OFF THE AIR on U-Verse - Food Network, Cooking Channel, DIY, GAC, HDTV -

[AC_Mem]

Source: at&t U-Verse website

from att.u-verse

Programming Updates:
AT&T U-verse TV customers have been denied a fair deal for HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Cooking Channel and GAC programming by Scripps Networks, who ended AT&T's rights to deliver these channels. We are making every effort to reach a fair agreement and continue providing these channels to you. Read More >

Always working to reach fair deals
We’re regularly negotiating with TV networks to deliver the channels that are important to you. We’ve reached hundreds of deals with TV networks over the past few years, but when a TV network makes unreasonable demands —including demands that would cause you to pay more than your fair share — a fair deal can’t always be reached. That’s why we fight for you, because you deserve the programming you want, at a fair price.



Read more: http://www.att.com/Common/iptv/files/dkpages/dk_fighting4you.html

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I'm furious. Big broadcasting is blackmailing to double its rates.

First Tuesday, then with KO I have to boycott MSNBC, so I figure, I'll watch the Food Network and Cooking Channel. I turn it on this morning and they are GONE. Scripps Howard is taking its cue from Faux and doubling its price so the shows were pulled.

It's not bad enough that we have to pay $100 a month to get decent television, we have to put up with this kind of big corporation tactics so that those billionaires can get even MORE money from us.

I'm furious, just furious. On the phone with at&t right now. If you have a mind to help me, please call and tell them how you feel about this:

Tell these networks you don't want to pay unfair prices for your channels:
Scripps: 877-677-6385

[napi21]

1. But who is your fight really with? Isn't it Scripps Howard & not AT&T?

The problem is WE/YOU don't have any leverage with Scripps.

[AC_Mem]

4. Who is my fight with?

It is with Scripps, however att is my provider and so I will express my displeasure through them as well. I work for a telecom company, we don''t wait until the contract expires before we negotiate a renew. I don't understand why, if the contract expired on 11/2, they didn't have something negotiated and in the bag 6 months ago.

Whatever, it is Scripps who is pulling a Faux, saying they want to double the cost of these shows, which will ultimately trickle down to the customers - its blackmail. They are all going to hear my wrath today.

[napi21]

9. Agreed. I just wish you, the customer, had some influence on Scrips, and you dont. nt

[tyne]

2. I've no idea

what I'd do without FoodTV and HGTV....I'd be so pissed.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. We cut off the tv months ago.

they are pricing themselves into the ground.
Cable is losing tons of customers, so is satellite tv.
People are realizing they can get a lot of shows on their puter, and if you have a flat screen monitor it is BETTER than most tv sets.

[OnyxCollie]

5. Direct TV took G4 TV off it's channel line-up this month.

Since they raised their prices and I'm receiving less, I think I'm going to cancel my service and get a Netflix account instead.

[scentopine]

6. Just turn off the goddamn tv and let your brain heal...

and put the money in the bank. People, please stop with the goddaman facebook and twitter and dumb ass google phone apps - "look I can turn any face into a talking butthole that sings jingle bells!"

Just fucking great. Engineers in china and india are gainfully employeed bringing you the talking butthole app and oil and insurance companies are sponsoring your food network.

Put the money in the bank. Get outside, get involved, learn to play music, go out for a movie once a month.

Take that gun you bought for self defense and use it now to shoot your television. And your google phone.

Now - here is something to get pissed about- net neutrality. Right now the centrists are scheming to turn the internet into just another cable tv venue. Centrists are driven by their free-market snake oil which promises that private industry control is always better than government protected liberty. And they are getting sympathetic ear in the White House. The same guy who managed to open up the known universe to oil drilling is now hatching a plan to turn the internet over to AT&T.

AT&T has long demanded a quid pro quo for helping the CIA/NSA/FBI spy on us. That's how centrists operate - don't waste energy and time on principals and ethics, just go straight for the politically expedient course. The intellegence industry and agencies have a ton of money and by god their gonna use it to round up some liberals!@

And when liberals complain about turning control of internet over to AT&T to operate like cable tv, centrists will be here calling it a pony and belly aching about how liberals aren't republican enough.

