Free Republic

With streaming television becoming more and more popular, and providers like Aereo making an end-run around cable and satellite providers, a lot of attention is being paid to the future of bundled cable. In a world of growing choices and a weak, jobless economy, how long can something last that charges customers a ton of money for dozens of channels they never watch? Bundled cable is, in my opinion, one of the greatest hustles ever perpetuated against the American people. The worst part is how it works as a kind of affirmative-action program for left-wing programming that likely wouldn’t survive...

Pay-TV providers like Verizon and tech giants like Microsoft are developing devices that can monitor our behaviors as we watch TV and play games. “Watching the watchers” is taking on a whole new meaning. News that Google .. may be developing a television set-top box with a motion sensor and video camera has rekindled the debate over technology that can record so-called ambient action. Should a TV-mounted box have the ability to track our movements, record our voices and monitor our behaviors? Should cable providers and tech companies be allowed to collect such information without our consent? Lawmakers and privacy...

Cameras in your cable box? No way, said Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), who has introduced a new bill that would stop technology and TV video services from monitoring viewing using cameras or microphones built-in to set-top boxes or DVRs in order to analyze viewing behavior and serve up targeted ads. The bill, called the We Are Watching You Act of 2013, would prohibit video service operators from collecting visual or audio data from the vicinity of the device without express permission from the consumer. For viewers that opt in, the monitoring company would have to display a "we are watching...

The CEO of the Tennis Channel, who also bundled millions of dollars for President Barack Obama's presidential campaign and was a co-chair of one of his fundraising committees, compared Comcast to a "brutal captor" and a rapist after the Tennis Channel lost a ruling in a federal appeals court. After a the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled last month that Comcast did not have to include the Tennis Channel on its basic cable package, Ken Solomon, fired off an email to his employees. Solomon was sworn in on Obama's Committee on the Arts and the...

John McCain, the media’s favorite “maverick” – unless he’s actively running for something – has just introduced a bill in congress called the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013. Normally, my iron clad rule of thumb is to take any side this guy is against but I have to admit he may have a point here. The bill would allow consumers to buy only the cable channels they want “a la carte” and not have 500 others jammed down their throats. Does anyone recall the original promise of cable TV? More than 30 years ago we asked, “why should we...

TV Ratings: 'Duck Dynasty' Tops 'American Idol' With Record-Breaking Finale UPDATED: The A&E reality series outperforms all of Wednesday's cable and broadcast series in the targeted adults 18-49 demo --- and pulls in nearly 10 million total viewers. Duck Dynasty shows no signs of slowing. The A&E series' season finale drew a record 9.6 million viewers during its one-hour episode -- and an equally impressive 5.5 million adults 18-49. That haul in the key demo puts it ahead of all of cable and broadcast offerings for the night -- including American Idol. Duck Dynasty's 4.3 rating with adults 18-49 rating...

The White House accused Republicans of a political distraction Wednesday after House committee chairmen asked President Obama to release a State Department cable that they said would prove Hillary Rodham Clinton, as secretary off state, signed off on security cuts at the diplomatic post in Benghazi ahead of the attack Sept. 11. According to the committee chairmen, the April 2012 Clinton cable denies the U.S. Embassy in Libya’s request for more security. Five months later, the outpost in Benghazi was attacked and four Americans were killed, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

After winning a major court battle last week, Aereo has Fox Television so freaked the network is considering becoming a cable channel, which would mean yanking their broadcast from the public airwaves: At the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual trade show on Monday, Carey, the News Corp. president, said, “We will continue to aggressively pursue our rights in the courts, as well as pursue all relevant political avenues, and we believe we will prevail.” Carey added: “One option could be converting the Fox broadcast network to a pay channel, which we would do in collaboration with both our content partners...

Mark Burnett's "The Bible" miniseries concluded this past Sunday with strong ratings, attracting 11.7 million viewers, 14 percent higher than its previous week of 10.3 million viewers. "The Bible" miniseries' great success resulted in the History Channel being the top cable network, both in total viewership and with adults ages 25 to 54, for the month of March. The episode's finale, which featured Jesus' crucifixion, death, and resurrection aptly on March 31, Easter Sunday, received 3.8 million viewers among adults ages 18 to 49 and 4.6 million viewers among adults ages 25 to 54, according to Nielsen ratings. As Deadline...

