Union-Tribune: Cable Clash 11-29-03!

Excerpts:

The fact is, everybody pays for channels they don't want to watch, but folks who don't watch sports take the heaviest hit, a fact that has set off a battle between Cox Communications and ESPN.

The two cable industry giants are waging a unprecedented public feud over who is to blame for consumers' ever-increasing cable bills. Cox says ESPN charges too much for its network, while ESPN says its fee is just a small percentage of the cable company's costs.

Both sides have gone on the offensive, blitzing consumers with aggressive marketing campaigns of broadcast and print ads as well as launching dueling Web sites that plead their cases.

While the companies continue to court public opinion, they are also privately negotiating, hoping to reach a deal on rates before the current contract expires at the end of March. If the two sides can't come to an agreement, ESPN could disappear from Cox's broadcasting lineup, a result that could wreak havoc on both companies and their customers.

With all the claims and counterclaims, it is difficult to determine which, if either, company is in the right. "Neither side is painting a complete picture," said David Joyce, a financial analyst who covers the cable industry for Guzman & Co.

But all the finger-pointing doesn't erase one fact: Cable bills have skyrocketed over the last few years, rising more than 50 percent since 1996. The cumulative increases have been large enough that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in April asked for an investigation into why cable bills continue to outpace inflation by three fold.

Read the entire article at the U-T at the link above.

The Readers Strike Back 12-1-03!

From Maxwell James: Longtime reader, first time e-mailer. I cut my ties with Cox long ago over their lack of channel selection. I was considering to come back to Cox from satellite dish since they expanded their digital lineup but I changed my mind when I read that Cox wants to make ESPN into a pay channel somewhere. I don't trust Cox. I'm staying with satellite.

From Jackson Wells: Amazing how arrogant Disney has become since I grew up. This isn't the same company that existed when I was once a child. Now they're using ESPN's so-called high ratings to justify the poor management of running the channel so that it doesn't need to charge $2.61 a month from us to make ends meet. Something is wrong with ESPN, and for that matter, its parent company, Disney.

I'm getting revenge on Disney. I'm raising my kids in a Disney-free environment. My TV and VCR has blocked anything Disney from reaching the eyes of my children. No KGTV, ABC, Disney, or any of their lame channels. No Disney or Touchstone movies are allowed in my house. I'm telling my kids that Disney is evil and they should stay away from it as Disney can't run a cable channel without using high carriage fees as a band-aid to their bleeding red.

Stop paying for high sports packages. Bring ESPN back down to a dime and Cox won't threaten to put you on digital. That's the solution. Case closed.

From Gus Wilson: $2.61 for ESPN in 2003. That means $3.23 in 2004, $3.87 in 2005, $4.64 in 2006, $5.56 in 2007, $6.67 in 2008, etc. ESPN raising its rates 20 percent will cost $8.00 in 2009, $9.60 in 2010, $11.52 in 2011, and it keeps going out of control. This has got to stop now.

From Barry Phillips: Cox, a worse value than ever. Why? All those junk niche channels nobody watches, yet pays for anyway. This is a waste of my money. Channels people want to watch are on digital on purpose so that Cox can extort more money from us. Cox is using ESPN to get the same goal, eventually putting CNN, Discovery, Cartoon, and TBS on digital instead of analog so we have to pay extra. Cox cable has always been a crooked cable company and has never exactly figured out what the silent majority of its subscribers want. Here's what I want: get rid of the shopping and magazine channels. Put ESPN Classic, Game Show Network, National Geographic Channel, and BBC America on the main system. Put the magazine and shopping channels on digital.

Cox, shut the f--k up and get rid of all the crap or reduce the cost to $20 a month.

Jared Wolf: If I'm paying for all these Disney networks without watching them, then I'm entitled to go to Disneyland for free twice a year. Deal?

Larry Charles: If ESPN goes off basic, and people leave Cox, Cox loses money, Disney deservedly loses money, and all those little-watched niche channels nobody watches will suffer and die. Good! Let them die off. Nobody watches them anyway. Put on Great American Country, Game Show Network, and KCET 28 that people want to watch. Get rid of Food, HGTV, ABC Family, shopping, and MTV.

Henry Miller: Cox needs to take ESPN and Fox off of their systems and put together an in-house sports channel operation like San Diego's 4. With ESPN and Fox no longer on analog basic, the major sports leagues will be hestitant to deal with ESPN and Fox since they're not on cable systems nationwide anymore. The cable systems can demand a fair and reasonable price from the major leagues to put their games on their systems, be it on a free channel (without any added cost to the subscriber), or as a pay channel (where the fan chooses to pay if they want the programming). The days of ESPN monopolizing the cable rights to major sports programming has got to end. Cox needs to start up a couple of local sports channels to replace ESPN and Fox with, and have the leagues deal directly with them instead of the national cable networks, so no more embargoing games from the Aztecs on some crappy expensive FSN2 channel that's too expensive to carry.

If the NFL wants Sunday Night Football on the system, then they will have to either deal with the local cable systems with wide coverage, or ESPN with minimal coverage as a pay channel. Which would the NFL rather deal with?