Ch 4 may get dropped from Time Warner?

[stuckincincy]

I'm at the Time Warner location in Orchard Park right now to get a free antenna. There are at least 200 people already in line and the people in front say they've been waiting here for 5 hours already.

I have been here for about 5 minutes and there are already another 100 people behind me.

I would just go buy one but every store I'm calling says they're sold out.

This is really starting to piss me off. My building will not let put up a sat dish, TW and Lin can't get their s#it togther, and going to a bar involves getting paying more for food, drink and a cab.

I can't help but feel as though I am somehow getting screwed here.

BTW I would now estimate at least 200 people behind me now.

 

Like the Boy Scout motto: "Be Prepared". If beforehand, your cable, or dish failed yet power to your tv remained, would it not have been prudent to have an antenna already?

 

BTW, if you have one of the ubiquitious 50-cent coax-to-pigtail adapters (I probably have accumulated 5 of them), a wire coat hanger, and some tape, you can cobble up an antenna.

 

All simple things to do. You don't even need an adapter, just one of those pieces of coax we all have hanging around. Screw or shove in one end, take a knife, cut and peel the other end of the cable, and tape up the ends of your coat hanger to the coax conducting wrap and core.

 

Gawd - what a bunch of whining folks so many have become...any bump in the road, it's "somebody is screwing me and somebody else has to pay".

 

Even over something as cheesy and minor as an NFL football game...

[Pyrite Gal]

They both suck.

Bingo. A winner.

 

I agree in great part with the posts which decide that Ch. 4 is wrong about this.

 

However, I also agree in great part with posts which decide TW is wrong about this.

 

The simple minded thing which I see on TSW are from folks who seem to conclude that because one side is definitely wrong the other side is definitely right.

 

The real answer is that both LIN and TW suck and our elected officials should be doing all they can to support alternatives to TW and force companies like LIN who have been given the right to the free use of our airwaves to provide some degree of basic service for free (I think the Bills are actually basic enough to this area that it should be provided for free by any company that CHOOSES to make scads of money from providing the other shows that come along with providing the Bills for free.

 

If LIN does not want to provide basic societal services for free then they are also choosing not to make the massive profits from providing other NBC fare. If TW decides not to provide basic societal services then Buffalo and other municipalities should make exclusive deals with providers who do choose to serve the public interest and should actively support residents availing themselves of other services be it dishes or whatever.

[cåblelady]

Any difference in length of contract? Just asking, because it was suggested that two years were added to a contract, earlier in the thread.

There is no contract.

[stuckincincy]

Bingo. A winner.

 

 

The real answer is that both LIN and TW suck and our elected officials should be doing all they can to support alternatives to TW and force companies like LIN who have been given the right to the free use of our airwaves to provide some degree of basic service for free (I think the Bills are actually basic enough to this area that it should be provided for free by any company that CHOOSES to make scads of money from providing the other shows that come along with providing the Bills for free.

 

Yeah. More social engineering to garner votes. Good plan. Every American deserves to be housed in a walled community.

[Vic24]

Coming from a former TW customer in Rochester who just moved to the area, this latest fiasco made the decision to go to DirecTV much easier.

 

I was a loyal customer for many years and had nothing but terrible customer service. The most recent example was the rudeness on the phone when I recently cancelled my service in Rochester because I was moving into temporary housing that had free cable so there was no need to transfer the service. At that time, I planned on renewing the all-in-one package once I moved into my new house.

 

In Rochester, there was a dispute with the local FOX station a couple years back in that TW would not carry the FOXHD broadcast for quite sometime. No need to rehash the NFL network debacle. It was nice last year when TW finally added MSGHD in time for the last couple Sabres games that were both on the road so weren't broadcast in HD anyways. The common link to all of these "negotiations" is TW. Unless I am wrong, I have not heard of any disputes on DISH/DirecTV with any broadcasting companies.

 

Also annoyed at the ridiculous promotions that they trot out continuously offering greatly discounted rates to new subscribers when as a loyal customer, I was paying much more. Also, why can't I go on TW's website and get a price for anything?

 

This is a national entity that has lost touch with it's customer base.

 

By the way, it is great to be back in Buffalo!!

[Guest dog14787]

bite me

 

 

Theres no Locals available here in Erie County on Directv, so I still love ya cablelady

 

To get them out of another city cost extra, something they fail to tell you.

