Comcast Says I Can Delete All The Sports Channels To Save $$$$$

[Laurence Glavin]

I called Comcast about two years ago to add Current TV for the Keith Olbermann "Countdown" Show (now I watch Stephanie Miller
and John Fugelsang's "Viewpoint" show, and over time I have been among the very few to watch some of their
documentaries too) and at that time I got a preferential rate for changing my channel lineup. I understood that some of
the fees would go up in ONE year, and they did so moderately in June of 2012. My latest bill arrived and the
bottom line figure went up sharply, so I called Comcast for the reason. The very cheerful young woman who
answered said there were OTHER price bombs at the TWO year mark. (BTW, she stayed pleasant and
laughed out loud when I repeated a line from last weekend's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" on NPR. They
ran a segment on how Al Quaeda runs itself like a typical bureaucracy with expense accounts and
performance reviews. Peter Sagal said : "it's just like Comcast, only less evil"). Anyway, in an attempt to
revise my channel lineup to reduce expenses, I asked if certain groups of channels like the all-sports
channels could be deleted, and she quoted the line from the Grey Poupon commercials, "why, of course".
I'm not home and my cable box is turned off so I won't know until tonight if all the ESPNs and their
siblings are gone. I thought the sports channels were sacrosanct but it seemed as though I
could have done this years ago. Grrr. Yikes...this means I won't know the Broonz score until
the eleven o'clock news if then. I'll survive. What I'm going to do next is go down the list of ALL the
channels I receive that I never watch and call back early Monday morning after recharging my phone
(the call may take a while) to see if I can delete some individual channels not just a tier. Apparently
some channels that APPEAR rto be standalones may be in a sub-tier.