A LA CARTE
A LA CARTE
A LA CARTE
à la carte
à la carte
à la carte
En-power the subscribers.. How much was Comcast charging Dish for OLN and they dropped the channel because of it??? Now they it's happening to them.. NFL gets alot more hits then NHL..Sorry to say..

I have DishNetwork, so the NFL Network is on the basic tier, in fact, it's on all of them. However, even though I'm a sports fan, people who do not watch sports should never be forced to pay for ESPN (the most expensive channel on any cable system), the NFL, or any sports broadcast as part of their monthly bill.

I blame the idiots in the bush administration and his FCC for blocking a la carte programming for the past decade. One stroke of the pen and this is no longer a problem. Sports fans will pay if they want to see their BFF Tommie Brady.

Be carefull what you wish for. That very same stroke of his pen will quite likely also put into law other aspects of control that you may not like.

Do tell. The '96 Telecommunications Act created the exact opposite of what we were told it would. So how could a la carte programming and billing be bad for consumers?

I don't watch the god channels or the shopping channels or those batshat-crazy conservative cable news channels, so I shouldn't have to pay for them. Same goes for sports. I watch, I pay. Either way, my bill gets cheaper. Last time I checked, there's no "content" worth paying for. The writers have been on strike for two months, but has anyone noticed? No, we just get more reality shows.

I swear that 'Idiocracy' movie is prophetic. Soon we'll all be watching 'Ow my balls' and giving Oscars to a show named 'Ass.'

You say:
"The '96 Telecommunications Act created the exact opposite of what we were told it would."
Then ask:
"So how could a la carte programming and billing be bad for consumers?"
It seems you've answered your own question. But, I wasn't talking about "a la carte", I was talking about what the president does with his pen and following your wishes.

To be honest...I couldn't care any less who or what gets the oscars.

A friend was ticked off a couple of weeks ago because she couldn't watch a game that I could. She asked if I paid more for it, I did not. I have more channels and better service with Dish and I pay less.

Hey, if you like getting ripped off, stick with Comcast! I dumped them after they took away channels, provided consistently lousy service AND raised the rate twice in one year.

Naw, I personally prefer it on a 2nd tier. I can't stand sports. But I fully understand those that do. This is why I have always stated that we should have an ala cart system which Comcast and other such providers ALWAYS reject, cause they know that the crap channels will vanish if they do that for lack of interested parties and failure to attain advertisers.

NFL has no chance of that happening to them, as the people that want it should be allowed to have it. And those that do not Should not have to be bothered by it.

So IMHO having it on a separate tier seems ok to me. As I doubt the people that like that stuff would enjoy the stuff I would prefer either. so be it...

I agree

I don't see what the big deal is here. You want to watch sports, buy a sports package. Why should everyone pay for what YOU like? I like porn. A lot of other people like porn too, but not everyone. Should Comcast include porn in their basic cable package too? I know porn is a bad example, but you get my point. You don't see HBO or some other movie channel whining about not being included in the basic package and getting the price jacked up in the process.

HBO is a bad example since it's owned by a cable co.

YES, Comcast et al should include Porn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who Cares !!! Im a nerd , never liked football anyway...... You know the nine innings and all that stuff !

I'm going to assume the nine innings was a joke and laugh.

I'm a nerd and I LOVE football. Comcast is fighting the same battle with the Big Ten network now. As an avid Hoosier fan (that's Indiana University folks), it seems like the Big Ten Network is being the greedy a****** right now.

I would gladly pay extra to get it, and it should be the customers choice. Not everyone cares about the Big Ten so not everyone should have to pay for it.

Same should go for the NFL. It's all about money these days anyway, not about the fans. See A-Rod's $275 million 10 year contract with the Yankees (that's baseball folks). That is why ticket prices are through the roof.

comcast sucks, but this time i agree with them.

why should anyone face yet another rate increase for yet another unwanted channel just because the NFL got greedy?

You only face a rate increase if you are a customer of the worst and greediest cable company on earth!

I agree totally with NFL. Horseracing mimics this scenario as well.

Comcast can go fly a kite in a Muslim country.

My net service was down last week (I don't subscribe to the TV side) and Comcast sent a tech out AFTER it had come back up. While he was there, he said if I installed the basic TV package, I would get better transmission results on the data side? I gave him a WTF look... is this true? everything I know about networking says this is BS...

