Charlotte, NC - Charter - Page 12

Read the following: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post14737849

Also, from Wayne Estabrooks at UNC-TV via e-mail inquiry I made earlier in the month:


Also UNC-TV's DTV Blog about this change: http://unc-tv-dtv.blogspot.com/2008/...t-regular.html

Oh! Okay. Thanks a lot for the info and links. Still, I'm going to miss the programming on UNCTV-ED.

-Johnny

The Q&A with Charter CTO Marwan Fawaz: http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6600464.html

Revised to remove the commentary article posted earlier within this space this morning.

CharterJames, are you guys still planning a full digital move for the channels at the end of this year?

james or anybody else with supreme knowledge of this subject here's a question...with the move to digital in feb....will those of us that have signal issues be helped out? I believe digital uses less bandwidth than analog right?

To answer on the digital transition -

1) so far from what I'm seeing we'll retain analog transmission for 3 more years, this is part of an obligation we made with many other MSOs to keep people from panicing over having to get digital tuners. - though customers may notice that more channels migrate to full digital and require and may require the use of a cable card or a box.

2) From what I'm seeing it appears we are taking digital feeds from the locals and downconverting them (I had been told at one point we were going to do ADS, but apparently for now that is not the plan)


It's going to be a bumpy road between now and Feb 19. there's bound to be a bit of chaos for the next few years - but unless someone forces a consession out of the MSOs to keep analog on the wire, we should see full digital in the next three years (and hopefully ADS well before then!)

So my wife wanted NHL ticket as her Xmas present this year and called and got it last week. Found out one issue tho, you still do not get the NHL Network with the Center Ice package.

What tier package will get you the NHL Network? Hopefully it's on the sports as I have the family right now and could switch over to it....Thought we would get all the games like the commercial said when we signed up.

Thanks!

NHL Channel is part of the sports tier - so your good there if you've got that one.

The NHL Center ice plays all out of market games - which around here should be everything except for the Hurricanes

Hey CharterJames,

Do you have any idea what the Avery system is doing with the HD channel for WUNC? Back when WUNC went full-time and dropped the WUNC-ED channel, Avery was playing around with putting the HD channel on in its place. I noticed they never could really get it going, and the next thing I saw was that they now have the WUNC-KD (Kids) channel on in its place. This is strange because they already had the kids channel on. Right now, WUNC-KD is on channels 83-3 and 83-4. WUNC-NC is on 83-5. The regular WUNC channel (WUNE) is on channel 13, as it has been for years.

Know anything about this?

Thanks,
Johnny

It looks like the price increases for cable are starting to filter across Charter's footprint once again (currently slated for the systems in Wisconsin). Also, it appears that the packages being offered are going under another restructuring. Take a look: http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/312192 . If this holds true in our area(s) when Q1 2009 rolls around, this would appear to be one of the smallest increases we've had to endure in a while.

There was a QAM change in our system, the second QAM for WUNC-KD should be gone now

I've not got to check it out today, but as of last night (Monday the 3rd) WUNC-KD was still on two QAM channels 83-3 and 83-4. Maybe word is slow to travel up the mountain to Boone.

Johnny

I guess when CharterJames talks, people listen! I noticed this afternoon that sure enough, the extra Kids station was *GONE* from our QAM channels. You must have put out the word James. Thanks. Now, the only problem is that it IS *gone*. What happened to having WUNC-HD on this system?

Johnny

I'm not sure if the QAM was moved out range for Avery or not, I'll have to check - I know there was a bit of a shake up when they made the changes to put WUNC HD to 24-7.

I'm hoping we'll be getting Avery up to speed soon, I would think the Digital Transition would be a great motivator in this... (course I've been wrong before!)

It's always 'bout the money...
Sounds like the same situation with Braves and Baltimore on MLB coverage...

