I live in a small town, with only one cable provider. When I moved here, I had to learn to live without what few shows I watched on UPN, because negotiations between the local UPN channel and the cable provider fell through. I didn’t miss much- Enterprise (no big loss) and Veronica Mars (huge loss!) were the two main shows I watched on UPN. I was a bit upset, but what can you do? I tried to watch that channel through the normal receiver, but my reception was pitiful. I just learned to live without it.
In just the last month, I’ve bought and watched both seasons of Veronica Mars. Damn, what a good show. Now I know what I was missing.
The WB network and UPN have just merged. The WB channel has gone silent in my cable lineup. And, according the cable company’s website, they’re still negotiating with the local UPN channel… because now there’s no local WB channel, and the UPN channel is going to be broadcasting the combined UPN and WB networks (The CW, whatever the hell that stands for). All of my favorite WB shows, and Veronica Mars (on UPN), start up their new seasons this week.
In other words, now that WB and UPN have merged, I’m not only going to miss Veronica Mars, I’ll also be missing my fave WB shows like Smallville and [ISupernatural*. Dammit.
So I don’t know who to pit (whom?). Do I pit the cable company, for wanting to get the station for too cheap? Or do I pit the UPN (CW) channel, for wanting too much money?
Well, not like I want to be too terribly helpful here, but if you used DirecTV or DishNetwork, you could have it, and probably at a lower price than cable.
Same damn thing’s happening here. I’m really pissed about the stuff on the old WB I like that I’m missing because of Mediacom. Lot of people are complaining to Mediacom about this. I’m starting to like the idea of a dish more and more. :mad:
Actually, it wouldn’t do us any good here. There’s no satellite rebroadcasting of the local channels here, since theoretically we can receive them over the aerial (although, realistically, we can’t). That why, when I moved here, I went with cable over satellite- I much prefer satellite but only if I can get the local channels.
Every now and then I go to the satellite provider’s websites to see if we’re allowed to get local channels… but I don’t think it’s ever going to happen, since this is a relatively low-population area.
You know, that is weird. I get local channels by dish now, which I could get by antenna. I don’t know when it changed, but many moons ago, they told me that it was illegal or something. Are these pissy little local laws, or how do they decide who gets a local channel feed and who doesn’t? Not only can I have L.A. channels by dish, but I can have their east coast equivalents in addition to that so I can watch something three hours earlier if’n I want.
I will nevah give up my dish. You can pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I thought that rule went away a few years ago. I recently got Dish network and it was never an issue. In fact they make a point in saying you can get local programing and we do. Maybe it’s a regional thing. I’m close enough to either Philly or NY to get a signal if I had an antenna (does anyone still have those things?).
As of 10 months ago, DirecTV couldn’t provide me with local channels. Now, as much as I like New York and California, the weather reports from either coast didn’t do me a whole helluva lot of good here in the Midwest.
Otherwise, I was pretty happy with DirecTV.
To the OP; the network blames the cable carrier and vice versa until you just want to gun down the whole lot of them, I know from experience. IMHO you made the right decision to pit them both.
That’s odd. We were able to get them, even though I can receive them over the air OK. However, we did have to upgrade from a round dish to an oval dish. It picks up three satellites.
Every know and then a feed from a local channel will not be available on Directv, but it will be available on the air. I wonder if the local channels in your area provide a feed to Directv to send to you.
As helpful as this… isn’t, really… first episode of VM is on msn.com’s video stuff. It’s legal and official and all that, so if you have trouble finding it I can link you to it?
Meanwhile, it really does suck. I’ve been in your place before.