Comcast denies moving MSNBC for political reasons

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2007/10/hey-whered-my-m.html

Democrats in Oregon got a rude awakening this week when they discovered that Comcast had yanked MSNBC from their cable systems. And they're not alone; the home of Keith Olbermann has been vanishing off basic cable grids across the land.

"Please, oh please, tell me that this isn't Comcast turning out the lights on the only cable news channel that even bothers to air one progressive voice," wrote this blogger.

Actually, the story is not quite so dire or sinister (I think). But you're still not going to like it.

... As for the idea that MSNBC was being banished in some Comcast areas for political reasons, Apple said that was nonsense, adding, "I would point out that Fox’s ratings have exceeded MSNBC’s for some time now." (Not a great defense, given that Hallmark was also getting the boot.)

the should put Fox on premium channel. Using their logic they should make a lot more money.

Mz Pip
:dem:

Not that I'm a conspiracy sort, but I would like to point out that the first day without MSNBC happened to also be the day that they were telecasting the Democratic candidate debate. A little more timely than Hallmark.

interesting! Well I'm sure glad comcast kept ESPN7 and ESPN16, couldn't do without the round the clock table tennis coverage. And that channel that plays nothing but infomercials, that had to stay. And all those channels that are just repeats of other channels, but with only the audio and a black screen, love those too.

These moves involve various channels and are designed to free up bandwidth by pushing channels to digital tiers, something that the FCC has been pushing cable operators to do (and something that makes business sense since more channels of service can be provided over the same bandwidth if the signals are delivered in digital format). These changes have been taking place at various times in various cities so the fact that certain of these changes coincided with a Democratic party debate is not exactly surprising.

For the record, I think its crappy that Comcast is moving CSPAN to the digital tier. But that doesn't mean I don't understand their reasons for doing so.

Channel 59-CNBC
Channel 60-MSNBC
Channel 61-Fox Snooze
Channel 62-Headline News
Channel 63-CNN

Why don't all the viewers who got the channel moved sue....If all across the country, each person sued and did not consolidate into a class action suit, Comcast would have a hell of a head ache.

on DISH has only FOX for the news station.

They have managed to weasel their way into almost every "cheap/free" showing of their dreck. It's on at the doctor's office, in many stores & restaurants..:grr:

ALL "news" venues should be in the cheapo tiers and the other "specialty" stuff should be in the higher cost tiers..

Yippee..get all the preach & sell channels and bunch of sports channels for free, but have to pay extra to get information channels..

I think they are trying to get enough people complaining, so that when they push their a la carte plans, people will sign up for them.. and THAT will be the death of FSTV/Link and a bunch of smaller niche channels..

I know it's stupid, but I just took the "everything" package on Dish and pay a LOT, but I am never disappointed when I want to see something :)

The least expensive package available from Dish is their "Family Package" which costs $19.99. In addition to Fox News, it has CNN Headline News, Bloomberg News, and CSPAN 1 and CSPAN 2.
http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/whats_on_dish/programming_packages/dish_family/packages.aspx

Virtually no one takes Dish's $19.99 package. Far more subscribers take their $29.99 America's TOp 100 package which does not contain Fox News. It does, however, have CNN, CNN Headline News, CNBC, and CSPAN 1 and 2.
http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/whats_on_dish/programming_packages/at_100/packages.aspx

Fox News is available on the Top 200 and higher packages, which start at $39.99

They did not have the CNN headline news when I looked a couple months ago.

Yes - I have the 100 package. I sure wish it had MSNBC.

I do think that a few of these cable channels from NBC need to be consolidated. Bravo/SciFi/USA could all together become one useful channel.

and moved them to a more expensive digital cable package than I'm willing to pay for.

More spam than actual programming.