Somara and I ditched Dish years ago after our second run with them. Compared to what jerks TWC had been to us in the last apartment, it was a bummer but not after paying what I considered a ridiculous amount which was guaranteed to go up every year. To add insult to injury, we had to subscribe to the 250-channel package due to a couple networks we really wanted, namely with how the NHL is screwing its fans a la MLB and NFL on which games were suddenly moved to NBC. Then came the kajillion commercials. The TV industry is so addicted to advertising like a junkie. With a 30-minute show (Futurama‘s last season for example) now dwindled to a mere 19 minutes, this is the stage of when the “fix” has diminishing returns yet the addict can’t kick it. My complaint here is this, if ads offset the cost of the original programming then why am I paying this much?
A major reason we’ve known for years is mainly ESPN and its offshoots (ESPN 2, ESPN News, ESPN Classic, ESPN College and I think it has a couple other bastards). ESPN isn’t alone, the Fox Sports stuff if equally guilty. This is sad, it’s as if Cable is the high school of media with the dumb-ass jocks taking the lion’s share of the student fees.
Anyway, there’s been a movement amongst many (myself included) that has said, I won’t go back to cable until I can decide which channels I get. Why not! Back in the heyday we only watched about a dozen regularly: Food, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, NickToons, Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, NHL Center Ice, TCM (got into it near the end), Science, Discovery and VH1 Classic until they introduced commercials and fewer videos. I’m glad we ended things before TLC, History and other “educational” stations became havens for Redneck Reality. This little selection wasn’t worth $70/month. Besides our DVD collection was getting to become substantial and until we were told about Netflix streaming, this was going to be our exclusive solution.
Back to the movement. Someone at Variety has done an unscientific poll on what people would keep if given a choice. Rather odd many are willing pay for the old-guard broadcast networks which are technically “free.” I’m bummed the Cartoon Network didn’t make it into the top 20 but it placed ahead of Nickelodeon whose content has been pretty weak outside of Spongebob. The relief is that ESPN placed pretty low which means the majority of people are likely to exclude the non-stop sports jibber jabber and coverage of “events” no one in America gives a shit about: soccer, college baseball, golf and rednecks driving in an oval/ellipse for two hours. HBO and Showtime got the hint with their online offerings, I think the providers need to wise up if they plan to be viable. Net Neutrality has a good chance of surviving the lawsuits and major cities should take over the lines to force them into delivering content/customer service.
There’s the counter argument, your favorite (boring) channels are subsidized by others’ bills for their boring channels too. Without this ecosystem, networks like SyFy will collapse. Firstly, SyFy changed its name from SciFi to cover why it showed crap that wasn’t Science Fiction (wrasslin’, psychics, ghost hunting) at all. Right after MTV, it needs to die. Additional speciality networks could evaporate. Again, roll the dice. The decision makers with any brains will adapt to attract an audience; see AMC, HBO and TBS. I would love to have a channel dedicated to Science Fiction but I’m also realistic; it’s a genre filled with crap (Manimal, Misfits of Science, Battlestar Galactica the original version, Buck Rogers, so on). A viable SciFi Channel should widen its scope to incorporate the genres its fan base will embrace: Horror, Superheroes/Comics, Fantasy, Anime, Games, Spy Stuff, real Science and Technology. A Nerd Superchannel for lack of a better term. It would bring back the days when I was a kid and how the non-network channels (KPLR, WGN, WTBS, WFLD) were more exciting since they were a variety of things besides reruns.
Oh well, I’m good with Netflix despite some gaping holes in its content. Their original stuff has been pretty impressive.