[Flbillsfan#1]

Theres no Locals available here in Erie County on Directv, so I still love ya cablelady

 

To get them out of another city cost extra, something they fail to tell you.

Huh? I lived in Mill City Ore. about 5 years ago. At the time I received the locals from Salem, I can't believe Salem has locals & Buffalo NY doesn't, & this is 5 years later. I'm pretty sure you don't pay extra if you can't get locals for East coast feed, you just need a waiver from the local channel (about impossible to get, esp from Linn).

[WVUFootball29]

The game will be on the Erie CBS channel.

 

The only problem here is that the CBS feed from Erie will NOT be in HD as TW has CBS Sportsnet in place of WIVB on the HD line. I hope there is a way around this and they can switch to the Erie HD feed, but I don't know if the techs have the time or bandwidth to make the switch before tomorrow

[Guest dog14787]

Huh? I lived in Mill City Ore. about 5 years ago. At the time I received the locals from Salem, I can't believe Salem has locals & Buffalo NY doesn't, & this is 5 years later. I'm pretty sure you don't pay extra if you can't get locals for East coast feed, you just need a waiver from the local channel (about impossible to get, esp from Linn).

 

Thats not what I said, I just checked with directv and my local channels are still not available, I'm not in Buffalo ,NY, I'm in PA.

 

I'm not disputing what you say about getting a waiver, you could be right about that, it was a friend who told me it cost extra to get the local east coast Feeds.

 

When I turned Directv on a couple of years ago, I had to leave TW on also because they would black out my Bills game on Sunday ticket because WSEE was showing it.

 

Something else Directv failed to mention at the time.

[taterhill]

Nice...instead of SEC Football today I get SMU Central Florida....

[DonInBuffalo]

Well, you've actually oversimplified the entire broadcast/cable relationship by about a thousand percent, and don't know (or simply aren't acknowledging) the logic behind the laws governing cable carriage of broadcast broadcast. I don't have the time, or inclination, to do a history lesson here. Suffice it to say, both industries benefit from one another, to a degree. But, cable companies charge their customers for the delivery of programming. They give a cut to the providers of the programming they resell.

 

Now, if you categorically against the idea of cable companies paying some "royalty" to those that provide it content, then fine, I guess. I totally disagree, with you, but I understand. But, in your earlier post, you claimed that you thought Lin was the bad guy because "Now apparently they want to charge Time Warner considerably more than they had in the past." That's a totally different issue, and argument.

 

Do you know something about the rates they were getting, and the rates Lin now wants? Do you have any evidence to suggest what Lin is asking for is unusual, or unreasonable, for their business?...or were you simply blowing smoke?

 

Being pissed because they are screwing with the Bills is one thing. I understand that. And, if you want to pick a side to be pissed at, I guess nobody can stop you. But, these are two businesses in the middle of a deal. The loss of the Bills games on cable will cost BOTH sides $$ and credibility. You can rest assured that there is plenty of blame, on both sides of this deal, to go around.

I know I'm greatly oversimplifying things here, and I also recognize the overall issue is much more complex. However, often something that is purportedly very complex turns out to be relatively simple, after you strip away all the smoke and mirrors. As I see it:

 

- WIVB has a broadcasting license from the FCC. That entitles them to certain benefits. One of those benefits is legal restrictions on companies like TW to prevent them from undercutting their business by pulling in feeds of competing stations.

- However, WIVB also has a monopoly on the CBS local feed. As such, there should be restrictions in place to prevent them from exploiting that monopoly status. What LIN is essentially doing is attempting to force TW to pay for their feed, which will be passed along to their customers. Call it a "royalty", whatever, I don't care. The bottom line is what really matters. LIN charges TW, who charges me. It's an indirect charge to the customer, for a free OTA feed. LIN wants to make me pay them money for the privilege of having cable TV. I don't get any benefit from my indirect payment to them, as I can watch WIVB any time I want without cable. So why should I have to pay them?

[cåblelady]

The only problem here is that the CBS feed from Erie will NOT be in HD as TW has CBS Sportsnet in place of WIVB on the HD line. I hope there is a way around this and they can switch to the Erie HD feed, but I don't know if the techs have the time or bandwidth to make the switch before tomorrow

Now I know why we don't have the HD feed from WBNG in Binghamton. They're part of the LIN group.

[cåblelady]

for a free OTA feed.

Exactly.

