I wish you could pick which channels to NOT get w/cable.

[flvegan]

I have, what, four friggin "shopping for crap" channels now? Two military channels? More damn "religion" channels than I can shake a stick at. I'm going to wear out my channel clicking finger!

[fNord]

1. I'm with you.....

I could loose all the MTV-VH1-no-music music channels. and by the way, I did!!!!
You can program your tv to not show you the shit you don't wana see.

[trof]

2. Dish Network has a nice feature.

You can make up a list of the channels you want to watch.
When you pull up the channel list menu those are the only ones you see and can select from.
But you can go back to the full channel menu any time.
Cool.

[DarkTirade]

3. Actually I think you can.

I seem to recall (although I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that this was just an urban legend or something) being told that you can call the cable company and tell them you don't want those channels, and they're required to make sure you don't get them somehow. Old laws from when Skinemax and Playboy channels first came about. They made it so that anyone can make sure certain channels don't go into their house. :)

[curse of greyface]

5. Yeah but you still have to pay for them.

I think the OP was talking about ala carte pricing.

[DarkTirade]

11. Ah, yeah. That sucks a whole lot.

Which is why I'm happy just having internet and no cable TV. :)

[curse of greyface]

6. Yeah but you still have to pay for them.

I think the OP was talking about ala carte pricing.

[kentauros]

7. I believe AT&T will offer that feature

when they begin competing with the cable/satellite companies for TV. I don't know that for sure, though, only something I heard from a friend gushing about it ;)

[RoyGBiv]

31. Partial urban legend ...

The rule involves channels that don't adhere to the FCC over-the-air rules, e.g. those that show rated R movies uncensored essentially.

If those are rebroadcast in the clear, the cable company has to offer a way for them to be blocked.

But, most channels don't fall in this category.

[DarkTirade]

34. Ah. Thanks for the clarification.

:)

[curse of greyface]

4. MTV and Foxc news would go out of business. (And I think ESPN would also have issues.) nt

[fNord]

10. Hail Eris,

:hi:Welcome to DU

[curse of greyface]

15. Thank you I am simply hear posting my Fnords. nt

[yy4me]

8. Gee, I thought you were from Massachusetts. Our basic cable

gives us so much garbage (Comcast). I've posted about it before. about 22 channels, 4 spanish, 3 evangelicals at least 3 shopping 3 PBS but 2 of them are the same. abc, nbc, cbs, the town channel and NECN.
I have to get my dose of Cable news from this new site one someone on DU told me about.

www.blinkotv.com

It seems to give a more consistent feed than www.channelsurfing.net.

I swear it is a conspiracy to make all of us spend big bucks for the extended cable service. If you don't know of another way to see what you want, you are suckered into big dollars.

When I placed a complaint to our town liaison for C/cast about our options, I was told the lineup is chosen based on demographics. Baloney. It is based on money.

Calling their Customer Service is a waste of time and effort.

[Left Is Write]

9. You only have four shopping channels? I swear it seems like we have at least eight.

[lunatica]

12. I'd get rid of the religious channels first, then the channels that exist solely to

run loud commercials that hike up the decibels to earsplitting tones when they come on. Shopping channels too and since I'm not into sports I could drop 100s of channels dedicated to sports.

[Critters2]

13. My remote has a "delete channel" function, which causes it to scan right past 'em

like they're not even there. Click on "menu", and look for "add/delete".

[SOteric]

18. Mine too.

And when I set up the channel selections in the first place (or after a power outage), I have the option of skipping over channels I'm not interested in viewing.

[SoxFan]

14. "Chick Channels"

Hallmark, Oxygen, Lifetime...yaaaawn.

Give me 216 versions of ESPN, including the one that covers Aussie footie in the Aboriginal language and that Afghan sport that involves a dead goat, and I'll be just fine.

[intheflow]

16. And ALL the religion channels is conservative Christianity.

Conservative evangelicals, conservative Fundamentalists, and conservative Catholics. Where's the liberal Christian Channel? Where's the Muslim channel, the Taoist channel, or the Buddhist Channel?

And yes, the shopping channels all have to go, and also Fox News.

