Open Letter to DirecTV and Comcast re: Versus Network
Dear media giants,
Do you have any idea how tired people are of your putting them last when it comes to your petty beefs? Seriously, in a time when the economy is literally killing some people and when more and more consumers are turning to the Internet for entertainment they once got elsewhere two companies that make billions arguing over a few bucks seems, well, just wrong.
What I am referring to here is the decision by DirecTV to drop the Comcast owned Versus network from its lineup just as the NHL season is about to start. Versus has been the regular season home of the NHL ever since ESPN decided not to renew its contract with the league. In addition to professional hockey Versus carried some college football, a lot of ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts, some golf and a bunch of other stuff I do not watch. To be honest I probably wouldn't even be writing this if I were not a hockey fan because very little of what Versus offers is something I would watch. But a lot of people do watch the other Versus programming and this really effects a lot of people.
So, in a dispute over "carriage" between DirecTV and Comcast the satellite company decided to engage in a game of chicken with the cable and media giant over Versus calling Comcast's demands for the station unreasonable and threatening to pull it off the air at the end of its current contract which ended August 31. Comcast apparently did not budge since as of the start of September Versus has been a blank screen on DirecTV.
I have no sympathy for either of these companies, both of them have been bad neighbors in my eyes for some time. These kinds of disagreements have been popping up between the two companies for some time. The Oakland A's recently changed from being on Comcast Sports Bay Area (local to the San Francisco Bay Area) to Comcast Sportsnet California (based in Sacramento). The switch nearly kept the A's from being broadcast locally on DirecTV because Comcast had no agreement with DirecTV for CSNC. Last minute deals kept the A's on local TV over sattelite. This situation has popped up all over the country and played itself out pretty dramatically especially in Philadelphia where Comcast not only has sports networks, but owns several franchises including the NHL Philadelphia Flyers.
Comcast, you people seriously need to take a look at yourselves from your customers perspective. You are a company that measures both sales and profits in the billions (yes, with a B, BILLIONS). Last year you reported $1.7 Billion in profits on $17 Billion in sales (and, yeah, the capitals in the figures are for emphasis). You have been serving the city I live in (San Jose, CA) for nearly 10 years and you have raised your rates every year. And it's not just the higher rates that pisses people like myself off, it's the constant rearranging of channels placing more frequently watched cable channels into higher and higher tiers, forcing people to pay even more for those channels creating a de facto price hike even when rates do not change.
The reason for rate hikes is constantly increasing costs, which as a small businessman I get, but you have raised rates disproportionately on the lower tier and basic levels of service, making people who cannot afford top tier channels and services subsidize customers who can.
And for all these price increases you have delivered a picture quality that is mediocre at best (really mediocre on some of the HD channels where this kind of thing is really noticed) a sub-par DVR and spotty Internet service. This is why I left Comcast for DirecTV years ago.
So, if you're feeling smug about yourself DirecTV, well, get over yourselves because you are only marginally better. While the value of your product is higher in regards to getting what you pay for, overall your company has done things to me in the years that I have been a customer that really pissed me off, like turning my HD Tivo unit into a paper weight and basically telling me that the HD service that I was paying for would go away without a load of equipment upgrades.
Then, you take this same HD service and compress the picture quality to the point where it is noticeable, so we are paying for more expensive equipment to deliver lower quality products. All this was done in the name of adding bandwidth and space to your lineup for more channels, in particular HD channels, but there has been no significant addition to your line-up for some time. You do, however, seem to have enough band width on your satellite to use multiple channels to bombard people with propaganda about the unfairness of states seeking to pass taxes on Satellite TV.
So, seriously, a pox on both of your houses, you two are so busy posturing and arguing over your money that you have forgotten about your customers. One day the computer and the TV will merge and put you both out of business.
Do you have any idea how tired people are of your putting them last when it comes to your petty beefs? Seriously, in a time when the economy is literally killing some people and when more and more consumers are turning to the Internet for entertainment they once got elsewhere two companies that make billions arguing over a few bucks seems, well, just wrong.
What I am referring to here is the decision by DirecTV to drop the Comcast owned Versus network from its lineup just as the NHL season is about to start. Versus has been the regular season home of the NHL ever since ESPN decided not to renew its contract with the league. In addition to professional hockey Versus carried some college football, a lot of ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts, some golf and a bunch of other stuff I do not watch. To be honest I probably wouldn't even be writing this if I were not a hockey fan because very little of what Versus offers is something I would watch. But a lot of people do watch the other Versus programming and this really effects a lot of people.
So, in a dispute over "carriage" between DirecTV and Comcast the satellite company decided to engage in a game of chicken with the cable and media giant over Versus calling Comcast's demands for the station unreasonable and threatening to pull it off the air at the end of its current contract which ended August 31. Comcast apparently did not budge since as of the start of September Versus has been a blank screen on DirecTV.
I have no sympathy for either of these companies, both of them have been bad neighbors in my eyes for some time. These kinds of disagreements have been popping up between the two companies for some time. The Oakland A's recently changed from being on Comcast Sports Bay Area (local to the San Francisco Bay Area) to Comcast Sportsnet California (based in Sacramento). The switch nearly kept the A's from being broadcast locally on DirecTV because Comcast had no agreement with DirecTV for CSNC. Last minute deals kept the A's on local TV over sattelite. This situation has popped up all over the country and played itself out pretty dramatically especially in Philadelphia where Comcast not only has sports networks, but owns several franchises including the NHL Philadelphia Flyers.
Comcast, you people seriously need to take a look at yourselves from your customers perspective. You are a company that measures both sales and profits in the billions (yes, with a B, BILLIONS). Last year you reported $1.7 Billion in profits on $17 Billion in sales (and, yeah, the capitals in the figures are for emphasis). You have been serving the city I live in (San Jose, CA) for nearly 10 years and you have raised your rates every year. And it's not just the higher rates that pisses people like myself off, it's the constant rearranging of channels placing more frequently watched cable channels into higher and higher tiers, forcing people to pay even more for those channels creating a de facto price hike even when rates do not change.
The reason for rate hikes is constantly increasing costs, which as a small businessman I get, but you have raised rates disproportionately on the lower tier and basic levels of service, making people who cannot afford top tier channels and services subsidize customers who can.
And for all these price increases you have delivered a picture quality that is mediocre at best (really mediocre on some of the HD channels where this kind of thing is really noticed) a sub-par DVR and spotty Internet service. This is why I left Comcast for DirecTV years ago.
So, if you're feeling smug about yourself DirecTV, well, get over yourselves because you are only marginally better. While the value of your product is higher in regards to getting what you pay for, overall your company has done things to me in the years that I have been a customer that really pissed me off, like turning my HD Tivo unit into a paper weight and basically telling me that the HD service that I was paying for would go away without a load of equipment upgrades.
Then, you take this same HD service and compress the picture quality to the point where it is noticeable, so we are paying for more expensive equipment to deliver lower quality products. All this was done in the name of adding bandwidth and space to your lineup for more channels, in particular HD channels, but there has been no significant addition to your line-up for some time. You do, however, seem to have enough band width on your satellite to use multiple channels to bombard people with propaganda about the unfairness of states seeking to pass taxes on Satellite TV.
So, seriously, a pox on both of your houses, you two are so busy posturing and arguing over your money that you have forgotten about your customers. One day the computer and the TV will merge and put you both out of business.
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