Weather Channel on Comcast

[John Mullaney]

 In Massachusetts Comcast agreements are town to town, city to city. They
have completely different rates, sometimes packages, local channels and
programming facilities and all sorts of things that are tied in with them
landing contracts in each community. In many towns they even have very low
rates for basic service packages for the elderly, poor, schools and
hospitals that are just analog channels right off the cable. They can give
away boxes all they want but they still need to make deals first with every
town and city where they already have commitments. I'm sure they are moving
towards it but it will be a long slow process. 

-----Original Message-----
From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org
[mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf Of
Jeff Lehmann
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 7:39 AM
To: kenwvt@gmail.com; brian_vita@cssinc.com; 'Shawn Mamros';
boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
Subject: RE: RE: Weather Channel on Comcast

> comcast will carry the Weather Channel in HD as soon as they get all 
> the
extended basic channels off of analog (like they already > have in Boston).


That may be true, but I don't think Comcast has any plans to do this right
now. From what I understand, the extended basic channels in Boston were
always scrambled, so you've always needed a cable box to receive them. In
most towns, these channels have not been scrambled, so they could be picked
up with any cable ready TV. Since analog cable boxes are pretty much a thing
of the past, Boston was able to get away with this, from what I've heard.

Jeff Lehmann
Hanson, MA