Charter ruffling feathers in Reno, NV / McDowell, NC
Why does it seem that Charter, out of all the cable carriers in the world, finds itself intertwined with so much mischief? The latest forehead-pounding episode is actually a two-fer, with gripes arising from Reno, Nevada and a rural section of North Carolina. In the Silver State, Charter is apparently looking to pull four public access channels to retrieve bandwidth for the launch of 12 new digital channels. The company's George Jostlin proclaims that the "majority of consumers are calling it on a daily basis and asking for more HD / digital programming," but the City of Reno has announced its intentions to sue the provider if an agreement can't be reached on the matter by next Wednesday. Across the country in McDowell County, NC, Charter is catching flack for wanting to strip Marion of its information channel (and combine it with the county's government channel) in order to add three HD stations. We like the intentions here, but seriously, you folks should work on the execution. [Thanks PopWeaverHDTV, image courtesy of TSLPL]
Read - Issues in Reno
Read - Stirring the pot in rural NC
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Anonymous @ Aug 17th 2008 10:20PM
Charter also caused some local anger in my area, (janesville, WI) because they are moving the local access channels to digital ones and nobody wants to have to purchase a digital box to receive them...
lawschoolbound @ Aug 17th 2008 10:56PM
Yet they will turn right around and claim that cable provides all the bandwidth you'll ever need and that there will never be a need for end to end fiber.
Joshua Johnston @ Aug 18th 2008 12:24AM
They're doing this down the road from Reno in Carson City, NV as well. I work for the local public access stations on and off, and let me tell you - from day one, Charter was screwing with public access. Used equipment, only allowing mono audio, and now bumping our two channels to the digital tier and compressing them even more than they were cutting the quality before. We managed to get a nice new broadcast system that I'm putting on line this week, and we can't even get friggin' stereo sound.
Charter's been pretty much kissing plenty of ass, but stabbing us in the back ever since the franchise agreement was railroaded through which really gave the city a real shafting. Badly worded, incredibly vague, and completely expected of a company like this.
The only thing I can do short of standing up in front of the city board of supervisors, which would be bad for the good people I work with, is cancel my service. And I did last week, letting the phone rep know that this was why.
Ken @ Aug 18th 2008 1:15AM
I live in Reno and sell home theater gear.
I'll keep it short and sweet - it is a miracle that Charter is still around. Nobody likes them...except for DISH and DirecTV because its not hard to convince people to ditch cable for Satellite.
Horrible company.
Jim Mallory @ Aug 18th 2008 7:27AM
Good luck with that Charter, Comcast tried it here in Michigan and so far it hasn't worked out so of course while Chicago got a dozen HD channels and Boston got nine. Detroit got Big Ten Network. On our system we have at least 15 PEG channels (all analog) and to think we could have got a lot of new HD channels if we could have moved the PEG channels to digital. Who do we have to blame for this?
The federal government for not properly educating the public that while basic analog cable might provide a few more years of analog service IT IS BY NO MEANS a permanent solution and THAT YOU SHOULD EXPECT that you will one day have to subscribe to digital cable services to continue to receive programming and in the meantime EXPECT to have less and less programming on the analog tier.
Cable operators (this is where Comcast screwed up in Michigan) should have been out educating the franchise boards that eventually (maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but eventually) they will be moving to all digital systems and channels that have limited interest (such as PEGs) would obviously be the first to move to digital. What Comcast did here (and what I assume Charter did) was just invoke their 30-day notification clause and caught everyone by surprise and no one likes surprises.
The mainstream media for not properly reporting the story. The Free Press here basically boiled the thing down to mean old Comcast making fixed income eldery people purcahse digital cable to receive community programming and that it was being done to provide more space for higher profit services such as HD (which is kind of ridiculous as the only HD charge with Comcast is either an HD STB or a Cablecard) and Voice/Data (well DUH! They are a business) When I wrote the Free Press and explained to them that there is much more going on here than what they reported and these kind of issues are going to come up with the transisition to digital television, they basically agreed but said most people didn't understand the digital conversion and you really can't write about things people don't understand. WTF? Isn't that what the media is supposed to do?!?!?! No wonder print is dying.
zargon @ Aug 18th 2008 8:32AM
I was sad to find out that I wasn't going to be able to have Comcast at the house we are moving too, I have been pleased with their HD service, especially since they seem to keep just adding them. I also like the fact that I can hook up multiple devices with out paying extra, that is of course as long as I didn't want digital.
The new house is covered by Charter and I have yet to read anything really good about them. I am not too keen on going with satellite, but it looks like that is what I will be forced to do. I do plan on getting internet through Charter as it seem to be the best and cheapest solution for what I want, I hope that doesn't came back to bite me in my ass. Though, with cable there are no contracts so I guess I can cancel at any time.
Pingmeister @ Aug 18th 2008 11:54AM
I am always glad to jump on the anti-Charter bandwagon. I suppose every little area they have is run by a different set of dingbats but I can assure you that the dingbats running the one in the Bay Area of California are dingbats like no others.
DirecTV should send them a Thank You card. We are now very happy with our DirecTV service.
TVGenius @ Aug 18th 2008 12:00PM
I work for a PEG channel (well, 2 technically) and we have a GREAT relationship with our local Time Warner guys. We do favors back and forth for them, and they're always willing to work out any signal issues with us to keep us looking as good as possible. They've helped us make the local commercial stations look bad, and we make sure to thank them in the credits for everything they do.
kastonie @ Aug 18th 2008 3:47PM
its so garbage that a cable company can pull 4 analog channels to make room for 12 digital channels, when they dont really have to pull those 4 analog channels in the first place. Also, when they compress 3 HD streams into the space where 1 analog channel was, the hd channels tend to look like monkey dick when you get some fast moving action. I have comcast here in houston texas, and for example, when the olympics are on and they pan the camera fast all i see is a blocky blur. It almost makes me want to just drop cable and go antenna only....
/rant
sorry