Networks are locking up rights and holding the content for ransom

Honestly I don't think a-la-carte would fly... too many channels don't get that many viewers, right now alot of them only exist as "me-too" channels

For example I'm sure 90% of our customers in these markets would not take "Logo" if it wasn't included in a package with Showtime and the Encores - with only 10% or less wanting it, it wouldn't be worth carrying and probably would fall off the map. Same with ethnic programming and to a degree even sports...

That and it won't attack the *real* problem - cable and dish are expensive because you are paying for 2 things

1) Access to and the Maintenance of our content delivery systems
2) Content

Like any retail transation there is mark up so that a profit can be made and our equipment etc can be upgraded. the driving costs that increase cable the most are the price of content.

If this isn't regulated or controlled, then even a-la-carte will get bad, you'll just be spending $15 for Espn and $15 for Fox Sports then $5 for Abc, $5 for NBC, $5 for CBS, $5 for Fox, $5 for WB...

If you're lucky they'll package by provider (so subscribing to Fox sports gives you all the fox sports channels) but under that model you're already paying $55 for just your core major networks and the major sports channels... that's a whole lot of channels less than expanded basic -

yes, it's possible this might not be the case, but honestly, I don't see a-la-carte being cheaper... I see it as content providers having free licsence to charge as much as they can get away with...

Sure, it will now mean that you have the choice of what networks are on your system, but it will also mean that unless those networks appeal to a HUGE base, it's less likely to fly.

Who knows, maybe I'm more pessimistic... in a perfect a-la-carte world, cable providers wouldn't pay for the content, they'd simply make the network availible to the content providers (like the internet) and then you'd simply pay a network access fee.

maybe with the rise of IP tv we'll find ourselves in that bucket soon...

While watching WCNC last night for the Panthers/Giants game, I saw announcements about it going away on Charter at the end of the month, unless (presumably) the two can come to an agreement about carriage before then. Does anybody have any inside info about that?

(I'm OTA only, so I'm just sitting in the peanut gallery watching the fight. )

I am moving to the Hickory area and would like to know what boxes are available? My friend has a "Moxi" HD DVR box that has no HDMI and I'd like to get something more up to date. And does anyone understand or know why NBC-HD is not available on Charter?

I saw the same thing and find it difficult to believe a major cable company like Charter doesn't carry NBC in HD and now may lose NBC entirely. And I thought TWC in Charlotte a number of years ago was behind times.

some kind of legal battle pissing contest with the corp that owns the nbc affiliate in charlotte I believe...so lame. thank god for ota.

To quell the discussion re:WCNC and Charter, they reached a tentative agreement on Saturday and WCNC will remain on Charter at the turn of the new year. (Source: http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/....11c8a359.html ).

Carriage agreement was reached - the main reason for the issue was largely due to Bello wanting more $$$ for coverage and forcing us to negotiate a collective contract for all our markets that carry Bello owned channels (Hickory, St. Louis, New Orleans)

I'm hoping this means we'll have HD back soon as well, but I've gotten no verification on that.


Speaking for pissing matches, apparently Viacom and TW are at it again - those two hit the news this morning.

Funny thing is, when they put their PR out, they say "amazing how cable companies are bulking at pennies per day"... what they don't say is that it's $0.02 to $0.05 per day, PER subscriber - reguardless of if they actually receive the channel or not. So we are talking MILLIONS per year - hardly pennies per day. and much of the recent bickering is that networks are now charging us more, yet pushing much of this content for free by either OTA, Internet or both.

yet these are the same media companies who cry that we don't want to pay for their content - yet they don't want to pay the actors or writers either (SAG strike, last year's strike etc etc)

it's all a big pissing match really... everyone wants more $$$ but no one wants to pay out more $$$.

Customers don't want to pay more to Cable and Dish, Cable and Dish don't want to pay more to Distributors and production groups, Production and Distribution doesn't want to pay more to Actors and Writers.


FYI -
It's finally happened, I've been re-assigned completely out of tech ops. As such I've got alot less access to some of the tricks I used to be able to do etc. I'll try to keep an eye out and post interesting news here from time to time

Well that just bites for your customers here. At least you'll still be there.

Any word on WCNC-HD?

Yah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!