What's My Beef!

Who would have known 25 years ago in December 1976 that Ted had just started a cable television revolution way down the road.

HBO had already signed on the year before as a pay service, showing movies, boxing, and George Carlin saying his seven dirty words that you cannot say on television. After Turner put WTBS on the bird, more satellite stations started to launch with CSPAN, CBN, Nickelodeon, Showtime, USA, MSG, and a few others coming aboard.

The 80's was a year many cable systems expanded their cable channel capacity on their wire, up to 36 on most systems. As more channel space was being added, more new channels started to crop up such as MTV, CNN, Headline News, TNT, Nashville Network, Lifetime, Cinemax, Prime Ticket, ESPN, Disney, Discovery, Learning, Weather, Home Shopping, VH1, BET, Arts and Entertainment, Bravo, and many others. Some like ARTS and Daytime merged with other channels, others like Cable Music Channel, Spotlight, Satellite Programming Network, and others fell by the wayside as popular channels were snapping up slots while the rest couldn't get on enough systems to survive.

That was the good old days when there was an incentive for a cable network to either put on something that people would like to watch, or simply either change formats or lose shelf space on the cable system and go out of business. Back in the early 80's, there was no Dish Network, but a big satellite dish that took up a lot of space, but could pick the channels all up for free, back before they began to scramble the channels to protect the cable system affilliates.

In the late 80's, Dish Network, USSB, DirecTV, and whatever else started putting up birds in space and launching their own digital satellite services on mini dishes that were far more convieient for the home user and a better alternative than buying a dish as big as a swimming pool. Also, cable systems such as Cox Communications were beginning to replace their copper cable with fiber optics, that would also pave the way for them to also offer two-way cable modem and telephone service, plus digital cable by the end of the 90's.

When the mini dish networks and upgraded cable systems began to activate their higher-capacity systems, a flood of new cable channels began to take up space. The problem? Most of them are spinoffs of existing well-known cable channels. There are sequels of ESPN, CNN, HBO, Showtime, Discovery Channel, Disney, MTV, etc. There are also far less independent cable programmers than ever with mergers taking place over the past 10 years. Even cable king Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting has been swallowed up entirely by Time Warner, which got merged in with the upstart AOL last year.

With so many big guys ruling the cable systems, there's no chance for any new upstart cable programmers to launch their own networks with original ideas such as Cable Furniture Network or Electronica Music Central.

With so many channels that come with the cable packages, you can't help it but to take stock in what channels you have at your convieience are you actually watching week to week. Surely, more than 90 percent of the channel space is going unwatched. There is no way in hell any one person can watch everything that's coming to them on their wires, yet we're paying for channels we're not watching.

That's right. Through cable carriage fees imposed by the programmers (i.e.: USA, ESPN, etc.), you're throwing away as much as 50 percent of your fees on channels you are NOT watching. OK. I admit it. I personally would get by without so many channels I never cared to watch in the first place.

Here's what I'd do...

First, the government should set a limit of how many cable channels any cable programmer can put on any particular cable system or satellite service. There is no reason to Clear Channelize the limited capacities by putting on low-interest channels nobody cares that much about. Why does HBO keep launching spinoff channels? Do we really need 27 or so pay networks from AOL Time Warner alone? What's next? HBO Movies That Begin With "B" Channel? Geez! This is ridiculous!

As for Discovery Channel...why almost a dozen networks? Why not fold in all back into one channel. Same for HBO. There's no reason for HBO3 or HBO67.

Second, since addresibility is a given in most cable converters offered by the cable companies that can descramble channels (addressability) you wish to pay for, why don't the VCR and TV makers incorporate the technology in their sets? When these addressable TVs and VCRs become a reality, Cox and the other cable companies could allow their subscribers to pluck off the cable channels they're not watching and don't wish to pay a programming fee for.

Don't like sports? Off goes ESPN's three channels and Fox Sports Network.

Don't care for home and food? Off goes HGTV, Food, Discovery Health, Outdoor Life.

