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Latest 'confused' Comcast statement

retsio

retsio

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Feb 18, 2003
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How can anyone 'believe' anything Comcast says -- the latest.......

The markets that will continue to receive BTN are Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. States not on this list are considered out-of-market.
(Comcast does not serve Iowa and Nebraska) (received 4-16-2018)

Comcast coverage map: https://www.cabletv.com/xfinity/availability-map

However...... At this time, BTN has been removed from our out of market line-ups as of April 11th in most regions, with some regions still under contract until May 10th. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Comcast Cares -- April 12, 2018
 
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retsio said:
How can anyone 'believe' anything Comcast says -- the latest.......

The markets that will continue to receive BTN are Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. States not on this list are considered out-of-market.
(Comcast does not serve Iowa and Nebraska) (received 4-16-2018)

Comcast coverage map: https://www.cabletv.com/xfinity/availability-map

However...... At this time, BTN has been removed from our out of market line-ups as of April 11th in most regions, with some regions still under contract until May 10th. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Comcast Cares -- April 12, 2018
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I forgot one thing -- last week BTN stated Comcast was dropping the BTN channel across the board. At this point -- who knows what Comcast will do next, or BTN.
 
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retsio said:
How can anyone 'believe' anything Comcast says -- the latest.......

The markets that will continue to receive BTN are Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. States not on this list are considered out-of-market.
(Comcast does not serve Iowa and Nebraska) (received 4-16-2018)

Comcast coverage map: https://www.cabletv.com/xfinity/availability-map

However...... At this time, BTN has been removed from our out of market line-ups as of April 11th in most regions, with some regions still under contract until May 10th. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Comcast Cares -- April 12, 2018
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So where do you live? Which market/state?
 
So I am willing to believe based on these announcements that Comcast and The Big Ten Network are in the middle of negotiating rates ($) for the upcoming years package.
I for one refuse to be used in this way...remain silent and the price tag will drop. Just my opinion...
 
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eidolon21 said:
So I am willing to believe based on these announcements that Comcast and The Big Ten Network are in the middle of negotiating rates ($) for the upcoming years package.
I for one refuse to be used in this way...remain silent and the price tag will drop. Just my opinion...
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Big Ten network costs $1.86 a month per subscriber. Not too bad if you want to watch games, but that's awful if you have no interest in watching the channel, which I would imagine is 70% of homes or more. The price should come down from the last contract. Comcast has the power here. A deal will be reached before the season starts.
 
PS4814 said:
Make your voice heard with your wallet. Patronize those companies that are willing to back the BTN.
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It's funny that Comcast takes the blame for this when it's BTN that is demanding excessive rights fees for out-of-market states where the number of actual viewers is very small. It's BTN that demands to be sold as part of a large cable "tier" instead of allowing Comcast to sell it individually to the people who actually watch BTN.

Comcast is caught in the middle here. They are hemorrhaging customers because they can't keep the monthly cable bill under $200. But every time they try to say no to price increases from content suppliers, they end up with irate customers. It's pick your poison.

The only real solution for Comcast is to finally give up on bundling and start carrying only the networks that allow themselves to be sold a la carte.

And when that day happens, BTN is going to lose a LOT of money because it will no longer be able to use the cable system to tax 80 million people for content that is only watched by 3 million people.
 
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Really Big Ten fans around the country should direct their ire at BTN and demand that BTN either make a deal with Comcast or start offering BTN as a standalone streaming service.

The gravy train may be a little smaller for BTN but at some point the universities behind BTN ought to consider their alumni base in places like Florida and Texas and Colorado. If they want those alumni networks to thrive, they need to deliver football games to those areas one way or another.
 
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dwiz said:
Big Ten network costs $1.86 a month per subscriber. Not too bad if you want to watch games, but that's awful if you have no interest in watching the channel, which I would imagine is 70% of homes or more. The price should come down from the last contract. Comcast has the power here. A deal will be reached before the season starts.
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Here in Colorado BTN is part of a separate sports package. More bucks into Comcast's pocket. If they drop BTN from the sports package, I drop the sports package.
 
Colorado Man said:
Here in Colorado BTN is part of a separate sports package. More bucks into Comcast's pocket. If they drop BTN from the sports package, I drop the sports package.
Click to expand...

I'm sure the cable companies have very good data on exactly how many people are watching, and BTN's numbers in that part of the country must not be impressive..

The sports packages are kind of a dumb solution anyway. You want only BTN. Others only want the Longhorn Network or the ACC Network. Everybody wants to watch THEIR team's games.

Really cable "packages" are a crappy way of delivering content that is specialized and fragmented like that, with all the content providers (in this case, conferences) constantly fighting each other for a bigger piece of the pie.

