What's the latest on NFL Network? [merged]

[bakes781]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

Well if customers are smart they will do as I'm going to do & not only refuse to pay more for 1 channel, but actually reduce their cable bill by downgrading to Standard cable. With NFL Net out of the picture, the only thing left that I'll be missing out on is the Encore movie channels. I'm not gonna get suckered by either the NFL or Comcast. If more people do the same perhaps both companies will wise up, but like ticket prices to sporting events, I imagine the rich will ultimately win out.

 

[PaulNEPats]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

Yes I have digital programming. I could really careless about it. The only reason I have it is to get the NFL channel. But in order to get the NFL channel I have to pay 15 bucks for 1 package and 7 bucks for another package to watch the NFL channel.



I have HDTV on Comcast and its not really that good. I have a 51 Sony HDTV and I must say the motorola digital box is crappy. PLus that service is about another 20 bucks. I use the DVR the most. But lets be honest, they are 3 times the price of Tivo.



HDTV on Comcast is limited to a few channels. Some of the channel u think u r getting in HDTV are really not. Its not 1080i.

Comcast is a premium priced service that is not really worth it. Their competitiors are much better now.. With Verizon Fios, Tivo and Directv, YOu get a better product for a lower price.

I hate Comcast as well, but they are much better than DirecTV in terms of HD quality programming. DirecTV compresses the hell out of their HD stuff, dubbed as HD-Lite. Plus, On Demand is great and I would miss having that around. Verizon FIOS sounds great but with it's limited availability not a lot of people can take advantage of it.

 

[mcsully]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

I hate Comcast as well, but they are much better than DirecTV in terms of HD quality programming. DirecTV compresses the hell out of their HD stuff, dubbed as HD-Lite. Plus, On Demand is great and I would miss having that around. Verizon FIOS sounds great but with it's limited availability not a lot of people can take advantage of it.

HD-Lite is not true HD, as you probably know. So when they advertise having so many HD channels, its actually not true.

What kills me is if I want to watch the NFL channel I have to go up two Tiers. One for the digital and one for the sports package. That is over 20 bucks a month to watch 1 channel. The rest is pretty much crap.

I agree on demand is good but with todays technology I can watch any show I want straight from a website. Or record it using DVR or Tivo technology.

Today I'm canceling Comcast and just getting basic until I move (then get directv). With the increased fees for 1 channel, soprano's, deadwood and rome ending, I see no reason to have all the extra's.

In the end there is no value.

 

[mcsully]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

I'm firmly on the side of Comcast here. Look, Comcast had to pay the NFL for the right to carry the NFLN. I forget the exact figure, but let's say it was 30 million. As with any business, in order to maintain profits they have to recoup that investment. There are two choices:

1) Raise everybody's bill by 4%. This includes people who will never watch the NFLN. Or

2) Move the NFLN to a "tier". Basically, you pay 7 bucks for the NFLN and get the other sports channels as a throw-in.

It's clear to me that elderly grandmothers in Pensacola shouldn't be subsidizing NFL fans.

The money-grabbing entity here is the NFL. They want their cake (Have the NFLN pumped into Comcast's customers' homes) and eat it too (Tell Comcast how they should offer it to their customers).

I'm sorry, If I'm the CEO of Comcast, there's no f'ing way I'm allowing the NFL to tell me how to offer their product after I paid 30 million for the rights to it. I paid the fee, now it's my call as to how I'll recoup the investment. And I think they're doing it the right way.

Here is the other side of that arguement.

1. Directv has the NFL channel as a standard channel. They do not charge their customers an additional price.

2. Comcast is in a competitive market where they must constantly upgrade their service. This might be additional nodes for higher bandwidth speed and/or lucent switches to handle the increased load of voice communcations.
Its the nature of the beast of running a company. You have to pay more money out front to keep customers.

3. Comcast makes each household in new england pay and additional fee for NESN but yet say is a basic channel. HOw many people actually watch NESN if the redsox aren't on? No many..

Comcast is a greedy monopoly in new england. I for one wish there were other cable companies to choose from

 

[spacecrime]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

1. Directv has the NFL channel as a standard channel. They do not charge their customers an additional price.

Just curious, but how do you know that Directv doesn't take into consideration how much they pay for channels before deciding how much to charge?

