Great Rate Debate

Then offer them a la carte style. You just pay for the individual channels that you want....

That's what they're looking to do. Separate out the gougers like ABC, Fox and ESPN.

No not the stupid packaging stuff that they are doing where you pay $10 a month for basic or $80 a month for expanded with all the "gougers" but rather you pay $0.08 a month for CBS, $3 for ESPN, etc.

Speaking of ESPN they keep showing less good stuff. They picked up the NBA and their NHL coverage has suffered. NoW they are wasting time in the morning showing that stupid "Cold Pizza" show. Spike TV, Cold Pizza and American Movie Classics that shows the same garbage that is on TNT and TBS. Where do they find these idiots.

Cold Pizza what a stupid ass show. Lame, lame and more lame.

And maybe ESPN is facing operating cost increases as part of it...but consumers shouldn't be paying for ESPN's poor judgement in starting up crap like Cold Pizza or overbidding for sports broadcast rights.

I mean hell...I just looked at what ESPN has on right now...billiards! They want to charge cable operators a 20% increase and they're showing billiards!?!

They're dreaming.

said by oliphant5:

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I mean hell...I just looked at what ESPN has on right now...billiards! They want to charge cable operators a 20% increase and they're showing billiards!?!

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You posted that at 3:05 ET on a Sunday. There were probably 2 NFL games going on at that time on FOX and CBS.

What else are they going to show? They can't compete with the NFL games, so they put on "alternative" programming. Bowling, billiards, gymnastics. You'll pretty much always see that kind of stuff during NFL games.

So the cable operator is going to fork over 35% per year in increases for what then? That slim window when they'll bother trying to put on programming someone will watch?

said by oliphant5:

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So the cable operator is going to fork over 35% per year in increases for what then? That slim window when they'll bother trying to put on programming someone will watch?

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Man - you love arguing. Actually it's not really a slim window. For instance, the only local Neilsen ratings I could easily find were from San Diego market - Time Warner. But it still makes the point.

8 of the top 10 audiences in October were watching ESPN programming.

Lest our results be tainted with MLB playoff games...the 2 weekend ratings from Nov 14-16 and Nov 21-23 placed ESPN programming at 3 of the top 10 and 4 of the top 10, respectively.

I guess my point is that you were just watching ESPN at the wrong time. I don't like rate hikes any more than the next guy, but when you look at the corner that ESPN has on the market, it shouldn't be a surprise that they try to squeeze every dime out of the operators.

ESPN does need to show more hockey. I got news for everyone, the NBA sucks.

ESPN2 is showing more hockey however.

Anyways, I would be willing to choose my own channels I recieve. That way I would not have to pay for crap like Lifetime, Oxygen, EWTN, ect.

said by Omega:

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ESPN does need to show more hockey. I got news for everyone, the NBA sucks.

ESPN2 is showing more hockey however.

Anyways, I would be willing to choose my own channels I recieve. That way I would not have to pay for crap like Lifetime, Oxygen, EWTN, ect.

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I used to watch a lot of ESPN and ESPN2 for the hockey. Instead, the last couple years I got the NHL Center Ice package which is totally awesome! I am a huge hockey nut, so I can watch any two teams go at it.

Now, I watch ESPN and ESPN2 on occassion....not as much as I used to that is for sure.

said by oliphant5:

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That's what they're looking to do. Separate out the gougers like ABC, Fox and ESPN.

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Funny thing is that I recall the sports channels were "a la carte" for a while back in the 80's. It's just an ugly vicious cycle reinventing itself.

To me I could care less if they're dropped. I could live without watching the world championship of poker, log rolling or 20 year old world series games.

Playmakers and an occasional HDTV football feed simply isn't worth paying extra for.

said by oliphant5:

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To me I could care less if they're dropped. I could live without watching the world championship of poker, log rolling or 20 year old world series games.

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the world championship of poker is the best thing on espn! seriously!

but what is with the new espn soap opera? i saw the commericals for that a while back, and i just laughed my ass off.