This is (for the most part) b.s. But, he might have been thinking about the physical filters that are placed on the line outside. He could have been thinking that if the filter were to be removed, you would get better signal for the modem. From a technical standpoint, This would only be true if the filter were faulty or (maybe) if the signal off the tap was too low to begin with. He might have been referring to your package though, which is likely to reduce your internet service cost with a bundled tv service. But this doesn't in itself give you better performance...just a lower cost. Unless, he was referring to the quality of cable in your home....which might need to be upgraded in order to get digital cable to work properly. But, this wouldn't be the case either since you need quality cable lines to make the internet service to work properly regardless. So, no matter how you look at it, that really makes no sense.

I have internet service from them without the TV side, and it works fine. I think he was just trying to earn a commission.

Comcast deserves to be blasted in more ways than email...believe me.
I dropped them for all their services.
They are too expensive for the services they provide and their customer service (or lack there of) is a joke.
I mean, please, the guy who hooked me up and disconnected me has become somewhat of a friend of mine and I know for a fact him and his 2 buddies who he drives around in the company tuck all day (against company policy) is a pill poppin' addict. Hell, he has given me hard drives form the dvr boxes, wireless adapters from the truck, free service, etc... The guy who lives down the road from me who got his tattoos done at my shop works for Comcast as well, and he is a thief who robs people's homes while hooking them up. But yet Comcast wants to disconnect peoples' service for 12 months for bandwidth use, or sue companies for telling the truth against them? PLEASE! Comcast, you deserve everything that people say about you. You need to look at your own people and policies before you think about suing outside the company. BTW, thanks for the free channels and hardware guys! HA HA HA

"..the guy who hooked me up and disconnected me has become somewhat of a friend of mine..."

"...(he) is a pill poppin' addict..."

"...he has given me hard drives form the dvr boxes, wireless adapters from the truck, free service, etc..."

"The guy who lives down the road from me... is a thief who robs people's homes..."

Well, this all says a lot about you too. You're complicit in thievery, and you don't associate with the best of people, and that's just for starters...

I already droped the a**holes for poor cable service, nickel and dimeing me for months and poor customer service. Go NFL!!!!

Yeah, what he said!

I want to sue NFL for spamming me. I did not request to be added to their mailing list, and I was unable to unsubscribe. I blocked it's address, and they spam me with a new address. Fvcker.

I know this will offend some people, but I find American football (they call real football "soccer", even though in American football you mostly use your hands, not feet, thus it should really be called HANDBALL) quite possibly the most boring sport ever invented. I would rather watch golf or sit outside and watch grass grow. What is up with American football? The "plays" last 2-5 seconds and then they spend 30-40 seconds setting up for the next "play". How much more time could you waste? The worst part is that most football fans are fat slobs who couldn't run the length of the football field without passing out or puking their guts out. You wanna sit on your a** for several hours and watch your boring game? Fine, but don't expect others to pay for it if they don't care.

Baseball is worse. As far as I can tell, the purpose of all those delays is to fit in the TV commercials.

And by the way, that's probably the reason soccer hasn't caught on seriously in the US --- how could a TV station possibly go for 45 minutes without a commercial?

Forgive us for having a sport that requires a little planning and strategy, instead of one that just moves back and forth repeatedly within seconds and usually accomplishes nothing at all.

We'll make sure the next sport we "fat slob" Americans play is dumbed down enough for everyone else to appreciate.

Nice try. You assume I like soccer because I pointed out the fact that it's only called soccer in America. Wrong, I couldn't care about soccer either, unless I'm actually playing it. It was just another shot at the arrogance of Americans, when the most popular sport in the world is called football everywhere else, but not in America, because it conflicts with the name of one of their crappy sports. You prove my point by implying soccer involves no strategy compared to football. That's just blatant arrogance and ignorance on your part. Just because a sport is fast paced, doesn't mean there is no strategy involved. To say that a sport accomplishes nothing because they don't spend 5-8 times more time getting ready than actually playing is just stupid. And what does football accomplish exactly? I mean, other than entertain a few million couch quarterbacks on a Sunday afternoon while they're sucking down potato chips and chugging beer.

To the poster below: I agree with baseball being boring too. Then again, the same can be said about any American sport ending with "ball".

Hey, I'm the first to call my fellow countrymen fat stupid slobs (you have to throw stupid in there btw). However we do have our merits. Personally I think if we went out and actually PLAYED more sports that would help cut down on the "fat" part at least.

