KHAAAANN!!

[quislibet]

Alas, the day J. and I have long feared has finally come, and the sinister cruelty of cable television companies revealed.



When we first moved to Salem, our television reception (via antenna) was more or less nonexistent. As we wanted to be able to watch "Buffy" and "Angel," we finally (with some disgruntlement, at having to pay for something that should theoretically be free) had cable installed at its cheapest level, the "basic reception" package.

Well, the guy who installed it did us the "favor" of connecting more channels than we were paying for. We appreciated some of the options, notably AMC and TVLand, for those moments when we just wanted something to stare at vacantly, but something with some level of actual entertainment value.

In September, the new cable company informed us that we would soon be losing those extra channels, but we could of course keep them if we wanted to pay some ungodly extra montly sum.

A couple of weeks later, we lost two or three channels we didn't watch, and gained, among others, Comedy Central and the Cartoon Network. This was odd, but welcome. For the past five weeks or so, most of our television viewing, such as it is, has involved these two channels. We kept expecting the cable people to take them away, but as time wore on, we dared to hope, to dream.

Now, however, all is lost; the cruel campaign of upgrade-temptation that might have worked on customers with actual money stands ugly and revealed.

This morning (I am informed), the cable van pulled up to our house, parked across the driveway (for extra insult, but parking across our driveway seems to be a "thing," despite the ample availability of less annoying and usually contiguous parking places), and disconnected the pins that as recently as ten and a half hours before had brought us Jon Stewart weeknights at 11.

Now we are faced with the simple fact that we pay a monthly fee just to watch an hour of television on Wednesday nights, and with all of those new "Angel" episodes in a row there's almost sure to be an extended rerun slump any week now. I expect that if we have sound and can at least make out vague shapes on the WB then we will probably cancel.

Comments

[julishka.livejournal.com]

you know, even sometimes just plugging in the cable even if it's not active will give you better reception than not having it at all. it acts as an antenna that stretches to the outside world.

(the similar thing happened to me after the cable companies stopped buying each other out. initially when they installed my digital cable, they gave me everything except the naughty channels saying that the paperwork would go through and then it'd return to my normal cable plus state. two years later, and after getting addicted to hbo, bbc america, & movie channels, the did pull the plug. :( the cable company couldn't even figure out what plan i was supposed to be on due to all the buyouts. so i succombed to the HBO package and am with that now - oh and also have the internet.)

[rakafkaven.livejournal.com]

Time-Warner in my old neighborhood did a cute little marketing push that involved putting little hangars on our doorknobs announcing that they knew we had been receiving unauthorized cable, but would generously forget about it if we started subscribing now. They didn't directly threaten, but the tone was definitely ominous and intimidating.

Might've been more scary had there been a single television in the house. As it was, we just decided to never give the company a dime. I do still wonder how many people were bulled into buying. While it's hardly a dire scandal, I do think some leaked corporate memos about deliberate accidental hook-up policies would make great reading.

[worldcomrade.livejournal.com]

That happened to us too. My husband would pull the plug, but we've got our internet connection tied into the package. However, we're not about to order more than basic cable.

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

We have the magic of dialup, so that's not so much a problem for us. Well, not in a cable-canceling context.

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

"Diabolical" is the word that comes to mind here.

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

Possible. Not without annoyances, perhaps, but possible.

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

sometimes just plugging in the cable even if it's not active will give you better reception

True. Although we'd have to cancel the cable to find out if that works.

Alas.

[lekythen.livejournal.com]

Here in the UK, the BBC gets its knickers in a twist about the mandatory TV License fee. Own a TV? You -must- pay, and this is addition to whatever fee you pay for any digital service. If you live in a rented property, say, sharing a house with other students, they charge the £100+ fee -per student room-. I actually had to show the TV bastar.. er, License patrol who came by with their white van and attitude that my TV was linked to my US Playstation and nothing else, and prove that I got no reception.

So, my parents bought last year a burnt-out shell of a toll house (see www.shanescastle.co.uk). Less than a week after we had the papers, we got a nasty letter threatening us for not having a TV License. Hello? The place didn't have floors! We finally got that squared away, but British Gas is threatening us with a warrant and legal injuntion... despite the fact that we're in negotiations with them as we don't have a gas line.

Grrr.

If it weren't for the various Discovery Channels, I wouldn't bother with TV at all.

[cipster.livejournal.com]

Get satellite. It's cheaper, has better picture quality (all digital) and their service is much better than cable. I think the basic package from Dish Network is $25 or so.

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

I'll look into it, but as two grad students we're begrudging the ten bucks a month for basic reception.

[jdm314.livejournal.com]

£100 per student room? Mehercle that's steep! Is it a one time fee? Yearly?

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

It's really amazing to me sometimes that governments and corporations are able to function at all.

Fixing up that toll house sounds pretty spiffy, if lots of hard work. I'll look more intently at the website pictures when I'm not at home on dialup (so instead, when I'm getting paid by the hour).

(While it wasn't a burned-out shell, I've seen before-and-after pictures of what our landlords did to the house I live in, which they inherited from the landlady's eccentric artist uncle a few years ago and which hadn't been kept up in a century or so.)