It started out good...like The Sopranos did for the underworld, Playmakers gave a look behind the scenes of the NFL...pressure on players, team doctors, league politics...then VERY quickly went downhill.

said by morbo:

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but what is with the new espn soap opera?

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i tried watching the first episode. the first 10 minutes made me 50% dumber so i changed the channel

said by morbo:

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said by oliphant5:

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To me I could care less if they're dropped. I could live without watching the world championship of poker, log rolling or 20 year old world series games.

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the world championship of poker is the best thing on espn! seriously!

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I agree. The only ESPN I have watched for more than 6 minutes is their Poker coverage. It's nice to see a mainstream network is paying attention to it. I used to have to watch it on Travel Channel.

said by The Way Out:

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I agree. The only ESPN I have watched for more than 6 minutes is their Poker coverage. It's nice to see a mainstream network is paying attention to it. I used to have to watch it on Travel Channel.

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texas hold'em looks fun. i learnded.

I hear where you are coming from but the problem with this stance is that it's not only ESPN but all the Sport Program providers that will end up going on a pay for tier basis and my biggest fear is that it won't end there.

I'm sure it won't. And it's not just sports...all of Disney's programming, not just ESPN is going up at these huge rates. If it were just 1 or two channels, the cable and DBS operators would probably just absorb the costs, but when you have 10 or 15 of 50-80 non-premium channels taking these massive increases...they have to try and controll it, or create a sports tier and slap, Speed, the ESPN's, Fox Sports (and their out of region digitals) on their own tier. Then people who want it, can pay and get it.

This is a two fold solution. 1, people who want it can still get it...which IMHO is a better solution than just dropping it. 2, it puts pressure on the programmers as they see their viewship tank because now those like me who while sports fans, aren't that impress with ESPN and Fox can pass and stick with the broadcast affiliates.

It's just like HD...I pay $5 for an HD tier and understand that it wouldn't really be "fair" for everyone to cover the costs of HD since the majority don't watch HD.

said by oliphant5:

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I'm sure it won't. And it's not just sports ...

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Ok so if it's not just sports then the "cancer" has already spread and my biggest fear has been realized. ... my biggest fear is that it won't end there. ...

Part of the Consumer report was true...it's mergers...but not by cable giants...but my the programmers. When we see the complaints about the ESPNs and ABC Family...that's Disney. All of Disney's channels are imposing these increases, which is why for the longest time, a lot of cable distributors had The Disney Channel a la carte. When no one bought, they dropped the price to get it on expanded basic tiers. We also see these merged programmers holding one network hostage to get another network carried. This is what happened with ABC Family. They threatened Dish Network to deny rebroadcast rights for the ABC Network of DN didn't carry ABC Family.

Now they're back at it again with their other new purchased networks...and finally cable and DBS providers are saying no to the huge increases.

I agree that sports should be on a seperate tier. However, I don't think the cost of the programming should be the determining factor. Sports appeals to a certain group of individuals and those not interested should have the ability to opt out.

But along the same lines, other channels should be on tiers as well. I don't think I should have to pay the 8 cents a month for Oxygen, when I never watch it. I don't care that it's only 8 cents. The same can be said of Telemundo. I don't speak Spanish and never watch that channel.

If every channel is added a la carte, the prices for individual channels would be greater as a whole, but individual cable bills may be less. The cable companies would also be able to see which channels are their bread and butter.

them spanish channels are like soft core porn. sooner or later some thing on the channel catches your eye as you flick threw.

That sounds nice and dandy, but in my case they have taken sport channels I once had and only given me a $.50 credit for those lost channels. If I want to subscribe to those channels it'll cost me at least an additional $4.00. How does that add up? It would be nice if they took off almost the same amount of money from your bill for those channels as it is to subscribe to them.

You get the smaller credit because the cost was divided by more people.

For example, you have 100 people paying a dollar each to cover $100 the operator is charged (plus their margin) for the programming so when it's split off, you would get the $1 back.