[robcon]

7. It's just the opposite, scentopine.

"Just turn off the goddamn tv and let your brain heal..."

Just open your mind to the universe of TV. Suggestion: you'll be a little less close-minded and arrogant if you watched TV.

[scentopine]

8. LOL! I always know I'm right when I get hit with personal attack...

but I won't return the favor. Thank you for your kind reply.

[robcon]

10. After attacking all those who watch TV, you're surprised by a personal attack?

Don't you own a mirror, scentopine? Didn't you read your own post?

[cleanhippie]

12. His was a broad recommendation, yours was a personal attack.

He was making an opinion and a recommendation to TV watchers in general, YOU made a personal attack directed at him and him alone.

[scentopine]

14. Some centrists spare no effort to defend the rights of media monolpolies

and richest people in America to control what we should watch and how much we should pay to watch it.

You should have seen some of these guys fight for the insurance companies during health care debate - a wonder to behold.

Their defense of BP over the oil spill was heroic.

They had the backs of CIA and Bush and Cheney fighting against prosecution for torture and lies about the Iraq war. It was an Oscar worthy performance.

The Keith Olbermann scenario is exactly what will happen to the internet. Post something unflattering to AT&T? You are gone.

Centrists, in a desperate grab for wall street's love and attention, will hand the keys to the internet over to AT&T. In return, the centrists will expect massive campaign funding and support from AT&T. But it won't happen that way. Of course the centrists will hand the keys to AT&T, that part will happen. AT&T is Lucy and the centrists are Charlie brown.

After the election, Lucy has told Charlie Brown that if he moves more to the right, she won't fake him out again. And Charlie Brown is taking another try at it. He's convinced this time Lucy really means it. He's moving so far to the right, that he's nearly out of bounds. And that is exactly where Lucy want's him.

[cleanhippie]

19. .

[scentopine]

22. dupe

[LanternWaste]

11. I imagine many people believe that the entertainment they themselves enjoy

I imagine many people believe that the entertainment they themselves enjoy is worth both time and money, while the entertainment enjoyed by others is simply a waste of brain... much like the dogmatic positions entertained by the Sunday morning televangelists.

[mindcough]

21. it's amazing that scentopine cries about TVs, social networking and cell phones

...while hypocritically posting on a message board such as DU.

The fact of the matter is that chat rooms and internet message boards such as DU are the Genesis of online social networking. If you're going to shoot your TV then at least be smart enough to shoot your computer and stop funding those huge faceless organizations that give you internet access. :hi:

[CreekDog]

29. I have an app that writes alarming messages like yours

but i think it's out of date because yours are way better!

:D

[CreekDog]

30. This is excellent advice

So I put it on my FB and Twitter pages. :P

[Phentex]

13. I use to watch them a lot but not so much anymore...

still, it's ridiculous! My neighbor called frothing at the mouth because she loves the Food Network channel. She swears she will drop ATT over this.

I'm going to call on principle.

[AC_Mem]

15. I called and after waiting a LONG time

to get to the retention department, we had a little chat.

I was given a decent discount for the next 6 months for my frustration. They assured me that they are doing everything they can and that Scripps is at fault here, they pulled the shows because at&t did not think it fair that they doubled their price.

Humm - didn't Faux Sports just do the exact same thing?

[Phentex]

17. Did they replace yours with others?

I don't know if it's the same everywhere but they've replaced them with Bravo & TLC duplicates, Ion and Planet Green.

[AC_Mem]

24. yes, they did but

It's not the same. The retention agent asked me that, she said, "well, you have planet green" - and I said, "yes, but I really don't want to watch a show about cowboys, I want to watch my cooking shows". She said "there aren't any cowboy shows on Planet Green" and I told her that I was at that very moment watching a cowboy pull a calf out of a cow's va-jay-jay. She then began talking to me about giving me a 6 month credit.