[cåblelady]

Theres no Locals available here in Erie County on Directv, so I still love ya cablelady

Thanx, Sweetie.

[Beerball]

a bit of news

[JujuFish]

I know I'm greatly oversimplifying things here, and I also recognize the overall issue is much more complex. However, often something that is purportedly very complex turns out to be relatively simple, after you strip away all the smoke and mirrors. As I see it:

 

- WIVB has a broadcasting license from the FCC. That entitles them to certain benefits. One of those benefits is legal restrictions on companies like TW to prevent them from undercutting their business by pulling in feeds of competing stations.

- However, WIVB also has a monopoly on the CBS local feed. As such, there should be restrictions in place to prevent them from exploiting that monopoly status. What LIN is essentially doing is attempting to force TW to pay for their feed, which will be passed along to their customers. Call it a "royalty", whatever, I don't care. The bottom line is what really matters. LIN charges TW, who charges me. It's an indirect charge to the customer, for a free OTA feed. LIN wants to make me pay them money for the privilege of having cable TV. I don't get any benefit from my indirect payment to them, as I can watch WIVB any time I want without cable. So why should I have to pay them?

You're kidding yourself if you think it hasn't already been passed onto customers. LIN TV didn't all of a sudden start charging for their networks.

[ET1062]

The Verizon guy knocked on my door this afternoon, Fios TV is scheduled for Nov. 19th.

 

Take the NFL Network away from me Time Warner fool me once.

 

Take the Bills away from me, Bye bye!

[Big Turk]

It's easy to be critical when you don't have all the facts. I certainly don't have all of them, but have heard enough to have a different opinion than you.

 

The NFL Network insisted on Time Warner putting the channel on the "basic tier", that all customers received. Time Warner wanted to put it in a "sports tier"; some sort of add-on that customers could optionally purchase. From my perspective, Time Warner was right and the NFL Network was wrong. You can't go around bullying people into running their business they way you want them to.

 

Not trying to bully anyone---they can run their business anyway they choose, and I as the consumer, and as one of the people who they depend on to stay in business, can vote with my dollars anyway I choose to. The NFL Network was already on Adelphia's regular lineup---they chose to remove it, and actually did so illegally---a judge forced them to put it back on until they gave a 30 day notice to their subscribers about it being removed.

 

Time Warner has repeatedly and almost unfailingly gotten it wrong over the past 3 years with their quote unquote "business" decisions that have only served to alienate their customers in the process. They had better hope to god that they get an agreement in place with LIN/WIVB before the satellite installers, stores, and anyplace else that carries satellite products can replenish their stock. If not, they will be in deep trouble---from what I have heard from a guy at work who used to do installs for these companies and has friends at both places, Time Warner is losing customers hand over fist, and the dish installers are so swamped, they cannot even answer all their phones ringing into their office...even at Intertech's national office in Lockport, which has been overrun by local callers trying to order...

[The Dean]

There is no contract.

 

 

Well, then I guess that's not an issue.

[The Dean]

I know I'm greatly oversimplifying things here, and I also recognize the overall issue is much more complex. However, often something that is purportedly very complex turns out to be relatively simple, after you strip away all the smoke and mirrors. As I see it:

 

- WIVB has a broadcasting license from the FCC. That entitles them to certain benefits. One of those benefits is legal restrictions on companies like TW to prevent them from undercutting their business by pulling in feeds of competing stations.

- However, WIVB also has a monopoly on the CBS local feed. As such, there should be restrictions in place to prevent them from exploiting that monopoly status. What LIN is essentially doing is attempting to force TW to pay for their feed, which will be passed along to their customers. Call it a "royalty", whatever, I don't care. The bottom line is what really matters. LIN charges TW, who charges me. It's an indirect charge to the customer, for a free OTA feed. LIN wants to make me pay them money for the privilege of having cable TV. I don't get any benefit from my indirect payment to them, as I can watch WIVB any time I want without cable. So why should I have to pay them?

 

 

Don't pay for them, and watch them over the air. Lin doesn't want you to pay for the privlage of watching them on TW. Lin wants TW to pay them a small bit of what TW already charges you for delivering WIVB to your home. If it weren't for local TV stations, cable would have no business. They built an entire industry on the retransmission of someone else's signal. They charge you to watch WIVB, but gave none of that money to WIVB for many, many years. Now they are required to pay for the signals they carry. Fairly simple and simply fair.