What the frack?

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury) 10/29/2017 at 18:45 • Filed to: None

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I got the TiVo up and running again today (issues with it seeing the external hard drive so I just left the damn thing unplugged since the 3rd of September and just used the Apple TV...) When poking around I found an HBO app, so I activated it and started watching. I could activate it because my cable company was listed on HBO’s activation site. But when I tried the same thing again, selecting Apple TV instead of TiVo, whad’ya know - no listing for my cable company. Fine, Charter, you’re in bed with Roku - whatever. But I’m paying for your service so let me use whatever damn device HBO says is OK, OK?

So, is the industry ready for another consolidation? How long until we get down to just one or two companies which refuse to compete with one another. Hint - it won’t be long...

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 10/29/2017 at 18:53

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They already tried to. The SEC blocked it because of monopoly reasons. To which they replied, “Our service areas don’t overlap.”, Meaning they already had geographic monopolies and never had intentions of competition.

Steve in Manhattan > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 10/29/2017 at 20:27

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Even worse - you can have any cable provider you want in our building ... as long as it’s Spectrum (nee Time Warner). I finally got tired of $180/month cable bills, cut the cord, and went a la carte. We now have Spectrum internet only (65 bucks a month). Miss the Jets games, but they’re rebuilding anyway (or should be).

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 10/29/2017 at 21:00

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I found it funny today how I tried to stream my local NBC channel online. Now keep in mind - no adblocker of any kind was on. And if I bother to get the digital antenna or whatever, I’d get the channel anyways. I even was ready to type in my internet subscription to get it. But nooooooooope! I need a cable TV package to get an over the airwaves channel....

Listen, I get the argument not to pirate things you can’t afford. I usually try to watch races at a sports bar when they get replayed on NBC sports later. But this time? Fuck that. Pirated a stream for a free channel because apparently I can’t even stream something sent over the airwaves for free anymore.

The cable racket will fall soon enough. If they aren’t blaming millenials for it already, they will soon. But whatever, they deserve whatever losses they face.

ranwhenparked > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 10/29/2017 at 23:59

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Personally, I’m sick and tired of paying for 100+ channels when I only really watch maybe 10-12 of them, three of which are free broadcast networks. The fact that you can’t opt out of paying for channels you don’t want is such a racket. Dumping ESPN alone would save over $100 a year.

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > ranwhenparked 10/30/2017 at 08:39

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The thing is though that if you could go ala carte, it likely wouldn’t save you all that much money, if any at all. The reason why individual channels are cheap is that everybody is paying for them. If you switch to an ala carte system, then the prices of individual channels have to go up because their overall subscriber base will go down, and revenue needs to remain largely the same.

ranwhenparked > e36Jeff now drives a ZHP 10/30/2017 at 10:13

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Assuming that the pressure to keep subscribers won’t force down rates, once networks realize they have to fight to keep every viewer.

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > ranwhenparked 10/30/2017 at 10:22

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If it forces rates down, then commercials will go up or production values go down. The revenue stream has to come from somewhere.

It would also likely kill off the niche channels that just don’t have the wider appeal to be profitable and narrow the content the remaining channels do carry to appeal to the largest number of people possible. So 24/7 reality shows.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 10/30/2017 at 11:19

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I hear you. I went to watch an OTA program on CBS the other day and discovered even though the local CBS affiliate is included in my limited streaming package I would have to subscribe and pay to watch on -demand. Sorry, but no. I will find other ways, thank you very much...