Tag Archive for: TV

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KMOV and Charter Communications

There is a battle going on in St. Louis between the local CBS affiliate, KMOV, and a cable television provider Charter Communications. Normally, wherever there is Charter-bashing I am there. This time, I have to agree with Charter.

Here is the situation. KMOV has been in negotiations for 2 years on making Charter pay to carry its signal. Now their contract is up and Charter is going to stop carrying them on January 1st. KMOV tries to make their argument on their website. One of their main arguments, what they say isn’t right is this:

What they don’t tell you is they have been taking local programming for free and then charging you. Charter pays practically all cable networks for their signals, networks that are far less popular. But they don’t want to pay for local channels. That’s not right, it’s not fair and Charter knows it.

Here is the thing, and they said it right in that passage, Charter pays for cable networks. Those cable networks were created to fill a niche, and if you wanted to watch them, you had to pay for them. They pay for TBS, TNT, AMC, but not local affiliates, nor should they. The airwaves were given to the networks and in exchange they have certain duties to fulfill (airing local programming, public interest pieces, covering politics). Why should Charter have to pay for something that is available freely over the air with a pair of rabbit ears? People aren’t paying for Charter to watch local programming (well, some people who aren’t in signal range do, but that’s the very, very slim minority and they still receive more channels than the local channels). People pay Charter for those other channels. I think it’s ridiculous for KMOV to make Charter pay for programming that is supposed to be free to the people. KMOV is supposed to be acting in the interest of the public. How is making people pay (which is essentially what they are doing) in the interest of the public? Congress should have never given the airwaves to money-grubbing corporations. They belong to the people.

KMOV also states how Charter is paying for local affiliates in other cities, which I still don’t agree with, but if that’s the only reason they have, then I feel no reason to take their side. I don’t like defending Charter, especially since this will no doubt be a reason for them to increase cable fees, but they are right in this one. While I will be mad that the couple CBS shows I watch on KMOV won’t be available until it’s worked out, I think they have to do what they have to do. No one should have to pay for local affiliates. No matter what.

No matter if you agree or disagree with me, I do encourage you to make your voice heard to both Charter and KMOV.

Charter Communications offices: 314-965-0555
Charter Customer Service: 1-888-GET CHARTER (1-888-438-2427)
Charter E-mail:[email protected]

KMOV Contact Form

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Local TV Affiliates

One thing I hate about my local CBS affiliate, KMOV, is that about once a month they replace normal prime time programming with their own programming. I can understand doing this during the summer when everything is in reruns, but when they do it when new programming is airing it bugs me. The only time slot I notice the change is on Mondays at 7:00pm. This is the time slot of The Big Bang Theory, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite television shows. Most of the time they replace it with a local cooking show sponsored by one of the big grocery store chains in the St. Louis area. You know what, if I wanted to watch a cooking show, I’d tune into the Food Network. Broadcast the show you are supposed to in that time slot, and don’t move it to 2:30 in the morning. If you want to show that programming so bad, show THAT at 2:30 in the morning. I’ll bet you they’ll have just as many viewers: 3. So please, local affiliates, if the network has new programming on the schedule, air that programming! No one wants to watch crappy local TV specials. We want our regularly scheduled programming.

Total Geekery: Saved by the Bell Comic Book

sbtbI’m going to geek out hardcore right now.  I just found out that there was a Saved by the Bell comic book published in the 1990’s.  There weren’t many published in the series, but enough to make this SBTB geek want them.  The stories are probably more lame than the stories of the TV show (which I still contend are not lame at all and can help save the world).  The drawing looks very Archie-ish.  Look, they even drew Slater’s mullet.  There are two issues that feature a photo of the SBTB cast instead of a drawing.  One is a special collector’s #1 issue, the other is a special Christmas issue.  The photos on the covers of both are essentially the same and from what I’ve read on the internet, the stories in both comics are the same.

Besides those two issues, it looks like there are 5 additional issues of the hand drawn cover variety.  I can’t seem to figure out which were published first, but I would guess the ones with the real cast on the cover were published first to get people interested and then they switched to the illustrated covers.  It must not have sold well if only a total of 7 issues were made.  Then again, it looks like these were published near the end of the SBTB series so the popularity of the comic book could have died out when the series went off the air.

