Cablevision drops Food Network, HGTV
Now, Christine the Curmudgeon does not have cable, and Cablevision isn’t a provider around here, nor is it any place where we go, stay in hotels, and see cable TV. Sturbridge, MA, has Charter, Manchester, NH has Comcast, and Portland, Maine, has Time Warner. Where we live, we can get either Comcast or Verizon FiOS. We opt not to have either. It’s a lot of money for what few channels we’d bother to watch.
That said, if I did have cable, and they dropped the Food Network and HGTV, as Cablevision did, I would be extremely pissed. Those would be among the few channels that either Mr. C or I would want to watch…if it’s gone, why pay the same amount of $$$ for less value?
Cable costs a lot of money, for what I feel is mostly crap. I don’t love the Food Network THAT much in order to pay just to get that and a few other decent cable channels. At hotels, I flip around the channels, there are over 100 channels on these systems, and there is barely anything to watch. Many channels seem to run more commercials than actual programming, I mean, how many ads about stuff like calling some company for an auto insurance quote can one person watch in a day? I often find myself watching PBS anyway, even with cable available. And that comes over the air for free (although it is nice to donate to them if you like them and have the money).
It seems that many people feel the same as I do about the material on cable these days, many only watch a handful of channels, and most people count Food Network as one of them. Hey, if they are willing to pay high cable fees to get this channel, that’s their right. But now it’s been taken away from all Cablevision subscribers…if I were one of them, I’d make it quite clear to them…bring back Food Network and HGTV, or I cancel. And I’d be prepared to go through with it. This is the only way it’s going to work. Don’t make idle threats and then not follow through, you will NEVER be taken seriously that way.
If Cablevision gets away with this, what’s to say that other providers won’t follow suit? But if Cablevision listens to their customers, and puts these channels back on their lineup, others will think long and hard about doing something similar. You need to hit them in the wallet, the only place that hurts them. Also, if they get away with this, what’s to stop them from taking some of your other favorite channels off the air? What will be next? Animal Planet? SyFy? Lifetime?
This kind of stuff makes me all the more glad I’m not paying out the wazoo for cable. I can’t miss it if I don’t have it, and I’m not paying, anyway.
