# Cablevision still sucks



## ctenidae (Jan 1, 2010)

Now, in addition to having the worst menu system and on demand programming ever, they've lost Food Network and HGTV. Food Network constituted about 33% of the worthwhile TV available, so now Cablevision blows 33% more than before.

:angry:


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## playoutside (Jan 1, 2010)

Crap...this sucks...didn't know this.  I pay 2 cable bills, and always thought the Cablevision lineup in NJ was pretty scrawny for the price compared to what I get in MA from Comcast.  HGTV and Food were 2 of my channels I liked.  Hope they resolve it and that they don't up the bill too dramatically!


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## wa-loaf (Jan 1, 2010)

ctenidae said:


> Now, in addition to having the worst menu system and on demand programming ever, they've lost Food Network and HGTV. Food Network constituted about 33% of the worthwhile TV available, so now Cablevision blows 33% more than before.
> 
> :angry:



You have cablevision in Boston? Can you get FIOS?


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## RootDKJ (Jan 1, 2010)

Dumb. Especially when they are getting killed by competition these days.


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## Geoff (Jan 1, 2010)

wa-loaf said:


> You have cablevision in Boston? Can you get FIOS?



Boston is Comcast.   Cablevision is Lawn Gisland and slices of metro-NYC.   Time-Warner has NYC-proper.


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## wa-loaf (Jan 1, 2010)

Geoff said:


> Boston is Comcast.   Cablevision is Lawn Gisland and slices of metro-NYC.   Time-Warner has NYC-proper.



Yea, but I thought cten lived in Boston.


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## bvibert (Jan 1, 2010)

wa-loaf said:


> Yea, but I thought cten lived in Boston.



IIRC he works in CT and has a place here.  We have Cablevision here in NW CT.


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## severine (Jan 2, 2010)

No Food Network? Not worth the cost! We have Cablevision but only have basic because we only watched a handful of "premium" channels (Food Network was one of them) so it wasn't worth paying 3x as much money for the little bit of extra TV we watched. However, I joke all the time about going back because I miss Food Network. Damn! Guess that's not a temptation anymore!


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## deadheadskier (Jan 2, 2010)

I had heard that Time Warner dropped Fox??

Food Network is the most watched station in our house.  HGTV would be second.  Then sports.  Out of the 800 or so TV/Music stations we have on Comcast, we probably only watch/listen to about 20 of them.  

I really wish Cable was more like TV.  I'd just assume hide every single channel we don't use.


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## ctenidae (Jan 2, 2010)

We're paying for cable in Boston and Norwalk. Comcast is fine, Cablevision is terrible in many ways.

We're looking at switching to satellite, but adding to our bills just to get Food Network hardly seems worth it, even to poke Cavblevision in the eye.

If Time Warner were an option, I'd pay to switch- hell, I might even pay more to cancel Fox altogether (but thats a political discussion). I'm praying for the advent of pay-per-view or pay-as-you-go TV. Pay more to keep Food TV available? Sure. Pay one red cent for 15 home shopping chanels, 12 Christian broadcating, and 29 kids chanels? No thanks (maybe I'd be willing to subsidize Christian and Children chanels if there were some Buddhist porn available, but home shopping is asking too much).


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## RootDKJ (Jan 2, 2010)

ctenidae said:


> We're paying for cable in Boston and Norwalk. Comcast is fine, Cablevision is terrible in many ways.
> 
> We're looking at switching to satellite, but adding to our bills just to get Food Network hardly seems worth it, even to poke Cavblevision in the eye.
> 
> If Time Warner were an option, I'd pay to switch- hell, I might even pay more to cancel Fox altogether (but thats a political discussion). *I'm praying for the advent of pay-per-view or pay-as-you-go TV.* Pay more to keep Food TV available? Sure. Pay one red cent for 15 home shopping chanels, 12 Christian broadcating, and 29 kids chanels? No thanks (maybe I'd be willing to subsidize Christian and Children chanels if there were some Buddhist porn available, but home shopping is asking too much).


Never gonna happen.  Broadcasters and Networks don't want it and neither to the Cable Co's.  The technology is fully available though.


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## BeanoNYC (Jan 3, 2010)

It's a real bummer.  Those two channels are my most watched.  I hope they come to an agreement soon.  I wouldn't put all the blame on cable for this, though.  Scripps Networks (Parent company for Food and H&G) were not happy with the distribution rates they were offered and they decided to pull their networks.  They're making it like they were kicked off.


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## ctenidae (Jan 3, 2010)

BeanoNYC said:


> It's a real bummer.  Those two channels are my most watched.  I hope they come to an agreement soon.  I wouldn't put all the blame on cable for this, though.  Scripps Networks (Parent company for Food and H&G) were not happy with the distribution rates they were offered and they decided to pull their networks.  They're making it like they were kicked off.



