topic Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute in Community Chat

Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

Jordan2 — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 19:36:58 GMT

Has anyone noticed the effect the dispute between Charter Spectrum and Tribune Broadcasting is having on their viewing habits? This is in the fifth day and Spectrum customers have been cut off from the CW and Antenna TV ( not sure what else). I called Spectrum to voice my displeasure, didn't really do any good, but I wanted them to know I am aware of what's going on and don't appreciate it. I asked if customers will be getting a credit on their bill for withholding these channels, and was more or less told to call them and see what they can do. Why is it it's always the customer who suffers when two companies get into a fight? In the end it will be settled and we the customers will pay for the increase, cut to the chase and settle this NOW!!

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

chickenbutt — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 19:48:59 GMT

In my market all that's been affected is the WGN channel. I don't watch anything on it, so I didn't realize until I saw the notice when I was logging into my email and there was a banner on the page, so I followed it to find out what was affected here.

Just checked to verify and 'Antenna TV' and 'The CW' are still unaffected here.

I guess the company that owns some cable channels doesn't own them in every market. Seems odd to me, but then I don't know anything about this sort of thing.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

LyndaGee — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 20:11:58 GMT

I'm glad you started this thread. I do miss Antenna - The new schedule looks great. Besides that channel, we're also missing Channel 11 WPIX. Glad this didn't begin til after New Years. Would've been disappointing to miss the Yule Log and Honeymooners Marathon.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

hayseed00 — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 20:20:45 GMT

I agree with you, Spectrum states that Tribune is trying to overcharge them and raise the price of their channels. I feel thats exactly what Spectrum is doing to me as a customer constantly raising their rates. I know I could cancel cable but I do enjoy certain programs.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

Lipstickdiva — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 21:50:03 GMT

I have Spectrum and I'm in the Cleveland area. We lost our local Fox (WJW) and WGN stations. We still have Antenna TV and CW. Our local WJW is the news channel we always watched. I don't watch much else on that channel but we really miss it for the news.

Someone I know called Spectrum yesterday to complain and said he wasn't paying his bill. They told him they would shut off his cable. LOL He asked about getting a credit and he was told there would be a credit. I wonder how much, if any, that will be.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

CANDLEQUEEN — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 21:49:52 GMT

I am in Southeastern Wisconsin and it has affected Fox and WGN, I don't wat ch much on that channel except for Empire, but that is on hiatus until Spring. Hopefully things will be fixed by then............So aggravating!!!!!

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

pigletsmom — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 21:56:07 GMT

We still have CW but I don't think we ever had Antenna. This happens all the time when cable companies are negotiating with stations.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

suzyQ3 — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 22:13:56 GMT

In the Los Angeles area, our Channel 5 is blank. Well, actually it's not blank; a voice drones on and on lambasting the other side. It's almost comical.

Just as long as we can still watch Netflix and Amazon, we don't really care.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

deepwaterdotter — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 22:49:17 GMT

@chickenbutt wrote:
In my market all that's been affected is the WGN channel. I don't watch anything on it, so I didn't realize until I saw the notice when I was logging into my email and there was a banner on the page, so I followed it to find out what was affected here.

Just checked to verify and 'Antenna TV' and 'The CW' are still unaffected here.

I guess the company that owns some cable channels doesn't own them in every market. Seems odd to me, but then I don't know anything about this sort of thing.

Same in my area.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

10sluvr — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 23:28:59 GMT

lower sw michigan here. our local neighborhood facebook page always people ranting about the high cost of cable. now, they are trying to avoid unreasonable price hikes.Charter can't win with customers, no matter what they do. i do have a couple of shows, on fox and will watch on a tv with antenna.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

Jordan2 — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 23:41:30 GMT

@LyndaGee wrote:
I'm glad you started this thread. I do miss Antenna - The new schedule looks great. Besides that channel, we're also missing Channel 11 WPIX. Glad this didn't begin til after New Years. Would've been disappointing to miss the Yule Log and Honeymooners Marathon.

@LyndaGee, I don't watch the CW that much, I do watch Supernatural and Supergirl, I enjoy Antenna TV. As for getting a credit from Spectrum on my bill, they'll probably give you a dollar or two. In my area I can get either Spectrum or Fios (I don't want satellite), not much of a choice.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

GusMo — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 00:00:26 GMT

Spectrum did that in my town (SW Arizona) last year. The weekend of the Super Bowl, they took away CBS, ABC and Fox for several months. Missed Super Bowl and Winter Olympics, etc.

Spectrum blamed whomever they buy the channel from for raising prices, the suppliers blamed Spectrum. In the end, the customer lost

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

Lipstickdiva — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 14:55:37 GMT

I misspoke above. We do not have WGN or Antenna TV either. I must have been watching MeTV and thought it was Antenna TV.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

gardenman — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 15:59:30 GMT

The cable TV industry has undergone more changes in the past fifty years than nearly any other industry. In the early days (50's-60's) you only got whatever channels would fit on channels 2-13 on your TV dial. There were no cable boxes. The next big revolution was the A/B switch which essentially doubled the channels you could get. Two coax lines came into your TV one with one set of channels 2-13 and the other with another set of channels in the 2-13 slots. You went from twelve channels to 24, Whoo-hoo!

