Re: veto power?

[chrisbeckwith@bigfoot.com]

Chuck wrote:

> also begging to be asked:   which multi-layered conglomerate owns the services such as DirectTV and Dish...??? <

Primestar used to be owned by a coalition of cable companies but was purchased by DirecTv (a unit of Hughes Electronics.)  Echostar
is the owner of Dish.

> in Portland, the local stations rule through exclusivity claims...yet less than twelve miles to the south, a Saco resident can
have both the Boston and Portland stations. <

The York County Time Warner territories carry Boston affiliates to a degree.  Saco (formerly a MediaOne territory) carries 4, 5 and
7.  Biddeford (formerly TCI) only gets 4 and 5.  The Wells-York zone has to make do with 2, 4, 5 and 7.  Still, it could be worse;
the Kennebunk area (served by a local rinky-dink outfit) only gets 7.  The latter system *used* to carry 4, 5, 7, 25, 38 and 56.
They claim the others were dropped because of retransmission consent issues.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the Boston signals
will eventually disappear altogether from the Saco, Biddeford and Kennebunk systems.

> we do not have a WB affiliate in Portland, yet 56 is still blocked due to arguments regarding programming
duplication that were made prior to the network affiliation. <

Actually WPME (UPN35) now carries the entire WB prime-time schedule, albeit as a secondary affiliate.  Cable TV of the Kennebunks
used to get the WB live through the national feed of WGN, but a month ago Tribune was forced to pull the plug on WB Primetime in an
effort to protect local affiliates.  The move is backfiring, as ratings are down big for the WB year-to-date.  Now that they're
all-indie except for the WB kids programming block WGN is pretty lame.  I'm trying desperately to get Kennebunk to replace WGN with
PAX but they're too busy trying to upsell their customer base on the new multi-million-dollar "Digi-Vision" service (which includes
DMX, by the way) to bother with little old me.

> any thoughts?  is it perhaps time i could tell TimeWarner to k.m.a., in much the same manner as they have told me over the years?
(actually had a customer service person tell me "Sir, we ARE the cable company." in the tone
of voice that also said i was a complete idiot for questioning their autonomy.) <

It's the same way in Kennebunk; they're so pathetic their web page hasn't been updated in years (which misses out on *both* their
expanded analog channel lineup and the new digital service, to say nothing of their high-speed internet access.)  For a good laugh
check out this URL on their web pages: http://www.kbunktv.com/NEWCH.HTM .  Half the channels listed have been part of their lineup
for a year; many others on the list are defunct.

Take care,
Chris