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Here we go again… Take 3… As of March 7th, Cablevision may no longer carry WABC 7. It’s the usual “we aren’t getting enough royalties” vs “we don’t want to pay you more and increase our customers’ bills” argument. Newsflash, idiots at Cablevision: It’s a broadcast channel! You can get it free over the air with a digital receiver. How are you dropping free content from your cable system? Are we that low?

Historically, this happened with the YES network in 2002, Food Network & HGTV in January 2010 and now this in March? This happened with Time Warner and Fox, but an agreement was reached.

What does this mean for consumers? It’s awful. This is setting a bad precedent. Pretty much, Cablevision will threaten to drop any network it does not want to pay more money to. It only hurts the consumers, because if other companies give in and pay more, the cost gets passed on. If Cablevision drops the channels, customers get angry. This is happening way too frequently, and networks will catch on and use this to force carriers to pay them more. I do see Cablevision’s point, but at the same time, they are just dumb.

At the rate everyone is increasing prices, cable TV will be $300 per month. I say ditch television and watch your shows online.

Good job morons. You just don’t get it. At the rate you guys drop networks, you won’t be carrying anything soon. Food Network and HGTV were dropped because Cablevision refused to pay a slightly increased per-subscriber fee to Scripps Networks Interactive (the parent company). I mean, not that I care or watch these channels, but the point is that this stupid cheap ass company always loves to piss off subscribers. It goes way back to 2002 with the YES Network.

I mean seriously – get FiOS already (if available) – it’s far superior. FiOS gives you something like 200 more channels. Those channels are completely uncompressed and look stunning. Their guide actually works snappily and doesn’t take 2 minutes to load. Cablevision likes to compress the signal because their tubes can’t hold as much bandwidth – meaning that their digital picture looks blocky. Even their HD looks gross. Don’t even get me started on internets. FiOS gives you faster upload speeds than Optimum Online and matching (or better) download speeds. Oh and it sucks if you live in Fairfield County Connecticut, because Cablevision is the best available carrier. AT&T and U-Verse are garbage.