Now when it is split and say 25 people sign back up...they're paying now $4 to buy that programming. Unless the cable operator can sell the programming on a per customer basis like they do HBO...then it would logically cost more to get it back than what you go to give it up.

The benefit comes if you didn't watch it at all...then you're just getting .50 back for a channel you never watched. And what cable programmers are seeing with ratings of channels like ABC Family, is hardly anyone watches it, yet it costs the cable provider and thus their customers a small fortune to carry to the majority of customers benefit by the dropping or moving of the programming...SO LONG AS they actually monitarily get something back either, no further price increase or an actual decrease like you received.

said by Techie2000:

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Then offer them a la carte style. You just pay for the individual channels that you want....

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Actually the oringinal catv did this but they found that they lost money as a result because some people wouldn't take 20 infomercial channels.

They are paid by the channels to carry info channels...not by subscribers.

What would most likely happen is you'll see more tiers with the price gougers all on their own tier.

Sure, but Disney owns both ABC and ESPN. While you could easily move ESPN into a sports package tier, Disney can use ABC as leverage against doing so. A high percentage of people would be displeased to lose a major network like ABC because they were in a squabble. Time Warner and Disney got into it and ABC was blacked out right around the time "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" premiered. Stuff like that is very costly to the cable company, as it can trigger anyone "on the fence" to get on the phone and order satellite.

-- Rob

I was on with ComShaft here a couple of weeks ago, and mentioned that also. In my view future cable programming will be ala carte. The rep of course disagreed, saying that bundling is always going to be how it is.

This comes after a lengthy discussion of why I have to get 3 channels I don't want for one that I do.

Comcast recently has been pitching their "on demand" service. Frankly, I haven't seen any providers as of yet who really have any clue what true VoD is. When we started talking about this what a dozen or more years ago, the concept of VoD is I can watch what I want when I want no matter what channel it is on.

However, the way many are going now is well you can watch it when you want, but only on the channels you are subscribed to. Gee, I can use a DVR for that.

One thing that may work is say a base package of channels that you can indeed see everything there any time, your choice of time shifting etc, but you would also have access to all other channels on the network, but pay for them on a per-show basis, with the option of adding them to your package of service.

As for sports, as an industry they cannot totally blame the carriers. As an industry there is a massive amount of cash in broadcast rights, and they know it. I look at how Speed Channel is raked over the coals by Bernie Ecclestone each year for the rights to show Formula 1. It's insane!

For the cable cos, if these rate hikes are just because of programming & upgrades, how is it that DirecTV etc are able to offer lower rates for the same networks? As for upgrades, there may be some truth to that part, but in the end how many cable customers STILL either have cruddy service or no HSI etc?

K.

shopping channels, bulletin board channels or public access channels in the pricing package. half of what Charter cable has on here is free to air stations and everytime they supposedly upgrade its garbage you wouldn't watch if it was the only channel on the TV.

too bad you cant just pay the company separate from your cable tv company.

It is intensely moving to witness the bountiful fruits of free market capitalism. I slumber peacefully knowing that the highly competitive Cable Industry bestows upon its uniquely valued consumers the highest value programming for the lowest possible cost. I know that our wise and selfless government leaders would allow nothing less.

well communism didnt work much better

i we just change the laws pertaining to the amounts of money companies can directly or indirectly give to politicians, becuase they are the ones who should be stepping in here...

this is obviously an anti-trust issue... lets see... they control the supply of something that is in demand... so they believe that they can charge whatever they feel is "OK"

they will continue to raise rates for no apparant reason more than likely again...

my adelphia bill has gone up to insane levels, i am going to cancell it soon becuase this is just retarded...

plus cable sucks anyway, get DirecTV or some other DBS system... and install it yourself, most of the people moaning about crappy reception is becuase the person who installed it didnt give three $hits about how well it was aligned...

i live in miami and my satellite has only gone out maybe 4 or 5 times during really bad storms...

meanwhile the cable goes out when like 4~6 droplets of water hit the ground

Where does Cox get this 8% number. You mean to tell me the wife beating channel "Lifetime" and other channels are doing better. Our cable company offers Soap TV and the Golf Channel on the regular cable. We also got stupid religious channels no one watches and PAX TV. Oh yeah lets not forget ABC family which often show stuff I wouldn't call family. Meanwhile you have to get the digital package to get TV Land. Why can't they ask us what we want. If my cable company decides to get rid of ESPN they will lose a costumer.