Comcast Cable, "the nation's largest cable provider," has decided it will not accept firearm and ammunition advertisers in the future. This decision comes after Comcast has been running ads for some gun and hunting groups for decades. Comcast chose this new position after purchasing NBCUniversal, which has a long-standing ban against firearm, ammunition and firework advertisements. This move brings Comcast in line with its competitors, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications. Cox already had a ban similar to the one Comcast has now instituted and Time Warner Cable announced in January that it was banning "ads showing semi-automatic weapons and...

SAN DIEGO - A new San Diego-based cable channel could end up competing with Fox News for the conservative cable audience. It is unapologetically conservative and it could be coming to a cable channel in your home. The upcoming launch of the One America News Network was announced Thursday. It is a creation of San Diego-based Herring Broadcasting. On July 4, the company – which also produces cable channel Wealth TV – will launch its newest venture, a conservative cable news network.

I've been 3 months trying to get TWC to come and get my defective DVR (we have 2) several calls promising they would come and they would adjust our bill blah blah blah. Then the new bill came and informed us we are getting a price increase so we talked it over and did some research. Our TV bill (We have their internet as well) was over 110 bucks a month. We realized we could get Hulu plus and receiver most of the shows we watch for about 9 bucks a month and the two shows we definitely watch that...

Veteran programmer Rob Barnett recently attended a breakfast meeting of television executives where the talk turned, as it almost always does these days, to “disruption,” the industry buzzword for the way new technology is upsetting the TV applecart. From somewhere down the table, he heard a question: “Has anybody here cut the cord?” — that is, dropped cable service in favor of just watching TV through the Internet? Barnett shrugged and raised his hand. “Mine was the only one,” he recalls. “But when it went up, I saw beads of sweat break out on the foreheads of some of the...

2. I caught an interesting factoid ... Algore selling his Marxist agitprop cable station to Al Jazeera last week. ... it was reported that CurrentTV received cable and satellite licensing revenues of $0.12 per month per subscriber - that is the pinch of incense you people who had CurrentTV included in your cable/sat package were paying to Algore. ... Your $0.12 per month multiplied together put $80 million per year in cashflows into Algore's hands in order to spread his evil, satanic filth. The interesting factoid released last week was that cable/sat licensing revenues comprised 80% of CurrentTV's revenue, with...

"Real competition in the cable television industry is forcing change at long last. And we can thank the dawn of streaming content. Time Warner Cable just axed the Ovation channel, and the cable giant threatens more channels may get trimmed in the coming months. But Time Warner Cable warns subscribers in an online notice today that there’s no guarantee it will continue to carry several other channels whose contracts expire soon including mainstays such as E!, Lifetime, and Starz, and a bevy of international services ... Former Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV also remains in danger, although it survived...

Conservative America can't get enough of the story about liberal former Vice President Al Gore selling the Current TV network he co-founded to Al Jazeera. Or, as Fox News commentator Ann Coulter described it - "a foreign company that hates America."........ .......Despite what perceptions remain about its political bias, analysts say Al Jazeera has developed a strong journalistic reputation with international audiences as it reports from places that U.S. outlets, with their scaled-down overseas reporting staffs, barely touch. Aside from the media implications, some analysts wonder how Gore, a part-time San Francisco resident who won the Nobel Peace Prize for...

Several big-name Hollywood stars appear in a new anti-gun public service YouTube video calling for Americans to demand that their elected officials come up with a strategy to curb gun violence. In the video, A-listers like Cameron Diaz, Paul Rudd, and Chris Rock read the names of the sites of the most horrific gun massacres before calling on viewers to “demand a plan” to stop mass shootings. But now a new video called “Demand a Plan – Demand Celebrities Go F*** Themselves” has been created that highlights the gun violence many of these same stars have taken part in in...

Intel is reportedly on the cusp of delivering something that consumers around the world have been wanting for a long, long time. Kelly Clay at Forbes reports Intel is going to blow up the cable industry with its own set-top box and an unbundled cable service. Clay says Intel is planning to deliver cable content to any device with an Internet connection. And instead of having to pay $80 a month for two hundred channels you don't want, you'll be able to subscribe to specific channels of your choosing.

Ovation, the arts-culture cable channel that's enjoyed a distribution surge the last several years, said Tuesday it expects to be dropped by Time Warner Cable on Dec. 31, potentially losing about 7 million subscribers and the key markets of New York City and Los Angeles. The independently owned network, reaching 51 million homes via cable, satellite and telco providers, went public about the expected drop in hopes of gaining support from viewers and arts organizations that would persuade Time Warner Cable to rethink the decision. “If Time Warner Cable proceeds then, in 2013, its customers who love the arts will...