I'm sure both sides have not behaved as well as they could. But, if they asked, I'd certainly be willing to pay more for Food Network. If someone else gets paid less, fine by me.


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## Geoff (Jan 3, 2010)

RootDKJ said:


> Never gonna happen.  Broadcasters and Networks don't want it and neither to the Cable Co's.  The technology is fully available though.



It's not so much the cable operators, it's the content providers.  To get their "good" feeds, they force the cable operators to also make their crappier ones available.


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## ERJ-145CA (Jan 4, 2010)

I had Cablevision before I moved a couple of years ago and they had just started moving channels from the regular expanded basic to the digital service.  So I would have had to pay the same for less channels unless I upgraded to digital and leased a box.  It seemed like a money grab to me.  If I stayed in that house I would have switched to FIOS.

My cable company now is Service Electric and I can't complain about it, much better than Cablevision and they have the NFL network.


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## ski_resort_observer (Jan 4, 2010)

Caught this article in todays paper about the Food Network going awol on Cablevision
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100104/NEWS01/1040307/1002/NEWS01


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## ctenidae (Jan 5, 2010)

Think we're switching to Dish Network.


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## Grassi21 (Jan 5, 2010)

ctenidae said:


> Think we're switching to Dish Network.



We did.  Love it.  The only thing that is a let down is the DVR interface.  We had Tivo previously and I loved their setup.


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## Greg (Jan 5, 2010)

Grassi21 said:


> We did.  Love it.  The only thing that is a let down is the DVR interface.  We had Tivo previously and I loved their setup.



HD Tivo is the best. We're not positioned well for Dish or Direct (tried both) so we're stuck with Cablevision and it's bill that is approaching $100... :roll:


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## Grassi21 (Jan 5, 2010)

Greg said:


> HD Tivo is the best. We're not positioned well for Dish or Direct (tried both) so we're stuck with Cablevision and it's bill that is approaching $100... :roll:



I wanted to stay with cable and Tivo.  But I wanted to upgrade to HD and that would have meant buying a new Tivo to work with the HD cable box.  In the end it was cheaper go with Dish Network HD and their DVR.  Sacrifices....


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## ctenidae (Jan 5, 2010)

Grassi21 said:


> We did.  Love it.  The only thing that is a let down is the DVR interface.  We had Tivo previously and I loved their setup.



Have no real use for the DVR, so no problem there, but glad you like Dish- trying to figure out if it's worth making the switch just because Cablevision pisses me off.


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## Greg (Jan 5, 2010)

Grassi21 said:


> I wanted to stay with cable and Tivo.  But I wanted to upgrade to HD and that would have meant buying a new Tivo to work with the HD cable box.  In the end it was cheaper go with Dish Network HD and their DVR.  Sacrifices....



Tivo makes an HD Tivo which you have the cable company install two cable cards so everything is out of one box. Nice setup. We also have a combo DVD, CD, radio, home theater unit. I hate having 4 or 5 different components for stuff so we have 2 boxes and that's it.


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## hammer (Jan 5, 2010)

Had Dish for several years then switched to Fios.

Liked the on-screen guide for Dish a lot better but Fios allows for VOD without having a DVR-type receiver and Fios was cheaper.


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## Greg (Jan 5, 2010)

ctenidae said:


> Have no real use for the DVR.



Have you ever had it? It definitely makes TV watching (which admittedly I do basically none of lately) a lot more convenient. Tivo also blows away any other DVR setup I've seen, but there is a subscription cost involved.


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## ctenidae (Jan 5, 2010)

Greg said:


> Have you ever had it? It definitely makes TV watching (which admittedly I do basically none of lately) a lot more convenient. Tivo also blows away any other DVR setup I've seen, but there is a subscription cost involved.



Haven't tried it, but I have no clue what time anything comes on, anyway- generally, whatever looks interesting as I crawl into bed works. Food Network is great, since it's interesting enough to hold attention as you wind down, but innocuous enough to fall asleep to. I don't see an advantage to having multiple recordings of Good Eats available. Really, it all comes down to laziness- i'm too lazy to set up recording for something I don't care enough to watch at a later time when I'll be too lazy to look through a menu to find somethign I don't really care about watching.


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## RootDKJ (Jan 22, 2010)

Looks like a deal was reached yesterday.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/445368-Scripps_Cablevision_Reach_Contract_Accord.php


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## ctenidae (Jan 22, 2010)

RootDKJ said:


> Looks like a deal was reached yesterday.
> 
> http://www.multichannel.com/article/445368-Scripps_Cablevision_Reach_Contract_Accord.php



Too bad, they already lost me. I forgot how much I enjoyed Three Sheets on Fine Living, too- so glad to have it again (Cablevision in Boston dropped them, too). Still haven't learned the channel numbers though- all I know is Food is on 110, and the movie channels start on 300.


