General Category > Economy/Business

‘What the hell?’: TV screens go dark as Spectrum cuts channels, raises prices

(1/3) > >>

Machiavelli:
John Cheves
Lexington Herald-Leader (Kentucky)
April 28, 2017


--- Quote ---The television screen went dark a month ago as Daniel Fitzgerald watched “American Pickers” on the History Channel.

Perplexed, he grabbed the remote and surfed through CNN, Disney, Comedy Central and the rest of the standard cable lineup. Many of them were gone, too. In their place was a black background with a small block of text advising him that his subscription no longer provided those channels.

“I thought, ‘What the hell? I just paid the cable bill,’” Fitzgerald recalled last week in the tiny Lexington [Kentucky] apartment he shares with his disabled 16-year-old son.

Fitzgerald called Spectrum, the subsidiary created last year when Charter Communications of Stamford, Ct., acquired Time Warner Cable, which was then Lexington’s cable provider. A Spectrum representative told Fitzgerald that he hadn’t been paying Time Warner enough for the standard cable package. If he wanted those channels back, his monthly bill for cable and Internet would jump from $103 to $139, effective immediately.
--- End quote ---
More

truth_seeker:
When Frontier took over Verizon Fios in my area, they upped the prices. When I contacted them, some rude lady gave me a bullsh!t reason, and essentially insulted my intelligence.

Within a year I cancelled 4 set top boxes, and over $100 per month in cable TV fees.

We were "lucky" because we had two competing cable service options; namely Time Warner, and Verizon Fios.

Now the two surviving firms are Spectrum, and Frontier. Both bleeding customers.

Maybe TW and Verizon saw the writing on the cable TV business wall, and got out while the getting was good so to speak.

geronl:
Sooner or later those companies will be ISP's as people get their viewing content from the web.

truth_seeker:

--- Quote from: geronl on April 30, 2017, 10:50:03 pm ---Sooner or later those companies will be ISP's as people get their viewing content from the web.

--- End quote ---

I expect they will start jacking up the Internet fees. But there are two major options. So unless they collude, we may stay level for awhile.

The big cable firms are developing streaming bundles right now, since they see the writing on the wall.

They lost $100 per month from me. They might get part back with the right "menu" option.

We have SlingTV for the time being, but are deciding if we need it at all.  That is another $25 mo. saved, if we delete it as well.

roamer_1:
@the_doc @roamer_1
Good. CableTV is eating itself. Good riddance.
Let's see how their liberal programming survives in an ala carte environment.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page