If you have cable TV service, you probably have at least one set-top box in your house. On Monday, a federal rule change takes effect that could eventually force you to rent more cable boxes. Right now, most cable systems don’t scramble the “basic tier” service which includes local broadcast stations, public, government and education channels, as well as some non-premium programming. Buy basic service and you can plug the cable into a digital set that has a QAM tuner and see these unencrypted channels without a set-top box. Cable companies want to scramble everything coming through their wire, including...

November 2, 2012 The Smoking Gun of the Benghazi Cover-up By Pat Buchanan 11/2/2012   On June 6 of this year, a bomb planted at the U.S. compound in Benghazi ripped a 12-foot-wide hole in the outer wall. On June 11, the British ambassador's motorcade was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, wounding a medic and doctor. The next day, the ambassador was gone and the British Benghazi post was closed. At the same time, the Red Cross, after a second attack, shut down and fled the city. "When that occurred," says Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, who headed the military...

I’d like to give a nudge today to everyone out there to do something that I did back in 2009 and have never regretted since: cancel your cable TV service and stop your newspaper delivery. If enough people did this, it would decimate the Democrats’ most powerful propaganda tools: the Comcast-owned networks of NBC and MSNBC, CNN, and the other dinosaur media outlets that comprise the Left’s Ministry of Truth (Minitrue, for short) that serves Barack Obama with cultish devotion. Since you can’t just cancel MSNBC and NBC or CNN, you’ll need to cancel your cable TV service altogether. This...

Scandal: A month before the terrorist attack, the State Department was warned Benghazi couldn't protect itself and was surrounded by Islamist militia and al-Qaida camps. It was 3 a.m. and the administration pressed "snooze." When the U.S. mission in Benghazi called an Aug. 15 emergency meeting, it wasn't to discuss an obscure Internet video. It was to discuss the lack of security for a consulate surrounded by at least 10 terrorist camps. An Aug. 16 cable to the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and obtained by Fox News reported that the State Department's senior security officer "expressed concerns...

The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a “coordinated attack,” according to a classified cable reviewed by Fox News. Summarizing an Aug. 15 emergency meeting convened by the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Aug. 16 cable marked “SECRET” said that the State Department’s senior security officer, also known as the RSO, did not believe the consulate could be protected...

A number of media sources have fresh looks at the Obama administration's handling of security in the weeks before the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi drove us out of eastern Libya and killed four Americans, including US Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens. First, Fox News reported yesterday that the State Department decided to stick to its schedule of rotating out a 16-man Special Ops team assigned to diplomatic security in Benghazi, just weeks before the attack in August. They were joined in their exit by a six-man security team from the State Department itself:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO...

Who Owns The Media? The 6 Monolithic Corporations That Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read Back in 1983, approximately 0 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States. Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations. These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day. They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don't even stop to think about who...

Sharks ruled the air waves as well as the ocean waves again this year. The Discovery Channel says total viewership for its annual "Shark Week" was 21.4 million, up from 18.6 million in 2011. The big fish also drew 1.6 million tweets, about double the volume from last year. Discovery encouraged tweeting this year with several segments in which tweets were flashed on the screen. Shark Week, which launched 25 years ago, has become the most successful long-running cable theme week on television, remaining ahead of later descendants like "Big Cat Week" and "Tornado Week." Discovery has produced more than...

It started with homes, then cars, and now penny-pinching Americans, especially minorities, are giving up cable TV because they just can't afford it in the lingering recession. Instead, they are switching back to free TV, improved with the recent switch to digital broadcast which requires a special antenna but eliminates the $70-$100 monthly cable, satellite or broadband service fee. Industry officials had worried that Americans would begin "cord-cutting" in a shift to internet TV, but the recession is more to blame, not internet bling. "It's not so much cord-cutting as cost-cutting that's motivating this. There's possibly recessionary issues here," said...

The Justice Department has begun an investigation into whether Comcast and other cable operators are purposely and illegally trying to squash competition from rival streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. That's according to articles by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News. The Justice Department won't comment on the reports, but the newspaper say the department is probing whether the cable ops are charging extra if their Internet subscribers exceed their data caps in using the rival streamers. Justice investigators are also examining if the cable operators are giving preferential treatment to their own streaming services by not charging...

Move over, $5 a gallon gas — America’s new household budget buster may soon be the $200 a month cable bill. While wages for US workers have remained stagnant, cable bills have quietly climbed 6 percent a year and will pass $200 a month by 2020, according to an alarming industry forecast released yesterday.