C.I.P....you think those are worthless channels but may actually cost operator a fortune. ABC Family for instance. Cable and DBS operators weren't interested in paying the insane fees for zero-ratings channels like ABC Family. In 2002, Echostar had a dispute with ABC »makethemplayfair.com/doc ··· 0204.pdf over the costs of ESPN Classic and ABC Family. So what ABC does is threaten to deny rebroadcast rights for regular ABC network programming (it's not mentioned in the article, but was mentioned by the Echostar CEO during what of his Charlie Chats.

In fact SkyReport had an article about DirecTV threatening to drop ABC Family over a 35% increase even though ABC Family couldn't pull a rating point.

»www.skyreport.com/viewsk ··· eID=1061

The complaining of sports programming increases isn't a new event. Cox and Dish Network have complained of insane double digit programming increases for years. ESPN and Fox with 20-35% increases...yearly!!!

Cable companies would rather keep costs down than make up the margit in price increases which pisses off customers.

Until Cox and Dish Network...programmers were just free to rape the distributors in secret because they are the middlemen to the consumers. Now it's a PR war. Now people can get both sides and see what these sports programmers are demanding.
I'm glad that DBS and cable distributors are standing up against these price increases.

As for the Consumer Union report...I like how they say "Ignoring the market presence of Direct Broadcast Satellite TV...". Uh...you CAN'T IGNORE IT...they're competitors for a majority of video programming offered by cable (save for HDTV locals and special services like VoD).

It's not that hard to do the math when you have a large group of programmers like Disney (ABC, ESPN)and Fox taking YEARLY double digit increases that you'll see single digit increases from distributors of the programming.

I also love how they IGNORE capital expenditures and labor costs. They act as if programming and M&As are a DBS and cable operator's only expense. All sectors of business operating expensives have gone up...from the cost of buying property to employee benefit expenses. Just in California alone, cable operators (as all businesses here) face high double to low triple digit yearly increases in Worker's Compensation Insurance rates.

You can't take small portion of the company books and create a ficticous margin of programming vs revenue from programming. That margin is all the margin they get. That margin is what is used to cover ALL their expenses, not just programming. Their report is a complete joke that misleads consumers...they aren't getting the whole picture of COB for DBS and cable distributors.

They also ignore the term for recouping capital investments. They act as if the day after deployment a new service is profitable...it's not. Revenues for months if not years go back to repaying that investment. You don't spend a $1,000/customer and when you start making a $250/yr margin on the customer that its free money. The original $1,000 came from somewhere and to break even has to go back.

If they wanted to have an honest report, they would include all COB, from programming to labor, property to utilities. Then...after all that is said and done the numbers don't justify the increases so be it. But to take programing vs programming revenue is like taking the cost to restripe the parking lot versus programming revenue. It's not the complete picture and is completely irrelevant.

The facts is, all costs are going up for DBS and cable operators...but programming is going up disproportionally to most of their other costs cutting into the margin that is normally used to offset normal increases in COB.

As a Cox subscriber I tend to side with ESPN - Cox is forcing customers to pay for their cable internet/phone upgrades and infrastructure. One thing is for certain, if Cox doesn't watch itself with the continual price hike BS then it will surely lose a lot of customers to satellite dishes because I for one, am really tired of the perpetual increases to my cable bill. No cable co. is worth forking over $50.00/mo. to for substandard programming.

I was thinking the other day, when i heard yet another cable tv ad (from adelphia while im watching their cable) telling about the horrors of using a dish.