What kills me is if I want to watch the NFL channel I have to go up two Tiers. One for the digital and one for the sports package. That is over 20 bucks a month to watch 1 channel.

Yeah, there should be a way to just pay for what you want to watch, just pick out channels from the whole list of available ones, and then decide. "Let's see, Weather Channel is a buck ten a month, sure. Yeah, take ESPN at a dollar seventy-five a month, but not ESPN 2 or Classic," and so on.

In fact, ideally, we should only pay for the shows we watch. How hard would it be to charge us based on what our tuner is tuned to? Seven cents per Sportscenter, a buck per Red Sox game (two buck if they play the Skankees), a penny for a Erkel re-run, etc etc

 

[zippo59]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

I can watch Total Access once a week without getting the NFLN just by going to On Demand. Hey, it's something.

 

[dryheat44]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

Just curious, but how do you know that Directv doesn't take into consideration how much they pay for channels before deciding how much to charge?

Yeah, there should be a way to just pay for what you want to watch, just pick out channels from the whole list of available ones, and then decide. "Let's see, Weather Channel is a buck ten a month, sure. Yeah, take ESPN at a dollar seventy-five a month, but not ESPN 2 or Classic," and so on.

That's going to be the next revolution in programming. Total a la carte. Although many channels are/will continue to be free. Hell, nobody makes a habit of watching the Cooking Channel or whatever, but they need to get into homes to sell advertising. Thus the Cooking Channel is free to all cable subcribers, as they cost the Cable companies nothing, and in fact would probably pay Comcast to carry them.

 

[dryheat44]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

Here is the other side of that arguement.

1. Directv has the NFL channel as a standard channel. They do not charge their customers an additional price.

DirectTV has paid the NFL something like 500 million to be the exclusive carrier of Sunday Ticket. I would think the NFLN being part of the basic package is in the contract.

2. Comcast is in a competitive market where they must constantly upgrade their service. This might be additional nodes for higher bandwidth speed and/or lucent switches to handle the increased load of voice communcations.
Its the nature of the beast of running a company. You have to pay more money out front to keep customers.

Right. and the nature of the beast requires the passing on of the cost to the customers in some form or another.

3. Comcast makes each household in new england pay and additional fee for NESN but yet say is a basic channel. HOw many people actually watch NESN if the redsox aren't on? No many..

Is this true? Did they add NESN to the basic lineup and then bump up the price of basic cable? If so, I'm against this.

Comcast is a greedy monopoly in new england. I for one wish there were other cable companies to choose from

No argument here.

 

[bakes781]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

I can watch Total Access once a week without getting the NFLN just by going to On Demand. Hey, it's something.

how is that possible? you have to have digital cable to even have the On Demand feature & therefore you would currently have NFLN.

 

[bakes781]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

I received the official word on when NFL Network is switching to the sports package in the mail...

July 13th

So I've decided to get rid of the Digital Preferred. Saving $12 a month on my bill sounds like a smart move to me.

 

[theONLYJerseypatsfan]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

I can watch Total Access once a week without getting the NFLN just by going to On Demand. Hey, it's something.

no you cant...the nfln on demand will only be available to people with the sports tier subscription

 

[unoriginal]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

how is that possible? you have to have digital cable to even have the On Demand feature & therefore you would currently have NFLN.

What? I've got basic digital cable and I don't have NFLN.

I don't think you understand. The issue is that NFL wants Comcast to put NFL network on its basic digital package, and charges Comcast $.95 per month per digital subscriber. The vast majority of these people (over 99%)could care less about nfl network. 7 million people are paying a buck a month for something they don't watch

And all this bullcrap about "It's too much for Comcast customers to pay $.95 for NFLN" is ridiculous. Basic digital costs $60 a month, and if you subtract the local broadcast and shopping network channels, I'm paying over $1 a channel. 70 year-old grandmothers don't want ESPN or NFLN? Well I don't want Lifetime, Oxygen or WGN.

Comcast is doing this to upsell a very desirable channel. Nothing more, nothing less. **** Comcast.

 

[PatsFan-NH]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

I recently got a post card too about July 13th as the changeover date. Bummer.

