random rant
The honeymoon may be over.
I’ve been with DishNetwork for a long time, & for the most part, I’ve been very happy with them. I love the programming choices, DVR technology, & occasional free preview weekends for premium channels.
But I’ve also overlooked a lot about them that I haven’t liked.
They took away FX, AMC, IFC, & WE for a while when negotiations with those networks wasn’t going well. Yet they never gave us a break in pricing for the missing channels.
They took away WPIX, which I really liked, because it isn’t local enough to be a “local channel” & they aren’t required by law to carry it. (Nice, huh? They’re not required by law, so screw you.) Yet they never lowered programming prices to reflect the loss of a channel.
My DVRs have died on me twice, & while they replaced them for free (only because I pay their monthly “insurance” fee), they’ve never offered an option to back up the shows I had recorded…& which meant a lot to me, I’m moderately embarrassed to admit…& can never get back, & won’t upgrade my DVRs unless I pay through the nose for it.
Every time we get a storm, the signal goes out completely. It never used to do this, but now it seems to happen all the time, sometimes even when the weather isn’t that bad. And in response to my complaints, they tell me, “Eh, it happens. We can’t control the weather.”
And I have tolerated it all. Thrown the occasional fit, but sucked it up & let it go, because the good mostly outweighs the bad.
Now, though, they may have pushed me too far. They’ve taken away Cloo, one of my favorite channels. Their excuse is that the programming on Cloo is similar to programming available on other channels, so why bother?
But are they offering a replacement or…wait for it…lowering our monthly charges? Hell, no! Of course not.
So let’s just call this what it is, shall we? A way for them to offer less but still rake in the same big bucks. And in response to my complaint about this [malfesance], I get yet another brush-off company line: “Our agreement does stay that programming & charges are subject to change.”
Uh-huh. Well, I’m subject to changing my mind about which cable provider I subscribe to. I really don’t want to…my DVRs are full, I can work the system with my eyes closed, & I’ve got all of the channel numbers memorized. But this one may just push me over the edge. I think it’s time to start investigating other companies & see if I can find someone who does carry Cloo so I can have my favorite all-day marathons back.
Comments
11 Comments • Comments Feed
Laura J. says:
We were forced to change (buy out) from Insight (which was “meh”, but worked and customer service was pretty decent) to Time Warner with their “faster and better” internet. Well guess what? I’m still waiting for the “faster and better” internet (I get kicked out of mine all the time!!!!). Customer Service? Yeah, right, when you have the time to sit on the phone and wait two hours for someone to take your call and after all that they can’t help you at all. TV==no issues. Yet. I’m sure they are coming though. I’m not 100% sure if we have Cloo. We just tend to flip through channels until we can all agree on something (or the husband turns on something he wants to watch and then leaves the room and doesn’t come back, forcing me to watch something I have zero interest in watching. Finally I will turn the channel and then he comes back in and wants to know why I changed the channel. Dude…you left. My tv now!)
We have Tivo for our dvr so we didn’t have the issues with loosing anything except when our Tivo device went out once. Although there are times when “someone” deletes stuff to make room for “his” things and my stuff is what mysteriously disappears and it’s stuff that I either 1) haven’t gotten to watch yet or 2) stuff I want to watch a million times!! So I can understand your frustration with the DVR stuff.
Weather has been the big issue for us not switching to DISH. I refuse to not know what’s coming weather wise and since we are considered part of tornado alley, I will not go with any satellite company.
On August 13, 2013 at 1:20 pm
Heidi says:
What’s the problem with weather reports? I can totally understand your need to stay on top of them where you are, but with Dish, we still get all of our local channels, so we get local news & local weather, including the scrolling warnings at the bottom of the screen.
And the Weather Channel, of course…but I gave up on that cuz it never actually tells me the weather where *I* am.
On August 13, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Laura J. says:
It’s more of the satellite going out than not getting them. We have great meteorologist around here and there are a couple that when they say “worry” or “be concerned” then I am.
Dish was also just in a dispute with one of our local channels and the local channel was off the air for about a week (Dish only).
It’s all about the mighty dollar. We don’t really have much competition for cable/internet so the one we get TWC pretty much can do what they want. AT&T U-Verse is starting to make a presence, but it’s still spotty at best. We are giving them a year (and maybe, hopefully by then) or we are going with something else.
On August 13, 2013 at 5:34 pm
Heidi says:
Oh, yeah, gotcha. As I mentioned, the signal goes out nearly every time it rains. Big storms esp, but sometimes even if it’s just sprinkling. :poopoo
On August 13, 2013 at 8:48 pm
Jen Cryblskey says:
:oopsiedaisy we have time warner in our new house and have missed episodes of Dexter because of negotiations. Sigh…
On August 13, 2013 at 3:23 pm
Heidi says:
Oh, yeah, I’ve gone thru “negotiations” a couple of times. So annoying, but still I was patient & trusted they’d get it all worked out. I was also able to catch up later with the stuff I’d missed, like new eps of The Walking Dead.
But this…there’s no end in sight, they just took it away. :crykitty
On August 13, 2013 at 4:50 pm
Laura J. says:
But on the upside of TWC we get 25 email accounts per bill/household. Yeah, I have a few. :winkcat
On August 13, 2013 at 5:35 pm
Heidi says:
Heh heh heh. :snickerdog
On August 13, 2013 at 8:49 pm
Mary Kirkland says:
My hubby has been pushing me to get Dish for a couple of years. But I just keep Googling Dish Complaints and reading the different complains and I say I am staying with Cox Communications. They may suck at times but they haven’t taken away any channels, if my cable goes out for a day I can call and get a rebate on my bill and they send someone to fix any problems within a day. Hubby can keep complaining, but I won’t be switching to Dish.
:poopoo
On August 13, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Heidi says:
That’s what bugs me so much—I’ve always *loved* Dish. Really I have. A few friends have DirectTV & I never liked it nearly as much. And I’ve recommended Dish to tons of people. In fact, if it weren’t for the Cloo thing, I’d still say go for it!
This just really ticks me off & I’m annoyed that they did it w/o asking for feedback first to see if subscribers wanted to keep it or not. I mean, I put up with 62,000 sports channels I couldn’t care less about & that play all the same things, but do they remove those?! :oopsiedaisy
But the one channel that plays all-day marathons of Monk, NCIS, Covert Affairs, White Collar, etc. (all great to write to), they take away from me. :crykitty
On August 13, 2013 at 8:52 pm
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On July 29, 2014 at 10:08 pm