Yes, I am a huge geek for wanting these.  The only thing I can say is I love SBTB.  It was a fantastic show.  You can find a few of the issues online at various online comic shops and ebay and they are cheap.  I guess they are not a huge collector’s item for the comic geeks out there.  That’s a shame, they don’t know what they are missing.  Anything SBTB related is pure gold.

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More Reasons Why Charter Sucks

I’ve written before about my experiences with Charter. It hasn’t gotten any better. Recently we were having problems with our Charter Cable. We called and were able to get an appointment for someone to come out about 4 days later, which is actually quite amazing as Charter is known for making appointments a month out. The problem we were having is the cable box was losing the digital signal about every 5 minutes and cause the screen to go black and digitize for a few seconds. The cable guy came out, did his tests, and concluded the signal was too strong. Now, I’m not a technician, but this makes no sense to me because the problem was not happening anywhere else in the house and the two other boxes (one that was identical to the problem box) were fine. Well, he puts some splitter thing that lowers the signal on to the cable and then puts the old box back in says that should fix it. Surprise, it didn’t, but it didn’t happen again until after he left. We call Charter back and they wouldn’t send someone back out the same day when their first technician didn’t fix the problem to begin with. The next day they can have someone come out is the following Wednesday. This is 8 days without being able to watch anything on that TV because the box is bad.

I was off for a few days last week so I decided to head to the Charter office to exchange boxes myself, still keeping the Wednesday appointment in case the box switch didn’t work. So, now I’m driving out of my way to fix a problem with their equipment myself. Awesome. I get to the office and there is quite a line. Most of the people in front of me are there to complain about billing. The lady that was working was extremely rude to the customers with billing questions. She even told one guy that the previous Charter employee he talked to lied to him! Wow. Nice way to salvage the reputation of your failing company, tell customers that the employees lie to customers. I don’t believe the previous Charter person did lie, because it was about a package that I had seen advertised quite often, yet the lady in the office refused to believe the price and called the customer and other employees liars. I really can’t believe this company. Finally, it’s my turn in line and the lady is just as rude to me as the other customers. I get my box and take it home.

I hook it up and follow the directions on the sheet they gave me to reset the box so it knows what channels to get. I got 3 channels. I call Charter. They send a signal to reset. I still get 3 channels. 2 hours later I call back, the lady sends a signal and tells me I will have to wait until my Wednesday appointment. I tell them this is unacceptable because after going to replace their equipment because they didn’t send one on the technician’s truck before, I deserve someone out that day. She says they can have someone out the next day. I ask to talk to her supervisor so she puts me on hold. She comes back about 10 minutes later and asks for some information, like where the box is, the serial number on the box, etc. She finds out, by asking this, that the new box wasn’t put into the system under our account. So, dubmass bitchy lady at the office didn’t even do her job right. Then again, neither did the first Charter person I talked to. You’d think that would be a standard question they would ask to make sure the equipment is in the system, especially if it’s obvious you’re not getting a signal to your box.

Charter is a completely useless company. Rumor has it they will be filing for bankruptcy soon. As if that’s hard to believe.

The Magic is Lost

When I was growing up there seemed to be magic specials on TV all the time. I would say every couple months there would be some sort of magic show on television. Sometimes it was a solo performer, such as David Copperfield, and sometimes it was a group effort, such as Worlds Greatest Magic. I wonder whatever happened to magic shows. Every few years David Blane comes out with a special, but he seems to be the only one. Chris Angel has the show Mind Freak, but that’s not the traditional magic that grasped my attention as a kid. You didn’t need tricks with a lot of blood and gore when I was growing up. It can’t be that there isn’t a market for magic specials. Ask a kid if they want to see a magic trick and they will get excited and shout YES!. They will be glued to the TV just as I was when I was growing up. Is the lack of specials because of network’s catering the the bread and butter of marketing demographics, the teen and 20’s crowd? That may be it, after all, a kid can’t go out and buy a 6 pack of Budweiser American Ale or buy a Ford truck. It’s kind of sad that prime time TV has become what it has. Where has all the magic gone?