[RadiationTherapy]

17. Ha! It was decided long ago not to do that.

The cable company and all of those goddamned channels make much more money if there is no 'a la carte' option.

Learned it in a COLLEGE CLASS so it is TRUE!

[nadine_mn]

19. There is some hunting channel I could do with out (ok sportsmen)

but its so close to MSNBC I always end clicking past some poor elk in the woods

[rug]

20. The Golf Channel will be the first to go.

[Awsi Dooger]

21. I knew someone would say that

If not for The Golf Channel, I wouldn't need cable

[GOPisEvil]

22. Oh well, I'm sure something you like sucks to me, so it's all good.

[u4ic]

23. I disconnected my cable a few months back

Anything I need to watch I can do it on the net, for the most part. I don't miss it at all. If I want to watch something, I just get it from the library.

Btw, our 'religious channel' is one that I would keep. Apart from showing great documentaries, like The Corporation, The End of Suburbia and the like, it also has Britcoms and some good movies.

[LeftyMom]

24. I'd narrow it down to maybe a dozen channels.

Discovery, Animal Planet, The Science Channel, History, History International, NatGeo, MSNBC, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, CNN and with all the money I saved I'd pick up a movie channel or two.

[flvegan]

25. No BBCAmerica?

Hater.

[LeftyMom]

26. I do like Cash in the Attic and BargainHunt.

:thumbsup:

BTW, just text messaged you a pic of my awesome new shirt.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

35. Not since they went all "reality and sci fi all the time" and dropped

their realistic dramas.

[Sebastian Doyle]

27. I'm paying over $100 a month to Comcast for TV and internet.

The internet went down at least 4 times on election night, and three times since then. And even though I supposedly have approximately 100 or so channels of shit on the TV to choose from (to paraphrase Roger Waters) I might watch maybe 25 of them at all. When you eliminate the shopping channels, the religious channels, FAUX Noize, the various other language channels, etc. That's a lot I'm being charged for that I'll never use.

Hope that some of the media reform over the next 8 years includes cracking down on these regional monopoly greedy cablenazis.

[Kutjara]

28. Unfortunately, it seems to take 100 channels of...

..."Full-Contact Celebrity Model Mobile Home Lavatory Builder"-type programming to pay for every nanosecond of something worth watching.

The sad truth is, if people could actually choose what they wanted to watch, CMMHLB would be number one and there'd be nothing on that required a vocabulary of more than single-syllable words to understand.

[RoyGBiv]

32. This is basically correct ...

A la carte pricing will devolve eventually into the lowest common denominator, and that's what you'll choose from. Specialty channels will either be out the door or will cost on the order of what a a premium service channel costs now.

[SeattleGirl]

29. Couldn't agree with you more.

I have a billion channels, and think I only watch about 15 of them at the most.

x(

[RoyGBiv]

30. If your bill were still the same ...

Would you want that option if your bill were the same ... or higher? I ask because there seem to be two camps of people who want this: 1) those who think it will reduce the cost of their bill, i.e. they assume they are paying for all those channels they don't want and that if they don't have them, they won't be, and 2) those who truly do just want certain channels not to show.

Many of those religion channels, FWIW, probably fall under must-carry rules as they tend to be regional over-the-air channels or rebroadcasts of such. Some are even public access, which cable companies are also required to carry.

If you want this kind of thing, btw, you should petition your local city government. Franchise agreements are negotiated at the city level.

FYI, a suburb of OKC successfully negotiated a franchise agreement with its cable provider that included a la carte pricing. The average cable bill of residents there that utilized this option ended up being higher than those that took the channel packaging option.

There are reasons for this, and I've explained them in detail before, but no one listens, so I'm not going to bother with it again.

[krispos42]

33. I hear ya

I wish you could pay for the number of channels you want at any one time, and you could change it from month-to-month online.

Most people could probably get by with less than 20.

I would probably pick ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC, TNT, Discovery, Spike, FX, CNNi, Cartoon Network, and HBO.


12.

And probably a couple more that I'm drawing a blank on now.

Oh, History Channel.

13.

and PBS.

14.


Yeah, that would work.