very thorough interview with Rachel Maddow

[Dave Tomm]

That is not the case here in Worcester County with Charter Cable.  All  
the cable news channels are grouped back to back, for the most part.   
CNN on 41, HLN on 42, MSNBC on 43, CNBC on 44, Faux News on 45 and  
NECN on 46.  The only quasi-news channel banished to the digital tier  
is ABC News Now, which is just gosh awful. And it's not just news.   
The basic cable kids channels are together, and the same goes for the  
kids channels on the digital tier.  It works the same for sports as  
well.  The outlets that tend to be spread around are the general  
interest channels, like TBS, TNT, Discovery, FX, Lifetime, Bravo, TLC,  
Style and such.  Even the Spanish language, religious and shopping  
channels are pretty much all grouped together on one stretch of  
channels that can be easily avoided.  I'm not the biggest Charter fan,  
but it's a huge improvement over Comcast.  When I lived out toward 128  
in Comcast country it was as you described.  As a viewer it was  
frustrating to navigate and I could easily see channels getting "lost"  
with them.  I would think that could be affecting viewership of MSNBC.

-Dave Tomm


On Mar 9, 2009, at 6:57 PM, Jim Hall wrote:

> I wonder how many cable companies besides Comcast moved MSNBC from the
> analog tier to the digital tier. MSNBC was on Channel 53 in most MA  
> Comcast
> towns, but was moved to Channel 251 last year (my own town has MSNBC  
> on both
> channels, but my mother's town closer to Boston lost it on 53 and  
> only has
> it on 251). FNC and CNN and CNN-HN remained where they were: it was  
> only
> MSNBC of the news channels that was moved. It would be interesting  
> to know
> if any drop in ratings coincided with the channel being moved. There  
> seems
> to be very little organization in the digital channels: you'll have  
> a sports
> channel next to a religious channel, next to a shopping channel,  
> next to an
> entertainment channel, so it's very easy for a channel to get "lost."
>