

More and more basic cable channels seem to be moving to much more expensive packages.

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I have Cablevision and pay $60 a month for basic cable. Last month they dropped the following channels from my package: TruTV, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, E!, A&E, SciFi, C-Span, TLC, MSNBC, and Lifetime. All because they want to force me into a more expensive package. Well I'm not upgrading with them I'm switching to Verizon Fios. Cablevision can kiss my ass.

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You can podcast Keith's entire show. That's all I need.

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If you watch tv you wou know that in February 2009 the fcc is taking over all analog signals. The only way you would be able to see any programs other than local channels is by the digital box that that is the only signal you will be able to receive after that time.

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