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Wouldn't surprise me one bit. One of our local channels was threatening to pull their signal from Charter last year but a last minute deal was reached.

Let's see we have Directv refusing to make a deal on Versus, now Comcast also owns NBC (If the sale has been approved)...

Just the beginning of the end... fortunately most of us will just get our shows off the internet and find a way to hook the internet up to our TV's.....

And there was another article about people switching to radio antennas with digital converters to save money on cable/satellite costs... why am I NOT suprised by this article?

99% of it is worthless anyway.

Of course, the same can be said about cable.

hi got cable but i renenber the old day 3 channels a lot of snow

We use an antenna at our cabin. For as often as we are there it doesn't make sense to pay for a dish or cable.

without trying to sound mean or starting an argument

if you haven't seen this on it's way for the last ten years.. you haven't
been keeping up..
production costs?? up.. up.. up.. check up on what the casts of the top shows make..
sports programing?? really do we even need to speak on this??
the change to digital wasn't free...
the last I saw the bidding for the Travel channel (IMHO a very minor channel)
was over a Billion (no I haven't checked on the final cost but you get the Idea)
the switch to HD.. again IMHO will not need to be mandated.. the TV manufactures
will see to that.
also that switch will cost $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
guess what? the Ads are not paying the bill
in the old days the networks paid to be aired on Cable...
NOW Dish, Directv and the Cable companys pay to air the networks..

and the Again with MHO no one is putting on the brakes..
so the end of "free TV" is near.. but it should not come as a surprise
because the writing has been on the wall

IMO maybe that's not such a bad thing, then you'll see more people reading and generally enjoying life again....TV is (and always has been ) a vast wasteland...

There are other electronic devices that will keep people emotionally and physcially detached. Where are the children? I don't see them outside anymore. If people do go back to reading, what will they read? Mass market rehashed crap?


I agree, TV has always been a wasteland, especially to the generation that remembers their own childhood. My father thought "Lost In Space" was garbage when I watched it in the 70's. I'm sure his father thought radio was garbage. I think TV today is garbage because of the pop ups, the extra commercials, fascination with "reality" TV. I'm sure the kids today will have warm fuzzy memories of watching the Disney fast food teen stars.

As for me, I would do it again if I was a child. I would watch "The Brady Bunch" "The Patridge Family" "Gilligan's Island" "Land Of The Giants" "Adam 12", the 4:30 movie, "Wide World Of Sports", "The Bowery Boys" "The Wonderful World Of Disney, "Wild Kingdom" ..... again.

I worked at Channel 5 NY in the 80's. I miss it. If I was there today, I would have stabbed myself in the neck from frustration.

Today I use the idiot box for Classic, Independent and Foreign movies.

Now pardon me, I spent too much time on this electronic device. I have Dante to read.

Tonight at midnight we're losing our CBS affiliate (Channel 2) and the Fox Channel.
I guess we really can't place the blame with our cable company (Mediacom-although their rates ARE beyond outrageous), but rather their parent company, those C--K SUC.KERS at Time-Warner Broadcasting. What I'd give to see THOSE a-holes go bankrupt.
They tried pulling this crap on us once before and everyone agreed to their higher rates, but enough is enough.
May those bloodsuckers at Time-Warner rot in hell.

Since you can still watch TV with an antenna for free, (excluding the silly converter), there is no reason for the over the air stations to strong arm higher rates out of the cable providers. The over the air stations at one time were to serve the public. Somehow, that went away in the last 15 years. Cable companies are no saints. They have a history of pushing smaller satellite stations off the lineup.

I believe when it's time for the stations to renew their license, the public writes to the FCC and asks them not to allow these stations to broadcast over the public airwaves. Unless that was deregulted too.

not that I am supporting Time-Warner or the other cable systems in their "get tough" position. Even if they win, rates are still going to increase significantly faster than the rate of inflation.

That said, Fox appears to be leading the charge toward strong-arming the systems for increased payouts. Guess they finally realized you can't bid astronomical sums for sports to legitimize yourself and not have downsides. Regular TV is sadly, well.. bad. I can't remember the last time I watched a Big Four network show. FX, yes. USA, yes. History Channel and the like, yes. Going below channel 14, no. Reality TV was supposed to be the answer to ever-increasing costs of production (you can't throw $500k/episode + paychecks at stars of series like Frasier, Friends, and the like, and not have really high costs for production. But reality tv is still TV, still scripted, and still produced like a regular show. (and no, I don't watch that stuff, and never have.) When you have participants from season x on one show popping up as a contestant/participant on season x of another show, how is that different from regular TV other than in the size of the paycheck for hack actors?

/rant off

This is nothing new. Back in the late 80's Ted Turner did the same so all of his stations can be carried at the same time.


I think even the once niche channels, such as History, TLC, TDC, Cartoon, TV Land... are all crap too. They have moved away from their orginal start up models.
Like you typed RR it's about the cheap and profit over quality.

While PBS has it's problems, I think it's still the best bet for over the air stations.


Here is a story from NPR on this. A service, thankfully not tainted yet:


http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2 ... nts/147243

We've lived without cable or a dish for years. Never thought I'd be able to, but how many CSI reruns can a person watch? I'm perfectly happy with the likes of NBC, CBS, ABC, and of course, PBS. Most of the TV I watch is online these days, because I don't usually have time to watch when the show I want is actually on.

I was just reading that Time Warner has provided instructions for the subscribers on how to hook your computer up to your tv so you can continue to watch the Fox programming through sites like hulu.

Time warner should just negotiate the price down from a dollar a subscriber to something more resonable. They are greedy bastads and want to only pay like 25 cents per subscriber. They are not only making money through the advertising and cable subscriber fees but are making additonal money through the cable affiliate contracts with the local cable providers.

Fox has sited they need to do something with the loss of national advertising and the new costs of providing the higher quaility programming (read HD) as well as the associated costs with producing the live sports programming. I think they are both the bad guys here but I am leaning to towards Fox as the lesser of the two evils.