4 Whom The Bell Tolls

According to this Buffalo News report, we may soon lose channels 4 and 23 from our Time Warner Cable lineup.  It’s all about money, of course.  Time Warner doesn’t want to carry the channels, which are owned by LIN TV, because of a financial dispute.  From the looks of things, it appears as though we’re going to have to switch cable providers if the channels get dropped on Oct. 2, the date LIN’s contract ends with Time Warner.  That means, if you don’t have a satellite dish, an antenna or other alternate forms of cable service, you will lose out on all the big hits television programming on CBS and the CW.

It gets me mad to think that cable service is run by a monopolizing market as the one we have here, with one major cable provider in town and not a whole lot of options for payment or channel lineup choices.  I wish we could pay for cable channels a la carte, that way I could have exactly what I wanted, pay for exactly what I’ll use, and not have to thumb through dozens of channels that are either trying to sell me crappy Tina Knowles tiger-print belts and handbags (HSN, QVC, et al.), provide round-the-clock sports scores (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNMars, et al.), recite the Bible ad nauseam (Fox News), or alert me to the most important up-to-the-minute news that we, as Amrricans, must know right this second! (E! Entertainment Television).

I’ll be fine with my NBC, FOX, ABC, CNN, TLC, Bravo, VH1, A&E and Food Network.  The only thing I’d really miss if CBS went bye-bye would be my favorite television program EVER, CBS News Sunday Morning.  That show—I’m not kidding—is the best of the best.  Imagine watching the Sunday New York Times.  It’s wonderful.

Posted by on 09/16 at 10:52 AM