Then in 1972 the folks behind HBO thought maybe people would rather stay at home and watch movies than go to theaters. "A pay TV channel?" asked the sceptics. "It'll never work!" It did. WTBS was right behind them with the first SuperStation. By 1980 there were now 28 cable program networks, but most cable systems still just had the original 24 channels available and they were forced to carry local channels, so there wasn't room for a whole lot more. Those 28 cable networks bought their way onto cable systems. They were paying cable systems to put their channels on their systems. It was the only way they could get into people's homes and without people watching, advertisers wouldn't buy ad time.

These 28 cable only networks needed to be seen, so they paid more to the bigger systems where more eyes would be on their programs. This led to the creation of the cable giants, like Comcast. The more subscribers you had, the more the cable networks would pay you to air their programming. Smaller systems were bought up and merged to create the giants we have now. Bigger was better.

Then along came the cable boxes where suddenly the limit on the number of channels exploded. Homes went from being able to get 24 channels to hundreds of channels. Cable companies thought this was great. They'd get more and more money from all of those channels paying to be on their system. Instead of collecting money from maybe fifteen cable networks they could be getting paid by a hundred or more. Yeah, not so much. A funny thing happened. Some of the cable networks decided they weren't going to pay to be on the cable systems. In fact, they were going to charge the cable companies to carry their programming.

This caught the cable TV industry a bit off guard. "Uh, what?" "You heard us, pay us or we won't let you air our programming." (The infamous "I want my MTV!" period of cable TV.) After a whole lot of headscratching the cable TV industry yielded and started paying for content. This resulted in the sudden increase of cable bills for subscribers who were not happy, but having few alternatives bit the bullet and paid the money. The cable TV systems had no choice but to raise bills. Instead of getting paid to air channels they were now required to pay for those channels and pass the costs on to the consumer.

That's largely where we stand today, but a new revolution is already taking place. Streamed television is starting to take the place of the cable TV systems and that will only increase when the new 5G wireless services are fully operational with 20+ gbps transfer speeds. Most of the streaming services now offer channel packages, but it's just a question of time until you'll be able to assemble your own package of just the channels you want to watch. Most of us only watch eight to ten channels anyway, so this could be a good thing. It will decimate the cable industry as we know it however. Will conventional cable TV survive? Probably not. This is the biggest threat it's faced yet and there's no really good solution for them. The new wireless 5G system will make their cable TV, Internet, and phone services obsolete. In the not too distant future consumers will be able to pick and pay for just the channels they want. It's coming and there's nothing the cable industry can do to stop it. They are about to become a modern day version of the buggy whip manufacturers.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

Free2be — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 20:45:55 GMT

I miss my favorite news channel and especially my favorite weather man but I'm also kind of cheering Spectrum for fighting Tribune.

Another local news channel I refuse to watch because the owners force feed propaganda across all of their stations.

Another local news channel I reluctantly watch depending on how over dramatic the female lead is, as if she's talking to a room of first graders.

Another local weather woman I call "Rah! Rah!" because she has the voice and active presentation of a high school cheer leader.

Ah, the choices we are given! Life goes on!

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

donovan — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 20:59:37 GMT

@Lipstickdiva wrote:
I have Spectrum and I'm in the Cleveland area. We lost our local Fox (WJW) and WGN stations. We still have Antenna TV and CW. Our local WJW is the news channel we always watched. I don't watch much else on that channel but we really miss it for the news.

Someone I know called Spectrum yesterday to complain and said he wasn't paying his bill. They told him they would shut off his cable. LOL He asked about getting a credit and he was told there would be a credit. I wonder how much, if any, that will be.

Now that the holidays are over and the morning gang at Fox8 are all back together again, I can't watch them over my morning coffee - I do miss them. We also missed a wildcard football game last Saturday. Other than that, I don't miss the channel.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

Lipstickdiva — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 21:46:25 GMT

@donovan wrote:
@Lipstickdiva wrote:
I have Spectrum and I'm in the Cleveland area. We lost our local Fox (WJW) and WGN stations. We still have Antenna TV and CW. Our local WJW is the news channel we always watched. I don't watch much else on that channel but we really miss it for the news.

Someone I know called Spectrum yesterday to complain and said he wasn't paying his bill. They told him they would shut off his cable. LOL He asked about getting a credit and he was told there would be a credit. I wonder how much, if any, that will be.

Now that the holidays are over and the morning gang at Fox8 are all back together again, I can't watch them over my morning coffee - I do miss them. We also missed a wildcard football game last Saturday. Other than that, I don't miss the channel.

@donovan, that's pretty much how I feel. I really miss the news because I just don't care for the other local news channels plus they air the nightly news at 10:00 instead of 11 which works better for me.

I did miss the wildcard playoff game but like you, we really don't watch one show on that channel.

My DH and I are seriously going to sit down and look at other ways to watch tv and dump cable. The price keeps going up and is getting ridiculous anyhow. We have to figure out exactly what channels we watch, which are a handful out of the many we pay for, and then see what other options we have. Someone I know dumped cable and just went with YouTubeTv. It costs him $40.00 a month.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

LyndaGee — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 16:41:11 GMT

It's back! Happened to turn on Antenna tv, and the first person I saw was Madge Blake on an old episode of "Dennis the Menace." Took eight days, but so glad the dispute was settled.

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

Lipstickdiva — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 21:16:33 GMT

It came back shortly after 8:00 a.m. here in Ohio. A friend of mine who is a supervisor for Spectrum texted me. LOL

Re: Charter Spectrum Tribune Broadcasting Dispute

chickenbutt — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 21:18:10 GMT

I just looked this morning and Antenna TV is back here, too.