It probably won't do any good, but I am going to complain to the city agency that regulates the cable in my city. I think they should leave current subscribers alone, and only enforce it for new ones.

There are plenty of channels (religious, shopping) that I pay for that I don't want, and that doesn't give me the right to say put them in a special tier and charge only those who are interested.

Not to mention I don't like the other sports, so I will have to pay $5.95 or so for one channel if I upgrade to the sports tier. So if I don't and they take the NFLN, will they reduce my current cable bill by that amount ? I don't think so.

And yes the comcast website NFLN page says you will only have access to on demand if you have the sports package. I wonder if all the Patriot stuff on demand will also be restricted ?

Downgrading the cable pack in response might be a good protest option. If enough people do it, that should get their attention.

 

[pats1]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

Comcast is a greedy monopoly in new england. I for one wish there were other cable companies to choose from

Just be thankful you don't have Charter, mcsully. I've been saying the same thing since NFLN went dark in December of 2005. Imagine no Patriots OnDemand either. Imagine OnDemand channels which only work properly 10% of the time. Imagine a sports tier with only ESPNews as the only worth-while station. Imagine piss poor customer service. Imagine ever-rising costs and ever-decreasing quality. Imagine Charter.

 

[bakes781]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

What? I've got basic digital cable and I don't have NFLN.

It's Digital Preferred that you have to have currently.

I looked into it further & the basic or digital starter plan is about $50/month & then if you add Digital Preferred that's an extra $11.99/month. You can add the sports pack @ $7.99/month w/o having Digital Preferred. At this time of the season I see no reason to add the sports pack. Again the only thing we lose out on by switching from the Digital Preferred plan to the Sports pack is the Encore movie channels from what I can tell & it actually costs $4/month less.

 

[dryheat44]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

And all this bullcrap about "It's too much for Comcast customers to pay $.95 for NFLN" is ridiculous. Basic digital costs $60 a month, and if you subtract the local broadcast and shopping network channels, I'm paying over $1 a channel. 70 year-old grandmothers don't want ESPN or NFLN? Well I don't want Lifetime, Oxygen or WGN.

Comcast is doing this to upsell a very desirable channel. Nothing more, nothing less. **** Comcast.

The difference is that Lifetime, Oxygen, or WGN don't have the clout to demand 30 million dollars for the right to carry them.

 

[unoriginal]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

The difference is that Lifetime, Oxygen, or WGN don't have the clout to demand 30 million dollars for the right to carry them.

Yet it still costs the same per channel to carry them as it costs to carry the NFLN. A little over $1.

I'm not saying its right for the NFL to try to ram the NFLN down Comcast's throats. What I am saying is that Comcast's excuses for their subscribing packages are bunk.

 

[TomBrady'sGoat]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

I recently moved and went from Cox *giggle* (NFLN) to Time Warner (no NFLN). I can't say I've noticed or cared, and I won't until there's a Pats game on it. It's a pretty crappy channel.

The difference is that Lifetime, Oxygen, or WGN don't have the clout to demand 30 million dollars for the right to carry them.

what are you talking about? my fiancee would riot if her Oxygen were taken away

 

[dryheat44]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

what are you talking about? my fiancee would riot if her Oxygen were taken away

Only until she suffocated

 

[Brady'sButtBoy]

Re: What's the latest on NFL Network?

The bottom line is that Comcast has no real competition. DirecTV isn't a cable company, so despite offering similar products they exist in a different realm with different equipment required etc. The proof lies in ares where the cable companies refused to even pick up NFLN from the get go - they obviously weren't worried about losing a substantial number of subscribers to satellite.

If there was another CABLE tv company offering services, Comcast wouldn't be so bold and ruthless about their prices/package changes and 'little' things like dropping NFLN and then forcing the customer to pay another $7.95 to see it would never happen.

Thank Ronald Reagan and Co. who convinced enough suckers that deregulation of 'utilities' would creat more competition and lead to better service and better pricing. The only realm where consumers benefitted was in long distance telephone service - the natural gas, electricty, cable utilites have instead turned into regional monopolies. It's remained a myth that any company would be able to use the already strung cable wires to offer service, the so-called liberal courts have seen to that while our so-called representatives in gov't have held out their hand, not to shake a constituent's hand but to grab the gobs of money utilites throw at them.