In any case you can't judge a country based on a few people, or even the majority of it. But at least I'm working on making it better instead of just complaining about it.

I like how this freak can come out and say "I know this may offend a few people"

And then outright insults an entire country because they watch football...if you don't like football, why didn't you just say that instead of insulting an entire country? It just shows your arrogance, ignorance and stupidty.

Go ride that goat back to your cave will ya.

How could anybody watch a bunch of people kick a ball back and forth across a field for 45 mins straight??

If you don't like the arrogance of Americans go back to where you came from

I'll keep this polite.

I said nothing about you liking soccer, where did you get that from? You compared American football to soccer, so I did the same.

As for the "arrogance of Americans" for calling it soccer here, perhaps you don't know that the term soccer comes from the British, to distinguish it from rugby football, which is where our use of "football" comes from. We didn't invent the name, nor are we the only ones to currently use it. You should check your facts before spouting off.

The purpose of most sports is to score points. That is what the players are trying to accomplish. So in the course of a soccer game, the ball moves back and forth repeatedly in a short amount of time, and rarely does anyone score. In other words, the players fail to accomplish anything most of the time, exactly what I said in the first place.

If all my fans were drunk idiots who can't manage to go an entire game without fighting or making racist comments (which describes just about every soccer game), I'd want to get the game over quickly, too.

You might want to look up the definition of "arrogance." Your use of it suggests you don't know its definition.

"If all my fans were drunk idiots who can't manage to go an entire game without fighting or making racist comments (which describes just about every soccer game),"

Hey, if you had to sit there for hours to watch a bunch of people kicking the ball back and forth, scoring about 3 times total in a game...you'd almost have no choice but to become a drunken idiot and scream racists comments just to get through the agonizing boredom. :)

1. You admit that Americans are arrogant.
2. You assume the poster was not American. (probably valid)
3. You assume he had went to America to make his/her post (since you said “go back to where you came from”, assuming he had to come to America to experience the arrogance).
4. Because of #3 you may also be assuming his country does not have internet service.
5. You don’t know what punctuation is.
Wow, is this American arrogance at its finest?

"I know this will offend some people, but [I'll troll anyway]."

Wow, I gave you some cred until I got to #5, and then I knew you were just another useless English major!

They could do it the way ESPN does it now as well as most of the other stations that show soccer/football. They use the upper score portion to show a sponsorship. That way they still get their ad revenue and don't have to worry about going to commercial. The advitisers usually by the logo space in 15 minute blocks. BTW this is coming from an american who is a huge soccer fan himself.

actually you are wrong on a few accounts, Soccer is not called football everywhere but the US, it is called fõtball along with the fact that there is Australian rules football and Canadian football which is very close to American football, also there is alot of stratagy in american football.

What really gets me is you think golf isn't as boring as football is. I don't know how much you have watched football but a lot of the plays don't last 1-3 seconds. To even get the ball off on a quick pass it takes 8 seconds for the ball to get to the receiver then depending on how far the receiver goes with it can last longer then you think. And if you run it on the ground it more time comes off the clock then you think.

I find that you are very bigoted about Americans and how they are. Where are you from and have you even been over here?? Not all of us drink and be lazy.

Is this more arrogance? I did not study english past highschool. Looks like maybe I just paid more attention than some.

"DON'T MESS WITH FOOTBALL"

Sorry had to.

Anyhow I'm not a sports fan at all. Great so you can kick a field goal. How does that help with the energy crisis, health care, or any of the other problems we should be spending the money they make on? That's why a "sports tier" exists, for those who are sports fans. Otherwise it's just one more channel that I will never watch other than flipping past it to something better. I think Comcast is completely in the right here, even though I hate them for many many other reasons.

Oh yeah if you treat sports like you treat religion FSCK you too! Just because someone doesn't like your team or likes another one is no reason to get in a fight over it/kill them.

What the heck is the NFL? Do they have a team in a city that matters (like LA)? Who cares?

Since when did LA matter? That garbage dump has had 2 teams and it supported NEITHER of them. Why do you think they MOVED. Because the people in LA are the BIGGEST fair weather fans in the WORLD.

IF/WHEN the people of LA decide to clean up that cesspool they call a city, then maybe the NFL will think about moving back there. Until then, let them rot.

What the H are you talking about. There are teams all over the country. LA is not the only city in the USA, and if you believe that I suggest you take some time driving around and checking it out. Besides, LA is a s*** hole. Just because movies are made there doesn't make it important. The yellow cloud lingering above is disgusting. You have to go out of LA to see anything nice.