We are in a transition period right now. The future is going to be a la carte. It's only a question of how long it will take cable to get there.
 
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BobPSU92 said:
No b1g school. Stupid to pull the channel altogether outside of b1g states, but that's what they're doing.
Click to expand...

Maybe they should have added Syracuse instead of Nebraska. Rutgers and Md makes a little more sense now. And you see why adding ND wasn't as compelling as it appeared because ND doesn't give them any territory they don't already have.
 
tboyer said:
It's funny that Comcast takes the blame for this when it's BTN that is demanding excessive rights fees for out-of-market states where the number of actual viewers is very small. It's BTN that demands to be sold as part of a large cable "tier" instead of allowing Comcast to sell it individually to the people who actually watch BTN.

Comcast is caught in the middle here. They are hemorrhaging customers because they can't keep the monthly cable bill under $200. But every time they try to say no to price increases from content suppliers, they end up with irate customers. It's pick your poison.

The only real solution for Comcast is to finally give up on bundling and start carrying only the networks that allow themselves to be sold a la carte.

And when that day happens, BTN is going to lose a LOT of money because it will no longer be able to use the cable system to tax 80 million people for content that is only watched by 3 million people.
Click to expand...
Good summary. These networks make crazy demands. So much money per subscriber, they make demands to be included on certain tiers, and sometimes they have agreements with other networks that create packages. The cable companies get stuck in the middle - they need to charge everyone that subscribes to a certain tier whether they want the BTN or not, and if the networks have packaging agreements, that means users get charged for all channels in that package whether or not they actually want them. It's an interesting dynamic to see it play out.

I get annoyed by the networks running crawlers stating that such and such cable company is going to discontinue this channel unless an agreement is reached by a certain date. They fail to mention how much more money the network is requesting and how much more the view will need to pay each month to keep the channel.
 
tboyer said:
The sports packages are kind of a dumb solution anyway. You want only BTN. Others only want the Longhorn Network or the ACC Network. Everybody wants to watch THEIR team's games.

Really cable "packages" are a crappy way of delivering content that is specialized and fragmented like that, with all the content providers (in this case, conferences) constantly fighting each other for a bigger piece of the pie.

We are in a transition period right now. The future is going to be a la carte. It's only a question of how long it will take cable to get there.
Click to expand...

Brian Roberts -- the son -- will never allow Comcast to be a la carte. His reason, his only reason is money. During the '90's he gifted himself a stock bonus worth $93 million, purchased the 76ers, Flyers (and kept them off of TV) and now continued his 'national' presence with all the NBC connections. Comcast the cable company is not all over the geography.

I have argued with Comcast and had too many problems with Comcast for many, many years. I believe even though he is now 'emeritus', he will stubbornly keep the bundle and then offer 'a la carte' as an On Demand separate product, but only IF you buy into some Comcast bundle level. I wish an internet speed of a least 1T for home use would be available at a good price, and give Comcast problems to compete against. Stream the news and good programs to the TV and be done with it. Who needs 700 channels that we do not watch.
 
interrobang said:
BTN costs 5-10 cents outside the footprint.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04...e-pac-12-not-much-at-least-in-the-short-term/
Click to expand...

I was just looking to add this. They don’t charge near the same amounts outside the footprint as they do inside of it due to less demand. This is also why it typically is on a higher priced tier, both in and out of the footprint.

FOX should put its foot down and say that it’s part of the package of all their sports networks. Just my two cents.
 
Colorado Man said:
But Rutgers owns the NYC market.
Click to expand...

and Comcast has a minimal presence in NYC.

01d3b58d405d0719954a9cf1e775f0b03293ea2d_1_460x500.jpg
 
Disney/ABC/ESPN vs. Comcast/NBC vs. Fox . BTN has 50% ownership by Fox if I remember. Fox trying to sell their sport network and Disney was reported to be the lead dog. Now Comcast drops BTN. The entire cable industry in flux as cord cutting continues to occur. Come on guys, this is just negotiation tactics 100% about money and who is going to pay what. Coincidence this happens right after basketball season is over in the period from April through August when viewership on BTN is way down as no really good live programming that out of network people are going to really care about.
 
tboyer said:
It's funny that Comcast takes the blame for this when it's BTN that is demanding excessive rights fees for out-of-market states where the number of actual viewers is very small. It's BTN that demands to be sold as part of a large cable "tier" instead of allowing Comcast to sell it individually to the people who actually watch BTN.

Comcast is caught in the middle here. They are hemorrhaging customers because they can't keep the monthly cable bill under $200. But every time they try to say no to price increases from content suppliers, they end up with irate customers. It's pick your poison.

The only real solution for Comcast is to finally give up on bundling and start carrying only the networks that allow themselves to be sold a la carte.

