Senator McCain takes aim at 'unfair' cable TV bundles

I sure hope this succeeds. I pay an exorbitant amount for cable and I can't get satellite TV because I'm in an apartment and
there is no place to put a dish. Supposedly, federal law requires that you be able to get such service in spite of a landlords'
restrictions, but practically speaking, it doesn't work that way.

The service personnel are typically polite, but I think the corporate "cable company" execs are just Crooks.

McCain takes aim at 'unfair' cable TV bundles

 

On getting satellite in an apartment, it usually depends on having a clear signal from your balcony. In Houston, I see countless DIRECTV and DISH units mounted either on balcony railings or anchored in cement inside a 5 gallon paint bucket.

The roof mounting option is often banned due to fire codes. Newer buildings have fireproof walls in the attic to prevent an entire building from burning to the ground. Unless any holes drilled are sealed with an approved fireproof caulk (unlikely, given most installers do the job as cheaply as possible), it opens a Pandora's Box in the event of a fire inspection or (worse yet) a real fire.

As for McCain's Bill, I'm all for it. As the article stated, ESPN adds over $5/month to my bill. I mainly watch "geek" channels (Discovery, Nat Geo, etc.). If I can drop ESPN, Disney, MTV, The Oprah Channel and FAUX (oops...I mean FOX) news, it should easily cut $30 or more per month from my $90 DIRECTV bill.

I'd also drop the local channels. The major network affiliates in Houston charge up to $2/month each per subscriber to DIRECTV - multiply this by the number of both English and Spanish affiliates and this likely approaches $10/month. Using a $50 antenna in my attic, local stations are free.

 

I totally agree as well, the same thing happens in the UK.

You have to purchase a channels package just to get one channel you like in which you may only watch one show a day, plus the your paying for the service but still have to watch ads every 15 minutes.

One advantage these days is that ads have become far less effect due to Tivo type systems where they can be skipped, rarely now do I watch ads just skip past them.

Each channel should be able to run without being subsidised by others, if it can't it should be dropped. Notice there are only a couple of channels out of the 500 that even make TV shows the rest just repeat old stuff.

All the companies do it though but I'm not quite sure why, obviously to make more money but how? By appearing to be more than it is:confused Anyone?

 

Here in Belgium we are on cable for TV/internet/telephone and the package costs $120 per month which i find high for the fact that the TV which has 150 channels plays nothing but repeats:cookery and reality programs,it has got so bad now that when a series comes to an end they just start it again at the first episode.

 

Here in Canada is a Sun News (read Faux) cable channel asking the CRTC to be included in the basic TV package. They're loosing big $$$ every year due to lack of viewers. So now they want to be included so that we the (non) viewers will subsidize them. If they can't make it on their own let them go under. Why should we allow them to exist if they can't make it on their own?

Since we live in a condo, the Cable TV is included in the maintenance fees. I've got no clue what the cost is for that but have a link. https://www.rogers.com/web/link/ptvBrowsePackagesFlowBegin?forwardTo=landing We have an upgraded package for all owners here.

Internet and landline telephone comes to $105.00 per month. As you can see, it's highway robbery here.

 

I personally just wait for whatever I want to watch come out on DVD or on the website of the channel in question. I am lucky that here in the UK the major "terrestrial" providers (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 etc) all have websites where they put their major shows to be watched for a short time after airing (normally a week but some popular/old series are kept up forever). This allows me not only to see what I want on the internet, meaning I don't pay for a TV subscription, but I can also watch them when I want, generally without adverts.

The BBC is also now looking at hosting some stuff online-only, and online before it is aired, as well as after.