here’s a story about dish network’s customer service: we used to have dish network, and we needed something fixed. they said over the phone the $99 charge for sending a guy out would not be charged to us. when our bill shows up…yep, sure enough a $99 charge. we said we refuse to pay it and would switch unless they took it off. they never did, and we switched to mediacom. now with a 3-time broken dvr all in two weeks, if it happens again, we’re going to switch to directv. mediacom is a joke.

now, you say that networks could charge more than espn, and maybe so, but more than hbo? (last time i checked, im paying $5 a month for the channel, and, according to the information available in this threadm what it would come out to is about $7.50/month that Sinclaire wants, per channel, per subscriber)

im sorry, but i refuse to pay $7.50 a month for a channel that has almost nothing of interest to me and that, furthermore, is freely available over the airwaves.

besides, in my personal opinion (open for debate), cable/satelite channels have more of interest to me than most of the stuff on the networks.(im sorry, but a prime time full of ‘reality’ shows that have nothing to do with the word doesnt interest me

in short, let me put it this way;

would you pay $7.50 per month for CBS?

When TV statons weren’t paying for it then it was OK for cable to also not pay for it. These days, the only people who don’t pay for the network signals are the over the air viewers and most cable companies.

Satellite manages to pay for broadcast networks and their rates are reasonable. Why can’t cable do this since it’s also technically much less expensive for cable to include the local stations on their system.

Broadcaster will not charge as much as they pay for the networks because if they do it opens up the door for the braodcast networks to become cable networks. The only reason this hasn’t happened is because cable and satellite have made no offer to those networks. If ESPN can get more that $2.00 per subscriber; what would the top four networks in the country ask for if approached directly? Cable and satellite should be happy to keep the broadcaster as the middle man to keep the costs down through local advertising dollars.

The ideal arrangement is for cable and satellite to pay the local TV stations a portion of what the TV stations pay for the networks. Local advertisers can then cover the rest of the cost. This way the cable and satellite companies can aquire these signals more cheaply than dealing with the networks directly, TV stations can improve local services, viewers get the benefits of best possible prices, improved services and OTA viewers continue to get the top rated networks for free.

Television viewers clearly demonstrate a willingness to pay for signals since 90% already do. This IS the reason that TV stations now pay for the networks and that cost will eventually have to be passed on to the consumer somehow. It always is.

To think that cable won’t eventually pay something for broadcast network signals, when every other television signal business already does, seems silly. Consider that cable is also a direct competitor to the TV station for the local advertising dollar.

by the way, this link was in a previous post and are where i got my numbers:
http://www.longren.org/2006/11/30/even-more-on-mediacom-vs-sinclair/

Mediacom was even shut down in court in their attempts to stop Sinclair from pulling the stations…that should tell you something there. I side with Sinclair on this one and I highly doubt any amount they would be asking for is too much for Mediacom. Spread across all of Mediacoms customers, that cost might add up to a few cents or a couple of dollars.

Whoever you believe, Sinclair has every right to make Mediacom pay for use of their station. It may be free over the air with an antenna, but so is radio and you can’t broadcast a radio station over another station or television without paying for the rights.

I’ll agree. I work at a retirement community and the local office got more than a few angry calls from some irritated elderly ladies and men the day Fox disappeared (as did our front desk… like we can fix it…). So Mediacom set aside 94 antennas for us when they were already running low! I was impressed, considering that they had people from all over the city swarming the office to pick up the free bunny ears.

Although I will make a side note: I ordered my antenna from the website a week and a half ago and it still hasn’t shown up… siiiigh. I called and the guy I talked to said they would reimburse me up to $15 if I bought one myself and brought the receipt into the office, but that’s more effort than I care to put into it. ;) Plus I know that will be the same day my free antenna shows up in the mail. ;)

(not trying to be a know-it-all here, just trying to help ^^; ))

incidentally, i just want to say that yes, ive never seen any cable company so willing to please as Mediacom

Football game sucked.