And when that day happens, BTN is going to lose a LOT of money because it will no longer be able to use the cable system to tax 80 million people for content that is only watched by 3 million people.
Click to expand...

The BTN is part of Comcast's extra sports package. Those that have no interest do not have to pay for it.
 
BTN will no longer be on the Starter tier in PA soon (unofficially). You will need the preferred tier to get the network going forward. Probably not a big deal to most people, but probably will impact some.
 
Colorado Man said:
Here in Colorado BTN is part of a separate sports package. More bucks into Comcast's pocket. If they drop BTN from the sports package, I drop the sports package.
Click to expand...
I'm near Colorado Springs and get it on a tier with Century Link Prism, but it's bundled with quite a bit. Should be noted that we get three channels of BTN, three of SEC network and six of Pac12 network.
 
MJG-90 said:
BTN will no longer be on the Starter tier in PA soon (unofficially). You will need the preferred tier to get the network going forward. Probably not a big deal to most people, but probably will impact some.
Click to expand...

It's a good point -- it's not like people living in Big Ten states get a great deal here.

The only way to get BTN through Comcast here in Philly is on the "preferred" which is going to cost you a minimum of about $120 a month and gets you reams of channels I'll never watch -- cartoons, shopping, weather, home remodeling, political commentary, music videos etc.

It's like going to the restaurant hungry for a hamburger. And you can only get the hamburger in a $50 bundle that also includes bananas, lasagna, steak, General Tso's chicken and a giant burrito. Comcast can tell me till they're blue the face that the $50 bundle is a great deal for all that food, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm only gonna eat the hamburger, so to me the hamburger is a $50 hamburger.

So really, whether you live in Florida or Pennsylvania, if you only need BTN and not 400 other channels, the best deal is going to be to eliminate cable and subscribe to a streaming service where you can at least get BTN for $35 or $40 a month during football season.
 
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tboyer said:
It's a good point -- it's not like people living in Big Ten states get a great deal here.

The only way to get BTN through Comcast here in Philly is on the "preferred" which is going to cost you a minimum of about $120 a month and gets you reams of channels I'll never watch -- cartoons, shopping, weather, home remodeling, political commentary, music videos etc.

It's like going to the restaurant hungry for a hamburger. And you can only get the hamburger in a $50 bundle that also includes bananas, lasagna, steak, General Tso's chicken and a giant burrito. Comcast can tell me till they're blue the face that the $50 bundle is a great deal for all that food, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm only gonna eat the hamburger, so to me the hamburger is a $50 hamburger.

So really, whether you live in Florida or Pennsylvania, if you only need BTN and not 400 other channels, the best deal is going to be to eliminate cable and subscribe to a streaming service where you can at least get BTN for $35 or $40 a month during football season.
Click to expand...

Where are you getting your cable from? Unfortunately where I live in Philly area for whatever reason Verizon has not gotten FIOS in and Comcast knows that and therefore in your analogy charges me $35 to sit down at a table and order a $5 hamburger for a total of $40. The $35 being Comcast is the only way to get high speed internet and they charge $100 for that versus getting a $200 bundle phone/internet/TV. So the only choice is to goto Direct TV which is no different. Until 5G comes along and household can literally 'cut the cord' and true competition comes into play like in the cell phone area where there are literally dozens of choices of phone service, the cable companies still have the monopoly in most areas to supply the internet and price internet only as such.
 
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tboyer said:
It's like going to the restaurant hungry for a hamburger. And you can only get the hamburger in a $50 bundle that also includes bananas, lasagna, steak, General Tso's chicken and a giant burrito.
Click to expand...

That hamburger, when unbundled, might still cost the same -- or even more. A lot more. Without knowing exact numbers, but using some figures from the article linked above:

60 million households have BTN in the BTN footprint and pay well over $1 each (let's call it $1.50). That means the network gets about $90 million per month from those households.

How many of those households watch BTN? I'm not sure, but let's say it's 10%, so 6 million. That means anyone wanting that ala carte would now have to pay $15 per month. You, I and many others on this board would probably say no problem.

But what if only half of those 6 million want the network bad enough to pay that fee? And maybe only during football season? What does the price become at that point?

In order to maintain the over $1 billion of annual revenue, the network would need to charge 3 million viewers over a 4 month period about $90 per month. Think 3 million viewers would still be interested? That's about $90 per PSU football game broadcasted on BTN.
 