1)hidden fees-funny because my cable bill has more fees than my parents dishnetwork
2)THEY MAKE YOU SIGN A CONTRACT-well ill be damned, they make you sign a contract and yo udont want to do that, they might jack up the prices on you. just like adelphia has done several times this year.

of course, the ironic part is this: cable companies signed a contract with abc to carry their networks, now the cable companies are throwing a fit because of the end result of the contract. how funny, they should take their own advice!

from makethemplayfair.com "Cox is contractually prohibited by the sports networks from providing these channels on an optional service tier. "

this made my day

I have dish network and I can't understand why anyone would want to stay with cable unless it's the only source of broadband. The service is better, the quality of picture is better, it's cheaper, The one thing about Satellite TV and especially Dish Network (echo star) is Echo star started with large dish systems. They have had an adversarial relationship with the content/cable providers for many years. TCI had tried to put Echo Star out of business more then once so if Echo Star has a chance to screw over the big cable outfits They are going to do it.

The opposite for me...I had Dish Network and had to cancel because of the horrid compression on the local feeds. They were unwatchable...especially for sports programming.

"ESPN suggests via the new campaign that the hikes are due to network improvements for "services like cable modems and telephone that most of you do not use."

And what are ESPN's rate hikes for? To support their new HD studio, HD channel and the outrageous contracts they pay the NFL, NHL, NBA, and etc.

"and that subscribers are only paying $2.61 of the $40 a month bill for basic cable."

What about those that don't watch ESPN? Why should they pay $2.61+ for the network because they won't allow it to be on a seperate tier.

said by panth1:

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And what are ESPN's rate hikes for? To support their new HD studio, HD channel and the outrageous contracts they pay the NFL, NHL, NBA, and etc.

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Coyote...you make a good point. ESPN and Fox have both taken a serious bath on their respective contracts with MLB. At the expiration of the last MLB contract, post season ratings were down something like 20% nationwide. But Fox, for some reason, purchased the rights to MLB at a 45% higher rate than the expiring contract. And since the contract began, ratings have continued to fall. I'm sure once this contract expires someone will come along and offer even MORE money, despite the fact that no one is watching. Once again we'll see that cost passed along in our monthly bill.

Well, Cox backed Fox off from a 35% rate hike in Arizona down to 4-9% (»[AZ] Cox, Fox Sports reach agreement). Should make you wonder who's really telling the truth here if Fox can demand 35% and settle for 4-9%.

said by Statement from Above:

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Most consumer groups agree that cable providers are raising rates....simply because they can.

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Well, I can agree with this. In my own opinion, they are raising the rates "because they can." If they can't provide the channels, then why not open up the world of competition to see who can...when they start losing customers left and right because the competition is cheaper, and provides better service / services, then maybe they'll rethink the whole process.

I'm all for open competition...especially because Cox is the ONLY provider in my area, which creates a monopoly in which the law around here states that no one company can be in control of any one service (i.e. Cable Television).

I agree with what Tech2000 said in the very first response to this article. The cable companies need to be FORCED (because they will never voluntarily do it on their own) into offering an "a-la-carte" style of programming where each user can pick and choose the exact channels that they want. Sure, they'll bitch, moan and complain that "it's not possible" or that it would be "too costly to implement." Give me a f***ing break. It would be easiest with digital cable in which they could simply "lock out" the channels that the customers don't want to pay for on the digital receivers. The real reason they don't want to do it is because they realize that most people wouldn't pay for half of the crap they put on their "basic" lineup anyway. Personally, I'm sick of the greediness of the cable companies -- it's time they're made to start playing fair.

Oh, and we can all thank those wonderful things called "franchise agreements" which basically give a single cable company COMPLETE CONTROL over an area ("franchise"). And this is supposed to help promote cable competition HOW?!?! Sometimes I think most of these law-makers were crack smokers and didn't even graduate High School.

said by TheChosenOne2:

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The cable companies need to be FORCED (because they will never voluntarily do it on their own) into offering an "a-la-carte" style of programming where each user can pick and choose the exact channels that they want.