There are NFL teams in Chicago, Baltimore, Washington DC, Seattle, Indianapolis, and on and on. Get some culture moron.

The reason LA doesn't have any teams is because any human that tries to do anyy physical activity lasdting more then 5 mins will get a heart attack from the pure carbon monoxide air quality in that city,.

"If the New England Patriots defeat the NY Jets and Miami Dolphins, the NFL network will have exclusive rights to a December 29 game that could result in an event that has not occurred in the NFL in 35 years: a team going undefeated and untied in the whole regular season."

Unfortunately Tim, you are missing the New York Giants at Week 17. So, that's 3 teams that the New England Patriots have to go through to complete the regular season.

I was hinting that they'd beat the Giants on the 29th ;)

That won't be happening. :P

You would think with todays technology the cable companies could come up with a custom package for it's customers where the subscribers can pick only the channels they want to watch and just pay for that.

http://www.suddenlink.com/playfair/

70c?

Comcast charges me $5.99 for it. I'm all for a $5/mo drop in charges. What's the problem? Put it on the standard tier.

This is just greedy bas**** A vs. greedy bas**** B... and it's us as customers who pay the bill.

Screw both of you.

I'm not an NFL fan and I don't want to pay more so you can pay less to have the NFL Network.

Ok, I don't want to pay more so you can watch the discovery channel. How about they drop the discovery channel (or drop "insert channel you watch here" so I don't have to pay 0.xxc for you to watch it). Thanks.

What is the NFL Network complaining about? Who in their right mind would want a $0.70 rate increase (on their Comcast cable service) if they don't even watch or care about football? Cable companies are already overcharging customers by a significant amount.

**** YOU ATLANTIC BROADBAND!

you're more evil than the Grinch. Thanks again for removing G4 which was standard and now you have to pay 30 bux extra to get it.

Die... and Die slowly.

G4 sucks anyway and has ever since they joined with Tech TV (aka killed it off).

Now instead of quality programming like "The Screen Savers" or informative shows like "HELP" the network shows quality programming that reminds me of "Oww My Balls" from the movie Idiocracy and the viewership reminds me of Freedo.

Scary Guy speaks the truth, G4 might as well be Spike TV 2. Don't get me wrong, I like Spike TV, but I do miss the old G4 TV.

Wow not many people know of that movie. The drink Brawndo from it is out now :) http://brawndo.com/

I had Adelphia before Time Warner took over and once they did the NFL Network went bye bye. We pay enough for our damn cable anyways. just over $100 for HD/DVR and internet with no movie stations. The cable companies make us bend over and take it up the pooper so they should do the same and just put the NFL Network in their regular lineups.

Serious, nice pull there. By the way, I highly recommend that movie to anyone who hasn't seen it. It may seem far fetched, but with the way we procreate these days, it may not be far from reality.

The best is the nameplay on Fudruckers, and of course, the Brawndy stuff is brilliant. My favorite is the automated Carl's Jr that tells the woman she's a bad parent, blah blah blah. And of course, that the buildings are held together with belts hahah.

BRAWNDY - its got what plants crave! Do you even know what electrolites are? What plants crave!

Just wanted to say thanks for that link. Showed it to a friend of mine and he's actually ordering some.

There are also some T-s***s over at http://www.vintagecotton.com "Comacho for president", "Oww My Balls", "STAR8UCK5 Exotic coffee for men", and "L Pollo Barracho Adult Chicken 'Bucket of wings with 'full release''"

This is one situation where I would see an a la carte system working out effectively.

Except the NFL Network will still want to make just as much in an a la carte world, so get ready to pay big bucks just to get NFL Network. FCC needs to come in and regulate so it's no longer the customer who keeps losing due to broadcasters and providers being greedy.

FCC? Regulate?? What? Who?!?

No! This is a marketplace issue. If enough consumers start leaving their cable TV for satellite providers just for the NFL network, the cable companies will get the hint. If they see no negative impact from the status quo, they won't change.

AT&T is carrying it on that new U-Verse of theirs. DirecTV has it (and I have DirecTV so yay me!), Dish has it... its a consumer marketplace, let your wallets do the talking.

Thankfully Verizon FIOS has it. :)

"Dish has it... its a consumer marketplace, let your wallets do the talking."

Yeah!