Time Warner gives CableCard customers 44 reasons to cancel their service
If you patted yourself on the back for discovering the joys of the CableCard — a device that allows you to watch digital cable without having to stick one more black box above, behind or below your TV set — well, kick yourself in the shin, because you shoulda figured Time Warner Cable was going to figure out a way to cripple your card.
Let's go to the letter, being sent out today by TWC Kansas City:
Time Warner Cable would like to thank you for choosing us to be your video provider. We are writing to you as a valued CableCARD customer in order to provide advance notice of important upcoming changes that may affect your ability to access certain channels on your one-way CableCARD-equipped retail device (also known as a “UDCP”).
Time Warner Cable is rolling out a new interactive technology in your area known as Switched Digital Video (“SDV”). SDV is a particularly exciting bandwidth-management breakthrough that makes it possible for us to offer many additional services, including new HD channels and HD versions of popular existing channels, to our customers. SDV allows us to provide these additional services, while at the same time continuing to offer existing services, because channels delivered using SDV are only transmitted over the cable system on an as-needed basis. As a result, SDV uses system capacity more efficiently than the traditional, always-on method. However, in order to launch all the new services our customers want, first we must migrate some existing services to SDV in order to make additional bandwidth available.
Starting on August 20th, Time Warner Cable will begin providing a number of our existing, lesser-viewed channels via SDV. The list is as follows:
Video Rola 157
Canal Sur 159
HITN 167
EWTN 190
TBN 191
The Word 192
American Life 193
Inspiration 194
Inspiration Life 195
The Gospel Music Channel 196
Daystar 197
Family Net 198
Outdoor Channel 202
G4 216
Biography 217
History International 218
Military Channel 224
Investigation Discovery 225
Planet Green 226
Bloomberg 227
CNBC World 228
Fox Business 230
C-SPAN 3 232
Gameshow 240
Wam 242
The N 245
Boomerang 246
Fuse 250
Ovation 251
TV One 253
Sleuth 255
VH-1 Classic 258
Fine Living 260
Lifetime Real Women 261
BBC America 263
Fit TV 264
Sundance 285
IFC 287
HBO Signature W 305
HBO Family W 307
HBO Comedy W 309
HBO Latino W 313
Showtime Too 342
SHOSHCS 344
The current generation of CableCARD-compatible devices sold at retail are only capable of accessing our one-way services. They were not designed to be compatible with SDV, which is a two-way service. As a result, once the channels listed above are migrated to SDV, they no longer will be available to UDCPs. However, Time Warner Cable has worked with the rest of the cable industry and TiVo Inc. to develop an external device called a Tuning Adapter that will allow certain UDCPs, including TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD digital video recorders, to access channels delivered using SDV.
We expect to be able to offer Tuning Adapters to customers with compatible UDCPs later this year. At that time we will provide you with additional information on availability and device compatibility. It is currently contemplated that the Tuning Adapter will be provided at no additional charge. Until the Tuning Adapter becomes available, however, a Time Warner Cable digital cable set-top box will be required to view channels migrated to SDV – even if you own a Tuning Adapter-compatible UDCP. In addition, certain non-TiVo UDCP models may not work with the Tuning Adapter.
So yeah, it's temporary. Still, I'm not sure what bothers me more: the fact that TWC couldn't bother to wait until it had acquired enough replacement CableCards to take care of its current CableCard customers (including me) ... the fact that its letter repeats word for word the text from a letter Cox Cable sent out to its customers recently ... or the fact that Sundance, Planet Green (home of the Kansas-based program "Greensburg") and BBC America are too insignificant for Time Warner to keep carrying to its entire base.
As for Lifetime Real Women being a "lesser-viewed channel," all I can say is ... don't tell that to the Time Warner Cable sales staff, which tells prospective advertisers that "Among women, LRW ranks #2 in interest among all ad-supported emerging networks" and "LRW ranks #2 among all Adults who subscribe or would subscribe to digital cable." Did that survey question indicate if those potential subscribers owned a friggin Series 3 TiVo??
Previously on TV Barn:
