You Just ... Don't Get it, Do You Scott? You Don't!

In a perfect example of "completely out of touch with the real world," News Corp. has pulled their channels from all Cablevision markets. Now this in no big deal to me personally, but I'm sure the good people of New York and Philadelphia would like to watch their baseball teams play today.

Disney almost neglected me of Full
House reruns! My favorite is where DJ
does something even though she
knows she's not suppose to and she gets
caught and Danny gives her a heart-
warming speech about how much he
loves her and they hug as the audience
goes, "Awwww!" 

Now we see this happen all the time. It happened earlier this year with Time Warner and Disney channels (ABC, ESPN, ABC Family, and most importantly, the Disney Channel). Now, I'm sure Cablevision viewers are devastated at the prospect of being without FOXNews for days but they're much more likely to get angry/drunk phone calls from Phillies and Evil Empire fans to put the ALCS and NLCS back on the air.

I understand that this is a negotiating ploy and that Cablevision will probably cave but is there no shame among multi-billion dollar corporations? Yeah, I didn't think so either. I'm hoping this backfires on News Corp., who already is pretty much hated, and they have to field all the angry calls. After all, they're the ones who picked the day of the championships to make their point. Although, they should get some credit for not waiting until the World Series to pull this stunt. Clearly, they have some modicum of a soul remaining.

Networks try this crap all the time and it seems that the only cable provider that stands up to them is Time Warner. Look at NFL Network. The NFL, perhaps only second to News Corp. in greediness, forced all of the cable networks to make NFL Network a part of their basic cable. Time Warner refused, saying they would be happy to make it a premium channel but it wouldn't be basic cable because their was no demand for it (I mean, what am I suppose to do with this channel the 360 days they don't have a game?). The NFL started an anti-Time Warner campaign that they had to stop after a few months because it backfired big time. The reason? Believe it or not, the customers didn't want their rates to raise for a network they didn't even really want.

My point is, while these holdouts work more often than not (except when your channel is completely worthless, NFL), all the channel succeeds in doing is making itself look more greedy slowly eroding whatever goodwill they may have. While they may have legitimate reasons to rate increases, the customers are always going to side with the cable provider in this case because they are fighting to keep the rates the same ... so they can raise them later on their own and make more profit. Wait a minute, why do we side with them again?