Al Gore's Current TV has bigger problems to deal with than a potential lawsuit from fired news anchor Keith Olbermann - namely not getting kicked off Time Warner Cable for low ratings. According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, Time Warner Cable Inc's carriage agreement with Current TV stipulates that, if the left-leaning political news network fails to meet a minimum threshold for overall viewers in a given quarter, financial penalties such as Current TV being required to increase marketing and promotion spending on the cable operator's systems are triggered.

(Reuters) - Al Gore's Current TV has bigger problems to deal with than a potential lawsuit from fired news anchor Keith Olbermann - namely not getting kicked off Time Warner Cable for low ratings. According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, Time Warner Cable Inc's carriage agreement with Current TV stipulates that, if the left-leaning political news network fails to meet a minimum threshold for overall viewers in a given quarter, financial penalties such as Current TV being required to increase marketing and promotion spending on the cable operator's systems are triggered. If Current TV misses the audience...

The rise of streaming television is something I've been covering rather obsessively on my Daily Call Sheet for going on a year now. Not because I have any kind of inside information or data, but because if you connect the dots of the hundreds of various news stories that have been written about the phenomenon, you can see that something seismic is happening. Bundled cable is evil, and through this evil we are forced to not only pay for dozens and sometimes hundreds of channels we never watch, but we're also forced to pay for and subsidize channels that offend...

After seeing what happened to Rush with the Left and how the media, especially HBO treats women, I decided to do something about it. I got rid of my Time Warner Cable and got AT&T U-Verse package. It saves me over $100.00 per month and I don't have to deal with HBO and their hatred of women. Today I will write a letter to the editor of my local paper telling them what I did and why. If we can all do the same thing, maybe, just maybe it will make a difference.

Dear FReepers, I live outside Chicago. My current provider for bundled Cable, Internet and home based landline costs 179 dollars a month. I have the large selection of cable stations including History, Military etc, without any premium channels. or DVR. I'm coming to you my friends to see what suggestions, or ingenious Freepers have come up with to obtain service; I'd like a large number of Cable stations plus a DVR. My son insists upon Internet fast enough to play video games inter-actively online. We need wireless internet for our laptops. I would like a DVR machine with any new...

Because I know that FReepers are smart and ingenious I am coming to you for assistance and insight in being able to get unplugged from DirecTV. They are raising our rates again. We currently use Netflix, but are also considering adding HuluPlus. Hubby streams from his PS3 in his game room, and in the living room we stream via BlueRay. Hubby and I are trying to get details on unplugging without losing our ability to watch our favorite (cable) show. I've read numerous articles how people are doing this same thing but have not found a step-by-step instruction in what...

NEW YORK (AP) — Cable companies said Wednesday that they will offer Internet service for $9.95 per month to homes with children that are eligible for free school lunches. The offer will start next summer and is part of an initiative the Federal Communications Commission cobbled together to get more U.S. homes connected to broadband. One third, or about 35 million homes, don't have broadband. That affects people's ability to educate themselves and find and apply for jobs, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Cablevision, the cable operator servicing New York and the north-east US, reported a loss of pay-television customers but a gain in high-speed internet customers, mirroring Thursday’s results from competitor Time Warner Cable. Revenues were up 8 per cent from a year earlier at $1.67bn, but organic growth was nearly flat. Revenues from pay-television services were up despite a loss in subscribers in the past three months. Cablevision added new internet customers, generating revenues from the segment with the addition of a new broadband operator. “Broadband results, increasingly the cornerstone service for all cable operators,...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21, 2011 – In his signature baseball cap and wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off, the comedian known as Larry the Cable Guy gave a shout-out to the troops today while on location at the Pentagon to shoot an upcoming segment of his History Channel show, “Only in America.” Comedian Daniel Lawrence Whitney -- known as Larry the Cable Guy -- steps up to the podium in the press briefing room during a Pentagon tour for an upcoming segment of his History Channel show, “Only in America,” Oct. 21, 2011. DOD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo  (Click...

-The Internet has risen to its all-time high as a primary source of news for Americans with 43 percent now saying they get most of their news on national and international issues from the web, according to a survey published Thursday by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press.Meanwhile, television sits at an all-time low as a primary source of news for Americans with only 66 percent now saying they get most of their national and international news from TV--a nadir television also hit in December 2010. Since 1991, Pew has periodically asked Americans: “How do you...

Anyone experiencing outage on their Dish Network?