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## RootDKJ (Mar 2, 2010)

Sounds like Cablevision is at it again, only it's WABC this time.

http://www.multichannel.com/article...s_Signal_From_Cablevision_In_Retrans_Spat.php


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## 4aprice (Mar 2, 2010)

RootDKJ said:


> Sounds like Cablevision is at it again, only it's WABC this time.
> 
> http://www.multichannel.com/article...s_Signal_From_Cablevision_In_Retrans_Spat.php



I heard that this morning.  That would be incredible.  There using the Oscars as collateral.  I couldn't care less about that but I'm sure much of the general population would have an absolute fit. 

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ


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## SkiDork (Mar 2, 2010)

whos the bad guy though?  Cablevision or WABC?


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## RootDKJ (Mar 2, 2010)

SkiDork said:


> whos the bad guy though?  Cablevision or WABC?


That's hard to say.  On the surface, I'd speculate it's ABC but It very well could be Cablevision.  The article states the dispute is over a* "retransmission-consent" *dispute.  That says to me that Cablevision is receiving WABC's signal in the actual NY DMA and then retransmitting it to their customers outside of the NY DMA (perhaps in CT, maybe Danbury area).  If that's the case, I'd say it's Cablevision.

If WABC is looking to get paid for carriage in an area when they meet "must-carry" requirements (the greater NYC area), then I'd say they are the bad guy, and they would have a hard time actually enforcing the blackout to Cablevision.. I'd also think the FCC would take issue with this.


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## SkiDork (Mar 2, 2010)

the article I read in the NY Daily News said it was over Cablevision's refusal to pay WABC tv for broadcasting their content as part of their basic package.


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## gmcunni (Mar 2, 2010)

i'm not familiar with this particular issue but i can tell you I've always been jealous of my cablevision neighbors. my town has Charter Cable, many of the surrounding towns have Cablevision. I've drooled over the channels and internet options they've had compared to what Charter offers.


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## RootDKJ (Mar 2, 2010)

SkiDork said:


> the article I read in the NY Daily News said it was over Cablevision's refusal to pay WABC tv for broadcasting their content as part of their basic package.


Any network that meets FCC Must Carry requirements must be included in the Cable Operators basic package.  I would think for a very large portion of Cablevisions footprint, that would be the case.


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## Johnskiismore (Mar 2, 2010)

Time Warner sucks too..... that's why I went with Dish Net, great company


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## WakeboardMom (Mar 3, 2010)

"On the surface, I'd speculate it's ABC but It very well could be Cablevision. The article states the dispute is over a "retransmission-consent" dispute. That says to me that Cablevision is receiving WABC's signal in the actual NY DMA and then retransmitting it to their customers outside of the NY DMA (perhaps in CT, maybe Danbury area). If that's the case, I'd say it's Cablevision."

That's interesting.  So you guys in NY will lose ABC because a station in CT is unhappy and they're butting heads, you think?  Apparently, two NBC affiliates in my area came to a compromise that surprised me recently.

At my house in Moultonborough, NH, the NBC affiliates in Boston and Portland, ME overlap.  Channel 7 (Boston) has agreed to NOT broadcast NBC's portion of their programming in my area.  They _are_ allowed to broadcast their news and other local programs.  I found that interesting considering the Manchester and Boston ABC affiliates have overlapped for years.

EDIT to say "COMCAST sucks."  (That's at my house in Southern NH.)


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## RootDKJ (Mar 3, 2010)

WakeboardMom said:


> At my house in Moultonborough, NH, the NBC affiliates in Boston and Portland, ME overlap.  Channel 7 (Boston) has agreed to NOT broadcast NBC's portion of their programming in my area.  They _are_ allowed to broadcast their news and other local programs.  I found that interesting considering the Manchester and Boston ABC affiliates have overlapped for years.


Syndication rules are totally different then Must Carry rules.


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## ERJ-145CA (Mar 3, 2010)

gmcunni said:


> i'm not familiar with this particular issue but i can tell you I've always been jealous of my cablevision neighbors. my town has Charter Cable, many of the surrounding towns have Cablevision. I've drooled over the channels and internet options they've had compared to what Charter offers.



I had Cablevision before I moved and I hated them, they started moving channels to digital so you were forced to get a box if you wanted them.  So I couldn't get them but it still cost the same amount of money.  I have Service Electric now and they are so much better, a better channel selection than CV and less money.


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