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This is what Cox has requested. If ESPN won't lower their rates, then Cox wants to sell it a-la-carte. It's ESPN that won't let them.

said by TheChosenOne2:

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Oh, and we can all thank those wonderful things called "franchise agreements" which basically give a single cable company COMPLETE CONTROL over an area ("franchise"). And this is supposed to help promote cable competition HOW?!?!

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It's not a law. If you're really concerned, it's probably a public document, go down to city hall and take a look. What they usually are is an agreement to use public right-of-ways in exchange for public service channels and franchise fees (taxes). I'm sure the city wouldn't mind competition, it's the free market that stops that because of the expense to build a network. Not complete control, just a lack of competition, big difference.

Its easy to agree with because it sounds simple but think about the effort it would take to do a la carte channeling? first you would need a string of traps that filter out different frequencies for the analog channels that the cable companies are forced to keep. Which in turn would cost your cable company more money because the traps they have now that filter out expanded service from basic service cost about $15 now so can you imagine how much it would cost to have 99 different traps? and where do you think that cost will be passed on to? A La Carte pricing sounds like a great idea but look at it economically. Say all you want are your local channels (for this exercise lets say you have 20 local stations), mtv, vh1, tech tv, fuse, mtv2, espn, bet, espn 2, fox sports net, fox sports net 2, hbo, starz, and showtime. Now first you would need a trap that can pass a digital signal but filter out an analog signal. Then only 8 of those (possibly 11) would be offered on analog in any cable company. meaning you would need 88 $15 traps on one house which amounts to $1,320.00 in traps and that is just on house now imagine what that does to a cable company that has about 300,000 subscribers? You think cable prices are high now. HA! My cable bill is $90 a month and I know it will be up to about nearly $105 by middle of next year but I don't care as long as they eventually offer video on demand, dvr, and/or maybe gets rid or improves that crappy guide then I am cool.

Oh and franchising is done through your city and you're city tells the cable company what requirements they have to meet and you can have more than one cable company in one area but you're city makes money off of the franchising because it can only get a percent of total gross profit from that area and if you have more than one cable company in one area profits go down on both sides making the portions the cities get a fraction of what they would get from just one cable company in one area. The documentation is public and you can easily get it from city hall. Hell you can even see when he franchise agreement comes back up for renegotiation. Only thing is what good would it do you to know to what effect that you are getting screwed because in order to actually make a change you would have to do alot of lobbying and i doubt anyone would actually do that much work just to lower their cable bill $10 a month.

I subscribe to both DirecTV and Bell ExpressVu from Canada. Expressvu offers packages as seen here:»www.bell.ca/shop/applica ··· ming.jsp

Why can't the US cable and satellite companies be setup this way as well? Just demand it in the next contract.

said by unoriginal:

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I subscribe to both DirecTV and Bell ExpressVu from Canada. Expressvu offers packages as seen here:»www.bell.ca/shop/applica ··· ming.jsp

Why can't the US cable and satellite companies be setup this way as well? Just demand it in the next contract.

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Because Canada isnt as greedy as the USA(yet)

Antenna works fine.

Just turn on the TV. If nothing is good. Download what you want.

All television signals come from he same source - satellite birds located 22,000 miles above earth's surface. The difference in cost and quality of signal is how the signal is delivered to the receiver. The signal that is the worst and most expensive is cable. The cheapest, best signal is Analog to the big dish -- which is how cable companies get their signal. Little dish owners pay for a analog signal that is received, compressed, and rebroadcast in a digital signal to a fixed location. .

Congress isn't going to do a thing except look busy. Cox is going to continue to gobble up companies like TCI, while they blame the sports channels for increased cost, and give you and me the shaft.

Ten years ago ESPN cost big dish satellite users $2.00 per month. A thirty cent increase over ten years amounts to what? Three cents a year ?

Pax, religious channels, C-Span, PBS, QVC. Home Shopping, etc.. and the other junk channels no one watches are in the clear; they are free to you and me, and they are free to cable tv providers.

