On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:32:19 -0500, Dave Smith >
wrote:

>sf wrote:
>
>> Me too, and I wouldn't care one whit if they took all of those dumb
>> sports and shopping channels off. What I don't understand is why they
>> don't just say "pick xx channels from this list" as your premium
>> package in this day and age of digital. Extra channels can be an
>> extra monthly charge or viewed on demand. How hard is that? On
>> demand is perfect when you only watch one show per channel or only
>> follow one sports team.
>
>My satellite company is always jerking around with bundles. I am
>considering dropping all the bundles and paying only for the channels
>that I actually watch. In order to get BBC news and the History
>channels I have to get the package that includes Fox News and a bunch of
>other stations that I never watch. I like the Comedy channel and get
>east and west, but it comes with a bunch of childrens cartoon channels.
> Food Network comes bundled with a bunch of shows geared toward the
>female demographic. Most of the bundles only have one or two channels
>that I ever watch.
>
>
>There is a broadcasting network that is trying to get the government to
>force the satellite and cable companies to pay them for their signal.
>IMO, that is just plain nuts. We have to subscribe to the basic networks
>before we can get any other programing. Considering that the real
>product in network TV is not the programming but the audience that they
>attract in order to justify their advertising fees, the networks should
>be paying the satellite and cable companies to carry their signal.

That's crazyness, the local networks have had their signal highjacked for so
many years without compensation. Meanwhile the fat cat cable and sattelite
companies are getting rich off the programming. We've already had one TV
station (CKX-TV) closed down because of this, leaving over 60,000 viewers
without local news, meaning the only local news available to them is from a
network station over 1400 miles away.