It's like TimeWarner is begging me to leave them.

W_HAMILTON · Post #1 » by **W_HAMILTON** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:03 am

Not only have they screwed up televising the Bobcats games, I wake up this morning and find out that they will no longer offer about 18 Viacom channels because of a dispute with that company.

So, no more Comedy Central, VH1, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike, etc.

It's apparently because TimeWarner doesn't want to pay the extra $3.00 per year, per customer, to broadcast all of those frequently-watched stations.

It looks like those channels are showing a banner along the bottom of the screen every few minutes reporting this, and asking TimeWarner customers to call 1-800-762-3786 to demand they keep those stations on the air.

They'll be hearing from me, about this and about their screwup showing the Bobcats games. It's pathetic they get their name branded on an arena, probably for just about nothing, then end up being responsible for many stations not broadcasting the games of their local, professional sports team. They blamed this on some stations not wanting to pay for the fees, but after this current fiasco, it's probably just another case of TimeWarner pushing the costs onto someone else because it doesn't want to pay them itself.

I don't especially want to switch to satellite, but I've already started looking at other cable providers in my area. I would imagine this will get solved one way or another, but you can be damn sure they'll hear from me about this penny-pinching crap they keep doing which screws over their customers.

Devilzsidewalk · Post #2 » by **Devilzsidewalk** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 1:03 pm

I'd refuse to pay for cable that didn't offer Comedy Central and Spike TV

Post #3 » by **Walt Cronkite** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 4:21 pm

Is Spike TV the one with Ninja Warrior?

Devilz--is that Apocalypse from XML2?

Post #4 » by **fatlever** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 10:18 pm

no mtv, my wife may lose her mind. no comedy central is a crime against nature.

i am getting closer and closer each day to making the switch to satellite.

StutterStep · Post #5 » by **StutterStep** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:22 pm

No NOGGIN for my son -- I've already looked into Verizon FIOS.

W_HAMILTON · Post #6 » by **W_HAMILTON** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:23 pm

I tried to call the number I listed, but it was busy. I called my local number, and they actually had redone the automated system; "if you are calling about MTV Networks, press 1...for all other calls, press 2." So, I pressed 2, looking to raise hell. But the guy that picked up was real nice, and I'm not the type to curse someone out (you'd never know that from my eThug persona), but I let him know that because of the Bobcats situation, and now this, I was seriously thinking about leaving them.

I don't want to get into that satellite business, but I will probably switch cable providers if they don't get this fixed ASAP.

I'm tired of Time Warner's crap.

I'm surprised more people weren't upset about this. Maybe everyone is smart and abandoned Time Warner already, or they don't spend 75% of their TV time watching the trashy VH1 shows like me.

W_HAMILTON · Post #7 » by **W_HAMILTON** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:25 pm

StutterStep wrote:No NOGGIN for my son -- I've already looked into Verizon FIOS.

Me too. I've never heard about that before today, but unfortunately it's not offered in my area. I wouldn't mind doing a full switch over to Verizon, if they offered it here. I had phone service through them in the past, and they seemed pretty good.

Post #8 » by **Flash3** » Thu Jan 1, 2009 3:16 am

so what's the entire channel lineup they are going to get rid of?

W_HAMILTON · Post #9 » by **W_HAMILTON** » Thu Jan 1, 2009 3:43 am

Flash3 wrote:so what's the entire channel lineup they are going to get rid of?

(1) Hisssssssssssssssss

(2) All the Viacom channels. The main ones are Comedy Central, VH1, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike, BET, and TV Land. All the off-shoots of those channels should be gone as well (the extra MTVs, VH1 Classic, etc).

Post #10 » by **Flash3** » Thu Jan 1, 2009 4:05 am

Seriously, WHAT THE HECK!

SteveMorrison15 · Post #11 » by **SteveMorrison15** » Thu Jan 1, 2009 9:11 am

Doesn't Michael Jordon work for Bright House?

W_HAMILTON · Post #12 » by **W_HAMILTON** » Thu Jan 1, 2009 10:03 am

Well, I guess they worked out a deal or something:

http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/960631.html

Oh, just give me a reason to drop you, Time Warner!” is right.

Post #13 » by **floppymoose** » Thu Jan 1, 2009 9:47 pm

Comcast here in CA sucks about as hard. My latest cable bill has $700 in bogus charges stemming from double and tripple billing of NBA league pass and the NHL equivalent. The NHL one I never even ordered.

Devilzsidewalk · Post #14 » by **Devilzsidewalk** » Fri Jan 2, 2009 1:15 pm

Walt Cronkite wrote:
Devilz--is that Apocalypse from XML2?

yea, I thought he looked sufficiently badass to make me an avatar out of

Post #15 » by **Walt Cronkite** » Fri Jan 2, 2009 4:28 pm

Great game

dmutombo321 · Post #16 » by **dmutombo321** » Fri Jan 2, 2009 5:11 pm

Now that this situation is "settled" you can bet the farm on an imminent fee hike of some sort in which the expense is surriptitiously passed down to subscribers.

Rich4114 · Post #17 » by **Rich4114** » Fri Jan 2, 2009 6:41 pm

Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't you get satilitte? I've got DirecTV and it's great - no problem with league pass, has plenty of HD channels, plenty of extra channels, and the DVR works good too. Plus if you don't like how the local stuff is setup, you can game the system.

For example, if I had cable I would be in both the NY and Phily markets. But for DirecTV I'm just in the Phily market which means Eagles games instead of Giants games for me. So, I changed my billing to paperless and updated my address to my parents address in NJ which makes DirecTV think I'm in the NY market. Now I get NY local channels (Giants) and I don't even have to get the NFL ticket.

So in theory, if you had some sort of problem getting Bobcats games living in NC, you could get the league pass and use an address somewhere else in the country, then you would get everything.

dmutombo321 · Post #18 » by **dmutombo321** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 10:56 pm

dmutombo321 wrote:Now that this situation is "settled" you can bet the farm on an imminent fee hike of some sort in which the expense is surriptitiously passed down to subscribers.

lo and behold:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/597/story/468043.html

"Time Warner Cable is raising its rates again for many Charlotte area customers, the company said today.

The changes will start in February, with rates rising from 4 to 9 percent."

W_HAMILTON · Post #19 » by **W_HAMILTON** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 11:56 pm

Time Warner is probably happy over what happened with Viacom. Now, they can (and apparently already have) used the Viacom situation to justify the rate hike, even though Viacom was only asking $0.23 more per subscriber, per month. From the fees listed on that site, Time Warner is going to charge at least $0.99 more per subscriber. It's an old tactic, to blame a rate increase on the increase of something else, then make your rate increase even larger so you are adding to your profits instead of simply covering the increased costs.

I really hate that company.