:)

[GoCubsGo]

16. Unplug it all.

If you want to watch some good cooking shows, check to see if your local PBS station carries the "Create" channel. Now that broadcast TV has gone digital, PBS has 3 channels in most places, one of them being the Create Network. It carries all sorts of cooking, home improvement, travel, and arts and crafts shows. Right now, Julia Childs is on, with the "Two Hot Tamales" as her guests.

BTW, you can live stream the Food Network on tvpc.com. Probably HGTV, as well.

[earth mom]

18. Why anyone would continue to support the lying corrupt corporate media MO FOs is beyond me.

I haven't had cable for years and I'm glad of it. I watch all the shows I want online, on itunes, from netflix and the library.

I have control of what I watch and am not smothered in right wing propaganda that is not only on the so called "news" channels but also dominates the commercials too!

Free yourself from those bastards. You will not regret it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. I am getting close to canceling my cable quite honest

piece of trivia... last quarter was the first time that cable went down in its history.

[scentopine]

23. Here is an entertaining show - "Amazing Centrists"

The crime segment will be a heroic tale of justice: brave centrists taking on a corrupt government by indicting and prosecuting for torture, wire tapping, oil spilling, bank frauding and mortgage lying.

The cooking show, sponsored by Goldman Sachs will highlight quick and easy meals for your whole family that you can make from cat food. Along with tips on how to tell your kids to "just shut the fuck up and eat it".

The technology segment will highlight the fascinating ways local and federal agencies and banks are spying on you (to protect you).

The faith segment will feature a celebrity CEO who will explain that you don't deserve bailouts, health care, privacy, political representation nor justice because you are the lazy underclass. Special features will help to teach you how to keep giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving without ever getting angry about never getting anything in return. CEOs reveal their secrets to help you accept your eroding standard of living without whining.

Special section on health teaches you that just because you're sick, it doesn't mean you shouldn't suffer and die poor and whine about it.

The money segment follows your tax dollars from your paycheck through the white house, through congress, through the treasury, through the federal reserve, right in to the gas tank of a health insurance CEOs Mercedes Benz (parental advisory, contains material which may be considered obscene).

You'll marvel at the sports segment as centrists battle it out on their polo ponies, then retreat to the clubhouse for some well deserved R&R and swap stories about hippie punching.

Unfortunately, ratings have been pretty low so far, so there is speculation that "Amazing Centrists" will be canceled at the end of it's first season.

[undergroundpanther]

25. Now you know why television went DIGITAL.

and convinced congress to make the switch MANDATORY. I saw this coming years ago...The switch to digital was NOT intended to improve our viewing choices or clarity, it was a way to get free TV off the AIR where anyone with an antenna,or even rabbit ears and tin foil,could get TV for free,without a CORPORATION choosing what they could watch,like they are doing right now.Originally cable presented itself as a commercial free service,one you paid for. Originally you paid a cable bill to watch shows without 10 commercials in a half hour show,and to get more channels in the 80's. Gradually cable became as commercialized as regular TV was.What happened to the money put out for commercial free TV? Long forgotten. Cable companies realized they could not control programming or compete with freely available airwaves,so they HAD to digitize and in the 90's they'd offer "hiatus" times to people that "stole cable" by hooking the lines up themselves and getting an entire apartment building on free cable.The cable companies said they'd not prosecute people coming forward to get 'legit cable.(sound familiar? like what happened to napster and lime wire?) Companies HATE sharing and they HATE what they cannot control and OWN..Yet these companies always find a way to fuck over customers don't they? Cable stole the Airwaves from US,just like they are stealing cable and sadly maybe the web too..They could not OWN it so they went digital. Now we get to watch what they want us to see (why is olbermann suspended again?,Oh yeah cable owns him and can shut him out of his own show,too,the fuckers),and we pay out the ass and get shit-loads of commercials too.. So...Who's Stealing what from Whom again?

Never EVER trust a corporation.

[Hannah Bell]

27. "it was a way to get free TV off the AIR" = ding ding ding

[Hannah Bell]

26. boycott their crap shows & their crap networks.

[Phentex]

28. UPDATE: It's back on...

Nothing about it on their websites (HGTV and Food). I haven't checked the AT&T site yet.