Posted on 10/30/2011 3:00:13 AM PDT by Las Vegas Dave
DirecTV has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission complaining about Fox advertising related to their cable programming dispute.
In the missive to Media Bureau chief Bill Lake, the top satellite operator said that Fox is using misleading advertising informing DirecTV customers that " 'soon, in some markets, you may lose your local Fox station,' even though our retransmission-consent agreement does not expire for over two months."
The parties are currently engaged in a battle over the programmer seeking an increase in license fees for FX, National Geographic Channel, Speed, Fuel TV, Fox Soccer, Fox Soccer Plus, Fox Movie Channel, Fox Deportes and the 19 Fox regional sports networks.
Fox Cable Networks' agreement with the DBS giant expires Nov. 1, but their retrans deal for Fox-owned stations does not expire until year-end, DirecTV pointed out in the missive to Lake.
The provider added that Fox has also "refused to provide us a separate offer for the continued carriage of its broadcast stations."
DirecTV says it has asked Fox to stop running the ads, but that the programmer has not done so.
Fox was unavailable for comment at press time.
The FCC is currently considering clarifying the definition of good faith retrans negotiations. DirecTV told Lake that is purposely trying to confuse and alarm consumers, and suggests that would not be in the definition of good faith bargaining.
"Such conduct is certainly not what the Commission had in mind when it made Fox a steward of the nation's airwaves entrusted to serve the public interest," said DirecTV executive vice president of content strategy and development Derek Chang in the letter, which was dated Oct. 27.
I’m thinking about dropping DirectTV again. I have an XM receiver in the house, so I can listen to FNC if I want. Not a bad way to do it, and cheap.
Headed that way. Just have to wean the Mrs off the junk she watches while staying at home.
Currently the local ABC affiliate is running the ad and a scroll across the top of the screen. A couple of months ago it was the NBC affiliate doing the same. I haven’t noticed if the Fox one is doing it, but I’ll give it a glance later.
I don’t have dish, direct or cable, so it matters not to me :^)
You use a Netflix or other streaming subscription for movie or TV content. Roku has, for example, last night’s NBC News in full w/o commercials available the next day as well as Fox News Sunday (which may be live, I can’t recall). The rest of the news content from all the networks is excerpts, podcasts or vodcasts. There are a series of 2 minute cooking tips on CHOW. My husband watches SAIL TV. There are well over 100 separate channels, including music. We use Pandora for music.
All of those are free. There are other free and subscription channels available, check it out at roku.com.
We were early adapters with a Roku. The first one had buffering problems with our DSL and it kept losing the connection to the Internet and would need to be rebooted. It seemed to stress our modem. You can go either ethernet or wireless. We upgraded to a Roku II and have had few problems. GBTV has given me some problems in transmission, but the reload function is quick and picks up where you were cut off. It may be a GBTV problem, I don’t know. With DSL, you cannot download/upload to the Internet via computer while watching a movie, but we have been able to read an already downloaded website while a movie is playing. Roku II also has a usb function for game players.
Thanks, I appreciate the info.
An ordinary old computer works just fine for the task.
I live in the country and we suffer from very slow speeds, even with my microwave hookup. Dial up is useless now days with all the graphics on everyones home pages.
Cute picture but it was an advertising stunt.
And it’s in an ad to support FR. :-)
Take the plunge and go satellite.
http://www.satelliteinternet.net/
which I do .... :)
I buy Internet-only service from my cable provider. On a whim, I hooked up a TV to the coax. And there appeared basic cable, for free. (and worth every penny, I might ad.)
And the new digital TV even picks up some of the pay movie broadcasts.
ad=add.
Many devices now stream like a Roku. I steam via my Blu-ray players (one is wired to my router; the other is connected wirelessly). Also, many TVs can stream as well.
Fox did this to Dish Network last year. I think I lost two episodes of Breaking Bad before they reached an agreement.
Direct TV has been running ads, even has a channel devoted to, complaining about FOX. This seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black to me.
After we built our new home, I again signed up with them after multiple letters of (please, please please come home).
The programming absolutely sux for the $$. I'm paying close to $70 bucks a month, like 90 million stations and probably ten are marginally worth watching with a few favorites.
I really wish some provider would come up with an a la carte plan. Heck, I'd be flipping over backwards to pay $70 a month if I could pick my channels and do away with the bull crap channels.
I’ll have to check that at when I’m over at a friend’s this afternoon who has direct.
I’ve had dir tv since they started HD, maybe 7-8 years. We have everything, NHL/center ice, NFL/super fan, bunch of local back east sports show channels, ect and our bill is around 250 in the winter little over 100 come summer. You got to understand, we live out in the sticks, it’s our only bill and won’t part with it come winter when it’s minus 60; still often there’s nothing on. Funny thing is come summer, we never watch any tv. Wish I could get Beck for some extra money on dir tv or junior hockey games from Canada.
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