Right now, I have Verizon's DSL and Landline phone service. I have Comcast cable which alone is costing me over $90.00 a month! Verizon has a special (no contracts) for Fios which will include .. internet, phone and Television for $79.00 a month for one year! I have been without my cable for over a week now (comcast) due to Irene. My neighbors, who have Fios never lost their TV or internet. (I didn't lose my Verizon dsl or phone connection either.) I'm thinking of going to fios but not sure of the complications .. Inside of the house? Will...

Premium cable network Starz Entertainment will end its deal to provide movies to Netflix, a surprise decision that will deprive the popular online video service of its most valuable source of recently released movies. Analysts had said that if Starz were to renew its agreement, which expires in February 2012, it could have been worth as much as $300 million to John Malone's Liberty Media-owned network. However, executives at Starz apparently concluded that they would lose even more money by giving consumers a reason to subscribe to Netflix instead of the cable channel. "This decision is a result of our...

It’s no surprise that the use of DVRs is increasing as more and more people become used to time-shifting instead of watching television on the networks’ schedule. DVRs are compared to competitors so that customers can find the best fit for their lives. Now the New York Times is reporting something that may surprise many people: Your set-top boxes consume more energy in a year than your refrigerator. Initially you might assume that the main culprit is the hard drive spinning in the device, but according to the article, it only accounts for an additional 104 kilowatt-hours a year;...

Cable TV distribution continues to lose customers in the top 15 markets, with telco companies sharply rising and satellite TV companies seeing little change. There was a 3.8% decline in the first quarter of 2011 versus the same period in 2010 in the top 15 markets, slipping to 23.2 million customers, per SNL Kagan. New York City, the biggest TV market, dropped 3.4%; Los Angeles, at No. 2, sank 4%; and Chicago, the third-largest market, slipped 5.1%. The biggest declines in major markets were in Atlanta (eighth-biggest), losing 8%; Dallas (fifth place) gave up 7.7%. Seattle (13th place) lost the...

Ok, So we've got Time Warner Cable, no pay channels, and Road Runner High speed Internet. I'm sick of paying $140 a month!!! What are some good alternatives people are using? We need high speed Internet for business purposes. As for the TV, we like Fox News, ESPN, local channels, Disney, Nickolodean, A&E, HG, History, Discover, and YES. (Yankees). Does any such system exist at a more reasonable price? That you can use a DVR or like devise? I'm willing to entertain "just stream from a computer" or whatever it is as long as it's reasonably user friendly and the...

Keith Olbermann hints at Anthony Weiner talk show on Al Gore's networkBy Corbett B. Daly June 17, 2011 6:14 PM That was fast. Within hours after Anthony Weiner announced his resignation from Congress, former MSNBC gabber Keith Olbermann suggested he may hire the soon-to-be-former New York lawmaker for a talk show on former Vice President Al Gore's fledgling television network, Current TV. Olbermann, appearing on comedian Jimmy Fallon's late night television program Thursday night, was asked how long he thinks it would be before rival network CNN created a show for Weiner. "Well, you know, I've got a nine o'clock...

Ask Netflix about cord cutting, and it’ll tell you: “It’s not happening, it’s not anything we are causing, cable and Netflix are complementary.” Then take a look at the actions of service operators, cable networks, consumers and even Netflix itself, and you’re going to see a decidedly different picture: Cable and Netflix are competing for the same eyeballs, the same money and the same TV real estate, and the fight is getting tougher by the day. Not convinced yet? Then consider this evidence: Consumers are ready to jump ship. Netflix users that stream the company’s videos to connected devices are...

Take a look at this video of Olbermann waddling around Yankee Stadium over the weekend. What is he wearing?! Is that a duster or a lab coat or maybe a butcher's smock?When is the last time you saw one of those - other than the bad guys in Pale Rider? And what does he have underneath that ridiculous jacket? Did he steal 25 sweatshirts from the Yankee store and is trying to smuggle them out?

The weak economy is at least partially responsible for an ongoing video subscriber slide at Cablevision Systems (NYSE: CVC), COO Tom Rutledge said during an earnings conference call, adding that the MSO is still reeling after a retransmission dispute with News Corp.'s (Nasdaq: NWSA) Fox Networks that resulted in a blackout during last year's Major League Baseball playoffs. "Cablevision core system ... lost about 8400 video customers. Some of that was attributable to how we came into the year after the dispute that we had with News Corp. and the carriage and the World Series (but) we still continue to...