Dicked By Cox. Again.
April 5th, 2008
Appears Cox has removed TCM from the basic cable tier and moved it to an over-priced digital package. TCM shows some great movies, commercial free.
Thanks, scumbags.
Curiously, although they reduced the service, my bill is not going down.
Thanks Cox, for once again being a real douche bag company.
A few years ago they used to carry Maricopa Community College TV; I got to watch German television rebroadcast in the wee hours on MCC. Cox then moved that to the digital cash-cow; when they republished their channel listings, they had 99 (the former home of MCC-TV) described as “educational programming.” And what were they showing? Round-the-clock infomercials.
They must be real proud of their commitment to education and quality service.
6 Responses to “Dicked By Cox. Again.”
Sorry, comments are closed for this article.
April 5th, 2008 at 09:17 PM
concur on the douchebag assessment. our cable bill is like $135. i was looking at the charges the other night and we’re getting billed for some “speed boost” internet option that i don’t even remember buying. funny thing is i was getting the bill to find the phone number so i could inquire why the internet connection has been so slow lately- i’ve been getting like 20k/sec the last couple nights. They suck indeed. The best is there’s no option to bypass the “is it plugged in?” level 1 tech support when you have a problem.
sean
April 7th, 2008 at 05:50 AM
CSPAN-2 is also gone. This means the US Senate during the week and in-depth author interviews on the weekend.
April 7th, 2008 at 06:24 AM
Just one more thing – if you paid for Now Playing, TCM’s monthly magazine of schedules and articles, you’re out of luck.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:16 PM
“CSPAN-2 is also gone. This means the US Senate during the week and in-depth author interviews on the weekend.”
But still plenty of infomercial channels.
What are good alternatives to Cocks?
April 13th, 2008 at 10:59 AM
Does Cox Dick its Customers or is it the simply the condom that shields them from the ugly truth?
I contend that Cox truly is the condom, protecting the real dicks from the dirty deeds that they do. I’m not saying that you should feel pity for the poor capitalist company trying to make a buck; I am saying there are many players and pressures involved that cause decisions like moving a channel from basic to digital and dropping CSPAN-2 than you know about; but probably should. There are several points you should know about with respect to how these decisions get made:
1. Law says that a cable operator must carry local content; so if you wish to start a television station and broadcast locally; however weak the signal; you can use the law and force Cox to carry your content. 2. Law says that the cable operation must leave aside 1/3 of its available spectrum for “must carry” programming. 3. Law states that cable operators must carry duplicates of programming across both analog and digital frequency bands. This further limits the bandwidth available for other programming. 4. Content Provider Conglomerates like; Vivendi NBC, Viacom, and others charge cable operators significant fees to carry their content; their contracts often carry their own version of “must carry” clauses. 5. Cable operators retransmit the same programming across analog, digital, and sometimes HD frequencies. 6. The bandwidth available to carry programming is finite.
These are just a few of the issues a cable company faces when they manage the programming they make available to subscribers. Cable systems are forced to make hard decisions on whether to carry content (they originally thought subscribers would like to see) or obey the law.
On January 18, 2001, the FCC set rules that govern the cable carriage of digital broadcast signals. It said that: -A digital-only television station, commercial or non-commercial, can immediately assert its right to carriage on a cable system. -A TV station that returns its analog spectrum and converts to digital operations must be carried by cable systems.
These decisions are said to be but a few of a series of steps the FCC says will assist in the transition from analog to digital television broadcasting. They say that this will ultimately expand consumer choice of video programming. Their logic continues by claiming that the switch from analog to digital will allow for more efficient use of the spectrum available and it will allow new communications and video services in parts of the spectrum returned to the FCC for auction to new competitive providers. (Someone wants to make a buck).
A cable system; even a fiber one; will have to manage Channel Capacity, it’s not infinite. The FCC rulings in effect took 1/3 of the channel capacity away from the cable systems, making the decisions of what’s carried on that available capacity a process that may have nothing to do with consumer demand or choice. Content providers like Vivendi and Viacom attach must carry clauses to their contracts. For example if Cox wants to carry Nickelodeon, they also have to carry Logo. The content provider bundles the programming causing the cable operator into an all or nothing decision. It puts the cable operator in the position of having to carry content that the subscribers may not want in order to give them content they do want (This is why you see so many infomercial stations). The content providers also require changes to how their content is carried when they renegotiate their contracts; this is why TCM was moved to a digital tier; Turner wants to get paid more for it.
The hard fact is that the digital transition is happening, like it or not. It’s causing content to be moved off of analog transmission (basic cable) and on to digital tiers (thus requiring you to have a digital converter to see content). Analog broadcasts take up more spectrum space than do digital broadcasts, however cable systems have been put into the positions of helping manage the transition from analog to digital; they carry the same channel on multiple (duplicating the transmission across both analog and digital and sometime also HD) broadcast formats. When the transition occurs the only place you will be able to continue to use your analog television is on a cable system.
If you decide to make a change and go to a satellite provider, be sure to compare apples to apples. Not Cox analog service to satellite digital service.
BTW there is more educational programming on digital than on analog, and even more on the On Demand service (cables youtube).
April 15th, 2008 at 11:44 PM
So, to sum this topic up, corporation that exists by virtue of government-granted monopoly has a hard time living with requirements for being a government-granted monopoly, but, on the bright side, it can reduce agreed-to services while not reducing the agreed-to price, since being government-granted monopoly means no viable competition.
But things will get better thanks to government intervention.
Vote Libertarian.
Legalize Freedom