Welcome To Idiopathy

It always seems to happen when I'm relaxed, or in a good mood. I'll be sitting on the couch, enjoying some show on the History channel. My show goes to commercial break and I half-listen to pleas from the British vacuum guy to please buy one of his products. Then it happens...

That bitch comes on. "Newspaper subscriptions are way down!" and "Why broadcast to counties you don't need?" ring through my head. What can it be? I'll tell you what it is, the cable company running the same ad for the thirtieth time that day! Advertise on cable, blah blah blah. I'm so sick of it.

I do get subtle amusement out of these commercials, however. One commercial explains you should not advertise on broadcast local channels. They ask why you would want to have your ad shown outside your county. This is extremely amusing for two reasons.

First and foremost, Vermont is incredibly small. You can drive across the state from top to bottom in 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Why wouldn't you want every county in the state to know about your business? The other reason it's funny is simple: I've seen local ads shown through said cable company that are in different counties. What a gip, eh?

My amusement with these commercials quickly dims when their other ads are run. That's right, I have to be bombarded with TWO ad campaigns every night. After the cable company finishes raving about advertising, they start bashing the satelite companies.

Now, I like DSS(Digital Satelite System) quite a bit. I'd sure as hell have one if I didn't live in an apartment, too. So my patience wears very thin when the local cable company tries to make the satelite companies look like villains. Cable is made to look like a slice of heaven, naturally.

The true problem is that many of the things the cable company claim as truths are in fact lies. They say, "Oh! Your satelite service goes out in heavy rain!" This is in fact true. However, it holds true for them as well. The local cable company uses...wait for it...SATELITES to receive its programming. This means my cable usually goes out during a rain storm, too.

The cable company also goes on to claim that you have to buy your equipment for satelite service. Well you do with some DSS providers, but it's only $100. You also typically get that back by getting a couple months of free satelite service. One company doesn't even make you pay to begin with.

The cable company also doesn't tell you that you actually do have to pay for their box. Let's say it costs $15 a month to have that box sitting on top of your television. After only seven months, the cost of having the cable box has already exceeded the one-time cost of a satelite receiver. Stretch that out over five years and that cable box will have cost you $900, and you'd still be paying for it. The satelite receiver still only costs $100 after five years.

The last thing that really bothers me (besides turning Dan Akroyd to the dark side) is claiming satelite providers don't care about their customers. This is a near-complete falsehood. A large number of satelite systems are bought from local TV and appliance stores. There may be a few bad eggs, but most won't risk their reputation by ignoring their customer's problems.

The cable company's main argument is that once you buy the satelite receiver and dish, you won't have someone coming to your house to fix it. To this I say duh! When you buy a VCR or a DVD player from Wal Mart, you don't expect someone to come fix it when it breaks, do you? It's an item you purchased, thus your responsibility. I'm sure it would be no different if cable boxes were sold in stores.

As for having your cable box serviced at your house...well, maybe. If it's an internal problem, I doubt they'd just rip the damn thing apart on the floor. They will probably take it, and your service, back to the service department to be fixed. Besides that, they only service the things so they can a: put off buying new equipment for as long as possible, and b: cover the fact that you are spending almost $200 a year to have the damn thing.

I wrote this article because I feel it's about time the local cable company was called out on their delirious and laughable claims. I'm tired of seeing your annoying commercials fifteen times a day. I hate being able to recite half of them from memory. Arm yourselves with knowledge, and realize that the cable company isn't so innocent. In fact I think it's the cable company that should be concerned about their image, and certainly not the satelite industry.

Yea, verily.

~John Prescott, "Managing Editor"