Time Warner Subs: Kiss Your HD Shows Goodbye! (

tvpredictions.com ^ | Dec. 3, 2009 | Phillip Swann

[Las Vegas Dave]

Washington, D.C. (December 3, 2009) -- If you're a Time Warner subscriber, isn't it bad enough that your cable operator won't carry the NFL Network?

Well, yes it is.

But now, Time Warner fans, be prepared for things to get a lot worse. In fact, be prepared to lose many of your favorite channels and high-def programs.

Why?

Time Warner last week launched a marketing campaign called "Roll Over or Get Tough," in which it urges subscribers to vote on whether the cable operator should, well, "get tough" with networks who are asking for higher programming fees to carry their channels. (The subscribers can vote at a Time Warner web site, rolloverorgettough.com.)

Get tough, you see, means refusing to pay if Time Warner thinks the networks are asking for too much money. And when that occurs, that means that Time Warner won't be able to carry those channels.

Exhibit A: The NFL Network.

The nation's leading TV providers -- DIRECTV, Dish Network, Comcast included -- all have somehow managed to find the money to pay the NFL Network. But Time Warner has, yes, gotten tough and remained tough.

And if football fans who subscribe to Time Warner don't like it, well, that's tough, isn't it?

By urging customers to vote on whether Time Warner should "roll over," which apparently means paying up, or "get tough," which apparently means reducing costs in the vast Time Warner corporate empire, the cable operator is clearly looking to soften the blow when it decides to drop some channels when the programmers ask for more money.

Time Warner is hoping to make customers believe that it will be their decision to drop the channels, not the cable operator's. (By the way, if you vote for "Roll Over," at Time Warner's web site, you get the following message: "Are you sure you don't want to 'get tough?'"

"No one likes paying more," Time Warner says at its web site. "You don’t. We don’t. Yet, every time our contracts with TV program providers come up for renewal, that’s what we face. Price increases. Big ones. Up to 300% more. Sometimes we can avoid passing them on to you. Sometimes we can’t. Sometimes, a network will threaten to take your shows away if we don’t roll over. Whenever that’s happened in the past, we’d make the best deal we could and hope that would be the end of it. But it never was. So no more. The networks shouldn’t be in the driver’s seat on what you watch and how much you pay."

But if you're a Time Warner subscriber -- and the cable operator soon drops your favorite show and/or channel due to a programming fee dispute -- ask yourself if the other major TV providers are still carrying it.

And if they are, then ask yourself why you're still a Time Warner subscriber.

[Las Vegas Dave]

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[Yossarian]

Of course, they could solve a lot of these problems and make the whole line-up a la carte.... but they’ll never do it: MSNBC, CNN, and the whole Viacom lineup would croak overnight!

[MrPiper]

Get tough, you see, means refusing to pay if Time Warner thinks the networks are asking for too much money

Ya mean people pay for stuff on TV? Mines free except the electricity used to fire up the old 19" Sony. I get all the DVD movies the library has, and its hundreds for free. Also, some good stuff on PBS.

Good old movies on HULU also.(starve the beast)

[lmr]

Ok, Time-Warner made a business decision that may or may not lose customers. Want NFL Network? Pay more with the other provider. Don’t want it? Enjoy cable for considerably less cost...

It could be a bad decision, but maybe not. They might also have other offerings at less expense than other cable outlets that make up for it.

Of course if you could order the channels you want and nothing more or less, that would make too much sense. In the long run, because of competition, it would increase the quality of programming because not only must cable channels compete for advertisers, they would be FORCED TO COMPETE FOR SUBSCRIBERS, this would also drive down the OVERALL PRICE of Cable.

On a side note, I envision a future in which Cable signals will be wireless transmission over very high speed cell phone networks.

Competition is good and very American. Let the channels compete against each other and let technology give us a distribution model with low infrastructure cost.

[calex59]

Not to mention Netflix, which isn’t free but very, very inexpensive, Blockbuster and other pay movie sources, I also take advantage of the free ones.

[toast]

Comcast here in Minnesota has NFL network available if you buy the sports tier. I’m a huge football fan but still won’t pay for the sports tier.

My cable bill is high. I am constantly looking for a better deal but I love HD. Comcast has good cable internet.

NetFlix is great. I have the 3 DVD at a time plan and also do streaming with the Xbox 360.

[rw4site]

Re: "I envision a future in which Cable signals will be wireless transmission over very high speed cell phone networks."

How will that work with obamavision?