Cablevision Sucks, Part 382: Based on the Novel "Cablevision Sucks" by Sapphire

As noted earlier, Cablevision sucks.

A few weeks ago, the area's cable monopoly was warring with the also-sucky ABC. The upshot was that we lost the network the day of the Oscars. (And despite the fact that service was restored about 15 minutes into the Oscar telecast, there were no messages that, hey, service got turned on again, so I missed it anyway.)

As a form of apology, I guess, Cablevision sent subscribers an e-mail the day of the Oscars offering a free pay-per-view movie that evening. I tried several times to watch something--anything--and got an error message each time.

I e-mailed the company, asking for a credit, and finally heard back today. Let's take a look at the response (bolding mine):

Dear Valued Customer,

It would be easy enough to insert your name into form letter boilerplate, but, really, we couldn't be bothered.

Thank you for contacting Cablevision. We’re pleased to have reached an agreement allowing for the return of ABC programming to the three million New York area homes. We are very grateful to our customers for their support and your patience is appreciated.

Um. Your welcome? But that's not what I asked about.

In 2009, many new channels and services were added to our lineup, including MSG Varsity, ...

I don't watch sports.

News 12 HD, ...

Local news? Well, OK. But I don't really need to see it in high def.

Fox Business network, ...

You're just taunting me now, right?

CBS College Sports, ...

Did I mention that don't-give-a-crap-about-sports thing? So if you're making me pay for this, and you are, that's not winning me over.

Smithsonian,...

OK, that I might watch, though oddly I don't remember seeing this in my channel lineup.

Style, Boomerang, Big Ten Network HD and MSNBC HD.

No, what?, don't give a crap, meh.

OK, now let's get to the part where you tell me I get a credit for the movie you offered and then didn't have the infrastructure to actually provide:

Just as your monthly fees are not adjusted upward each time a new channel is introduced,...

Every other?

we are not issuing credits for the short period we were not carrying ABC or for the outage experienced during the free Video On Demand promotional offer.

Shorter form letter: "Dear Customer: Fuck you."

Sincerely,

Kathy
Shared Services

Sincerely, Cablevision, you suck.

Forward, into the past

When the Internet began to gain traction, long-established newspapers wondered how to make money using it.

A number of them charged for access to articles. This proved pretty much a bust. As far as I'm aware, only The Wall Street Journal has made any money this way. The New York Times failed rather miserably at charging for reading its columnists and gave up a few years ago. (It plans to start charging for access after a certain number of page views next year. Really, NYT? The barn door is open, and the free-news horse is long gone.)

Several months ago, Long Island's Newsday--owned by Cablevision, which, in case you haven't heard, sucks--spent a reported $4 million to revamp its Web site in preparation for a return to the old for-pay model, charging $5 a week for it. Now, granted, access to the site is free if you subscribe to the physical paper, or get Cablevision's TV services. But, seriously, you don't spend $4 million without expecting something in return, right?

According to this NY Observer story I ran across today, Newsday has been able to sign up a grand total of 35 people to subscribe to the Web site as of January, after the firewall had been up for three months. That's not a typo. Thirty five:

That astoundingly low figure was revealed in a newsroom-wide meeting [in January] by publisher Terry Jimenez when a reporter asked how many people had signed up for the site. Mr. Jimenez didn't know the number off the top of his head, so he asked a deputy sitting near him. He replied 35.

Michael Amon, a social services reporter, asked for clarification.

"I heard you say 35 people," he said, from Newsday's auditorium in Melville. "Is that number correct?"

Mr. Jimenez nodded.

Oh, but they meant to do that:

Mr. Jimenez was in no mood to apologize. "That's 35 more than I would have thought it would have been," said Mr. Jimenez to the assembled staff, according to five interviews with Newsday staffers.

The decision also resulted in significantly less traffic, too:

In December, the web site had 1.5 million unique visits, a drop from 2.2 million in October, according to Nielsen Media Online.

But, at least, you get what you pay for:

"The view of the newsroom is the web site sucks," said one staffer.

"It's an abomination," said another.

Yes, when the Internet began, people wondered how to make money with it. And they're still wondering.

Cablevision sucks, part XXIX

So, ABC is off of Cablevision because of squabbling over money. Yes, the Oscars are on tonight, so I won't be watching.

Just received an e-mail from Cablevision that says in part:

While we work to return WABC-7 to the lineup, you can watch WABC-7 free over the air by obtaining a digital TV antenna from your local consumer electronics store. Or, you can watch almost all of ABC's prime time programming free on the Internet at hulu.com or abc.com.

Or, in other words, "We don't do anything worth paying for. We should really stop taking your money while you find out other ways to watch your favorite programs. Truly, we are useless and we suck. Also, we have totally ruined several professional sports teams as well as a formerly respectable newspaper, Newsday, but we won't go into that here."

Meanwhile, anyone need a 6-foot-tall ice sculpture of an Oscar trophy? Because, apparently, I won't be needing it tonight.

Cablevision Sucks, Part 2: The Suckening

Around this time last year, I noted that Cablevision sucks. In a nutshell: Long Island's cable monopoly took a bunch of basic cable channels off of so-called analog cable (meaning that no cable box is required) and switched them to the digital tier, so you have to pay Cablevision another $70-something a year for a digital cable box to get them back. (That's per television, of course. Got more than one TV? Then you'll need multiple boxes.) And the company tried to palm it off, with misleading information, on the government-mandated switch to digital broadcast, which is finally happening this month. Recently -- and without adjusting prices downward, of course -- it took off another huge swath of channels, including AMC (so good-bye season 3 of Mad Men) and VH1 (so good-bye New York ... well, actually I can live with that) and MSNBC (so good-bye Rachel Maddow). But, curiously, not Fox News. Really, if there's one station I'd like off my TV, that's the one I'd pick.

But whatever. Cablevision is an awful, money-grubbing company that has also ruined Newsday, which used to be a pretty OK local tabloid. What else is new?

Here's why I'm angry anew: I wasted a perfectly nice afternoon with my parents, my voice getting louder and louder and louder and louder and LOUDER, trying to explain to them that no, you do NOT need a digital converter box because you have cable and only people with a TV antenna need a digital converter box and the reason you no longer can get MSNBC -- yes, my 80-something parents watch MSNBC and my 50-something brother watches Fox News exclusively (and, yes, please KILL ME) -- is that Cablevision wants you to pay another $6 a month per TV and no, Mom, your best friend who got a box and swears it's a digital converter box from Cablevision because of the mandated switchover, as Cablevision explained to her, did NOT get a digital CONVERTER box but a digital CABLE box and it has NOTHING to do with the switchover and YES if you want MSNBC back you (eventually) will have to pay an extra $6 to Cablevision (I say "eventually" because, oh, OK the company is "graciously" giving one cable box free for one year) but no, you DO NOT NEED A DIGITAL CONVERTER BOX, despite the confusing information being given to you by Cablevision ...

I'm sorry, I got lost in that sentence. Where was I?

Oh, yeah, right. Cablevision sucks.

(As a side note, I get a bunch of hits every week from people doing Google searches on the phrase Cablevision sucks. A number of them seem to be coming from within the bowels of Cablevision itself. Listen, folks, if you're a big company and you need to use your employees to monitor how much people think you suck (see the "When Twitter Meets CRM" sidebar here), there may be something wrong with your business model.)

Cablevision sucks

Let me say that again, for emphasis: Cablevision sucks.