Don't like education? Off goes Travel, Learning, Discovery.

Hate music videos? Off goes all the MTV channels, VH1, CMT, and BET.

Don't care for talk shows? Off goes CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, HN, Fox News, E!.

Don't care for women's stuff? Get rid of Lifetime, Oxygen, We, and all the shopping channels!

Your cable bill will drop so much then that you could buy a meal for two days, or get a pay channel. Furthermore, the frustrated unpopular cable channels would have to win back the cable viewers by either coming up with stuff the viewers will pay for, go free (no fees), or fold and shut down their network. It's the American way. Subsidizing low-rated channels if you don't care about them is not the American way.

Let's stop the waste and get some balls rolling in Congress and make them address this issue of consumer waste in cable programming they don't care about anyway. Let's go back to the good old days when cable systems embraced broadcast television instead of channels from space and repeal the syndicated exclusitivity rule that all but destroyed the broadcast stations as well as getting rid of the pay-for-carriage rule; the rules not only resulted in distant channels being dropped, but spaces that were formerly occupied by distant channels are occupied by more popular cable networks that are siphoning away the shares of free broadcast television. That isn't fair.

TV should be free in the first place. I'd go even further and order all stations and networks to descramble their channels so that everybody can pick them up. People have dishes that are useless subscribing to one of the confusing plans. Put the cable channels on even par with the broadcasters. Digital satellite is the future. Get rid of territorial restrictions and have the local stations compete with each other for viewers. Let the market decide how the local stations program their skeds. Let the local stations and cable networks merge with each other, forming regional networks. Reduce redunancy. Free up valuable bandwidth to new independent cable programmers. Reduce the broadcast affilliates into local public stations and put the network (ABC, FOX, etc.) on separate local channels, take up one slot on a satellite bird, and on cable systems and take charge of their programming.

If HBO wants to survive, add commercials! People can rent the movies on DVD and see no ads nowadays. Too embarrassed about the content? Restrict it to late night. Not enough viewers? Don't ask for a handout; cancel yourself! Want viewers back? Improve and market yourself!

Back in 1971, we had 12 channels on a cable system, and a few channels that you could pick up on your antenna that were not carried locally. Here's what Mission Cable looked like then...

2. KNXT 2 (CBS) Los Angeles
2. Mission Cable 2 (IND) El Cajon
3. KCST 39 (IND) San Diego
  (before KCST signed on at 7am, I used to hear the audio of KEYT 3 out of Santa Barbara
   while 39 was off the air)
4. KNBC 4 (NBC) Los Angeles
5. KTLA 5 (IND) Los Angeles
6. XETV 6 (ABC) Tijuana-San Diego
7. KABC 7 (ABC) Los Angeles
7. XETV 6 subsituting for KABC when 6 and 7 are running the same ABC shows.
   Channel 6 looked better on 7 than on 6 for some reason, I guess there was ghosting on 6.
8. KFMB 8 (CBS) San Diego
9. KHJ 9 (IND) Los Angeles
10. KOGO 10 (NBC) San Diego
11. KTTV 11 (IND) Los Angeles
   It was the old Metromedia station that later became part of the Fox network.
12. KPBS 15 (PBS) San Diego
   XEWT 12 out of Tijuana usually leaked in to this slot in ghosting. You could hear 12
   during times when 15 was off the air.
13. KCOP 13 (IND) Los Angeles

2. Fox Sports Net
3. ESPN
4. Channel 4 San Diego
5. KSWB (WB)
6. XETV (FOX)
7. Game Show Network
8. KFMB (CBS)
9. Boomerang
10. KGTV (ABC)
11. Cartoon Network
12. Comedy Central
13. Wild Channel - network pre-emptions, sports carried on other sations and networks, local stuff, and
other programming you could slot in to serve popular demand for each time frame.
You could slot shows from other channels that people want to watch.
You could slot in Los Angeles Lakers games that are on KCAL 9, for example, or ESPN2 there.

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