ABC is not American owned. Analog is still the defacto standard for television sets. The only one being *forced* into using digital is the satellite bird manufactures because the digital signal is compressed, therefore more channels or feeds exist on a digital bird than an analog bird.

The Cox game plan is to force users into the Digital tier by slowly replacing favorite stations like ESPN with free channels while they raise rates. My Cox rates have increased an average of $3.50 per year every year since they bought out my local cable company. Every year since then the quality of my television programming has degraded. Every year the cost of premium channels has increased until this year. Now I can't get them.

The liars tell me the signal is only digital. Bull hockey. I see a scrambled analog signal 24/7. Ten years when I had my Analog satellite system I could buy seven HBO channels or 4 Max or 3 Showtime or 2 Playboy channels for $5.00 each per month.

The only expensive packages were sports packages. It cost $150 to $200 for each package which, for instance, might be all college basketball games in the Midwest. or all hockey games or all NFL games on the East coast. They are still expensive. I received ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS and FOX from Denver for $2.00 a month. For $25 a month, I got every pay channel I wanted plus a premium. And it was ALL on demand. I could add or remove programming in the blink of an eye.

Cox now charges $100 a month for converting the little dish digital signals to cable for cable users. The little dish gets its signal from satellite feeds just like the big dish satellite owners do. The difference is not in the quality of signal. It is in the cost. Big satellite dish owners buy their own tier. Little dish owners pay inflated prices for cable programming. Cable users get the shaft.

It's just a matter of time before I set up my big dish and pull the plug on Cox. They don't need my paltry $100 a month, and they have not earned my good will with their continued lies, bad service and poor quality signal. I have 3 new TVs. I get really tired of being told I can pay a $40 service call for them to fix my tv when the problem is their transmission lines.

We The People -- that's you and me -- are getting flummoxed once again by corporate greed and Congressional members who do not have one lick of common sense.

Get used to it.

If your not comfortable with what it costs, look for alternatives (over the air/satelite/radio/broadband) and pull the plug. If this happens often enough, even the corporate top dogs at COX will get the message. COX has been around a long time and have multiple media interests beyond just cable. They want your business.

I am reminded of a small four room home in the midwest I visited years ago (1980s) on business. The lady of the house was working in her kitchen and watching cable on a tv atop her refrigerator. I could see and hear tv's on other channels in the other rooms. I asked and she informed me that her four hookups with optional tiers cost her $80 a month. I was amazed then and continue today that there are many folks out there that pay monthly cable subscription rates they really can't afford.

Not sure what everyone else sees, but the Charter picture quality I see, whether Analog or Digital beats satellite anyday, especially on local channels. My buddy has DISH. I can't hardly stand to watch Sunday Football at his house. Local feeds are full of digital artifacts. ESPN for hockey - terrible. His movie channels look pretty good. My Charter picture - local channels - clear, no artifacts. Digital Channels - clearer. Fox 480P football - kick arse! For everyone to say satellite looks better than cable or vice versa just is not true. I'm quite confident many people have snowy cable pictures. I'm also quite confident that people with satellite put up with digital artifacts, but can't see them unless they have projection televisions. But with the quality of my cable pic, it would be hard for me to switch to satellite on my 53" projection TV. I see so much cable bashing, I had to say something good. Read past the ads. If you get all the channels with satellite, it pushes $100 just like cable. Look at what you get for their special offers. Not much other than junk. I pay what amounts to $1/mo extra to have an HD box for cable. Satellite can't touch it. And if the box goes out, it's replaced free, unlike the satellite boxes you get for "free."

A good analog signal will beat digital...the problem is being in a franchise where you can get good analog. I happen to be in a good one here in my Comcast franchise, but my friend who has Cox has a horrible picture on analog...and they've been out a zillion times to try and fix it and just can't. She would go to satellite but like me subscribes to HDTV locals which you can get on satellite.

But I compare my analog feeds to my neighbors DN and DTV feeds and you can see artifacts from the compression on DBS. I dropped Dish Network over the bad compression when they added all the locals...they were unwatchable. Being digital doesn't mean anything when they compress the snot out of the feed.