TV Networks

Caution: lots of opinions put forth here.

I am very upset at NBC's handling of the Olympic coverage.  Live ought to mean live.  Not live when we taped it. Not live to those who matter (on the east coast), but the rest of you don't deserve live and don't matter.  Last night I wanted to see the beach volleyball finals, but they were starting just as I was going to bed.  Because they aren't live here in MDT, I checked the website for the results and went to bed.  If they had been live, I would have seen them finish before I went to bed.  Then, this morning I decided to try and watch the match on the internet.  NBC's olympic web videos are only available to be viewed on PC's and Intel-based Macs.  My Mac is 3 years old and is the last generation of PowerBook before the Intel chip was used.  My Mac has never before had this problem.  My Mac interacts great with everything on the internet, except with Microsoft's monopoly of NBC's monopolistic control and dispensing of these Olympic games.  It feels like NBC is taking all their information control cues directly from Beijing (double-speak intended).   I didn't get to watch it on the internet.

And while I'm piling on the "Obama is the anointed one" network I am going to rant about American TV programming in general.  I could do without most of the trash available that degrades humans and is without morals, but that is for another post and time.  No, I am going to rant about how Canadians get the big 4 networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox) but we don't get any of the CBC networks in most of the country.  When I lived in Michigan we got CBC 1 and TVO (Ontario Public Television).  I want to watch Hockey Night in Canada, The Red Green Show, and CBC's Olympic coverage.  When I watched the 2002 games I liked CBC's coverage much more than NBC's controlled release of information.  I want to have more selection than what the big 4 are giving us, because most of that is prime time trash.  In a truly capitalist society we would be free to watch Canadian TV, as they are free to watch ours.

While we are on the subject of TV channels, why must I buy a package of pre-selected channels?  Why can't I buy my TV stations a la carte?  I would pay only for the stations  I watch: like ESPN and Discovery, and not for stations I won't ever watch: like FitTV or Telemundo.  I think that if you go this route, you could choose premium channels individually too (they would cost more each) and once you reached a certain threshold of channels say 25 or 50 you could get 5 or 10 more channels (of your choice) for free.  And if you think that this isn't possible, then your wrong.  Just because no commercial entity is offering such a program, doesn't mean the technology isn't there to do it.   I know I'm not the only one interested in this programming structure.

In the spirit of full-disclosure: This is the first time we have paid for television in our married life, and we are getting more channels than we are paying for (I think).  We only got the cable though so that we could get internet and Packet8 (VOIP).  And no, I don't have a DVR!