Like many (OK – MOST) of my neighbors, I woke up Saturday morning without several TV channels available to me. I’m sure you’ve read about the dispute between Fox and Cablevision over what the distributor is going to pay the programming service. It’s not the first (we lost Food Network over the holidays for a bit) or the last dispute of this sort and I’m not going to take sides.
Instead, I want to raise something this dispute got me thinking about. High-def TV. Continue reading
Filed under digital media, What's Going On
Will the stupid things companies do ever cease? Maybe when the companies themselves go out of business for being complete idiots, I guess. But in the interim, they sure provide a good amount of material for this space. I only found three examples over the weekend (I know – slacker) but since they’re all pretty egregious, I thought I’d share them.
Filed under Helpful Hints
I was up way too late last night watching the great performances by Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson. Of course, as a soccer fan, I’m missing the USA/Canada Women’s match since it’s not on TV and as a Cablevision subscriber, I have no access to NBCOlympics.com video. Yes, I’m aware that it’s pretty easy to spoof the system so one can watch but that’s not this morning’s point.
NBC is charging cable operators for a supplemental package of channels for the Olympics and the online broadband site. While many operators have said OK (and I’m wondering how they’re passing along the costs to consumers), Cablevision said no thanks. I have no issue with this- it’s the same decision as they and others make with respect to new channels and broadband packages such as ESPN360 all the time.
My issue is that history shows that consumers don’t like gatekeepers and will find ways around them. AOL’s walled garden is gone. Others are as well. ISP’s have been fairly open to date (I say fairly since some of where Comcast is heading bothers me) and wireless networks are slowly opening. Again, I have no quarrel with Cablevision’s decision. But why didn’t SOMEONE ask me is I wanted to pay for it? Cable guys hate ala carte pricing, NBC wants to get paid on the whole of a footprint rather than by individual users, but in the end, in theory, my sleepy wife misses some great performances. Sure, she can watch highlights, but if NBCOlympics.com has any archived full-length stuff she’s out of luck.
By the way, why does NBC have you install Silverlight (required to watch) before they let you know if you are able to see live video? Nice benefit to our friends in Redmond but sort of sneaky.
Filed under Huh?, Thinking Aloud
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