Cletus11 said:
Where are you getting your cable from? Unfortunately where I live in Philly area for whatever reason Verizon has not gotten FIOS in and Comcast knows that and therefore in your analogy charges me $35 to sit down at a table and order a $5 hamburger for a total of $40. The $35 being Comcast is the only way to get high speed internet and they charge $100 for that versus getting a $200 bundle phone/internet/TV. So the only choice is to goto Direct TV which is no different. Until 5G comes along and household can literally 'cut the cord' and true competition comes into play like in the cell phone area where there are literally dozens of choices of phone service, the cable companies still have the monopoly in most areas to supply the internet and price internet only as such.
Click to expand...

We don't get cable. Only internet. (We do have an antenna for local channels but I rarely watch them).

If you only have Comcast and you can make do with minimal cable, you can probably get "Internet Plus" which is internet, local channels, AMC, COM and HBO for about $85 a month including taxes and fees. (that's assuming you own your own cable modem and router, and assuming you do NOT get landline phone service in your package).

Then in football season, subscribe to Youtube TV or PS Vue for $35/40 a month and that will get you BTN and ESPN. So assuming 3 months of subscription, that means over the year your monthly cost averages under $100 a month, which is not that bad.

But if you want full-fledged cable, you're right, you've got to pay dearly for it. DirecTV has its advantages but it is not going to be cheaper than Comcast once you're past the promotional period.
 
tboyer said:
I'm sure the cable companies have very good data on exactly how many people are watching, and BTN's numbers in that part of the country must not be impressive..

The sports packages are kind of a dumb solution anyway. You want only BTN. Others only want the Longhorn Network or the ACC Network. Everybody wants to watch THEIR team's games.

Really cable "packages" are a crappy way of delivering content that is specialized and fragmented like that, with all the content providers (in this case, conferences) constantly fighting each other for a bigger piece of the pie.

We are in a transition period right now. The future is going to be a la carte. It's only a question of how long it will take cable to get there.
Click to expand...

I am shocked non Big Ten state viewers have a low interest in Michigan/OSU reruns from the glory days and 16 hour long runs of B1G Football and Beyond. Really, why would they care to watch all the live sports that the BTN could show, but doesn't in lieu of reruns? ;-) More Being PJ Fleck please! Then kill me.
 
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Colorado Man said:
No New York.
Click to expand...
I have that album on vinyl. Bought it in the cut outs when I was a student at Penn State, but it mostly was unlistenable to me. I did hang on to it and apparently it is a cult classic that goes for a chunk of change now.
 
MJG-90 said:
That hamburger, when unbundled, might still cost the same -- or even more. A lot more. Without knowing exact numbers, but using some figures from the article linked above:

60 million households have BTN in the BTN footprint and pay well over $1 each (let's call it $1.50). That means the network gets about $90 million per month from those households.

How many of those households watch BTN? I'm not sure, but let's say it's 10%, so 6 million. That means anyone wanting that ala carte would now have to pay $15 per month. You, I and many others on this board would probably say no problem.

But what if only half of those 6 million want the network bad enough to pay that fee? And maybe only during football season? What does the price become at that point?

In order to maintain the over $1 billion of annual revenue, the network would need to charge 3 million viewers over a 4 month period about $90 per month. Think 3 million viewers would still be interested? That's about $90 per PSU football game broadcasted on BTN.
Click to expand...

That's true. I expect ala carte pricing to be higher than bundled for most people.

This is a case of people who don't understand demanding something that will be bad in the end.

Further, the cable network is designed from the start to be carry "broadcast" content - content us dent once and delivered to many.

The streaming platforms are all "unicast" content, so the content is individually sent to each subscriber. This costs more.

The introductory pricing for the streaming solutions will go away once they've killed or mortally wounded big cable and the prices will be raised, higher than cable charges today.

Be careful what you wish for.
 
Colorado Man said:
Here in Colorado BTN is part of a separate sports package. More bucks into Comcast's pocket. If they drop BTN from the sports package, I drop the sports package.
Click to expand...
I bought the sports package here in Washington to get BTN. I now have the remnants of the sports package minus BTN. I tried using BTN2Go. Of course you have to sign in with your cable provider in order to access a lot of the live stuff. I got a message telling me that my cable provider didn't carry the BTN and therefore I couldn't get the live programming I wanted.

I also used to get the NFL Network as part of the sports package. That was dropped about two years ago.
 
I just switched from AT&T Uvers, which I really loved, because they couldn't go north of 10mb internet. I am getting Wowway 500mb for a lower overall price. I was going to cut the chord but after they bundled in the TV and phone (wife needs a fax line, to my embarrassment) it was within $15 a month.
 
I live in Georgia and a few months ago I switched to Comcast and the biggest questions I had was to be sure I had whatever package had the Big Ten network. Then the dropped BTN without as much as a heads up and NO options. I immediately cancelled and went with DISH and told them why. They could not care less. Bye Comcast. Horrible customer service.
 
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