EWTN dropped

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JaredR

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Charter dropped EWTN for our plan. I am extremely disappointed. šŸ˜¦

Anyone else have this happen to them?
 
Our cable provider doesnā€™t even offer it:(
Itā€™s so upsettingā€¦ I mean theyā€™ve got like three, maybe four Protestant channels. Sometimes my mom will watch those televangelists. I sort of do a slow motion nooooooooo in front of the screen:D

Maybe get a huge monitor and watch online:shrug:
 
Charter Communications in mid-Michigan bumped it up into the class of digital receiver stations, so you have to get a digital receiver and have it installed, and then pay an additional charge per month for that service.

You will find that it is still there, on that card that you received or will receive in the mail. EWTN is still there, but it costs more.

I see your point: who makes these decision? It has to be the accountants who are looking for ways to increase business.
 
I started watching EWTN less than a year ago. Now I donā€™t know what Iā€™d watch without it. Im blessed to live in a Catholic majority city, where all cable providers that I know of provide EWTN on the lower tiers. And we should support our local Catholic t.v. networks who carry EWTN programming. And pray that those who do not have EWTN may receive it, or get it back. With programs like The Journey Home and the Daily Mass, EWTN is a great evangelizational tool and teacher for the Catholic faithful.
 
My cable doesnā€™t provide it either and it makes me sad. šŸ˜¦ I miss The Journey Home!
 
Get internet service if you havenā€™t got one and access EWTN from there.
 
Crumpy said:
I see your point: who makes these decision? It has to be the accountants who are looking for ways to increase business.
Click to expand...
These decisions are made by contractual agreement between the service provider (the cable company) and the owner of the program channel. There are federal laws that determine what stations your cable company can provide in terms of a ā€œbasicā€ cable lineup of channels. EVERY program channel (premium channels like HBO, SHO, CMAX excepted) wants to be on the basic tier of service if at all possible because more people get it, therefore more watch it, therefore the program channels can charge higher fees to advertisers. But cable companies can only allow so many.

Approximately one half of everyoneā€™s cable bill pays for ESPN sports programming. They are far and away the single most expensive programming in the cable world, and they are one of the most desired channels. They will not be carried on anything other than a basic cable lineup or you canā€™t buy their programming. Buying their programming also means other contractual obligations for the other programming channels they own. Itā€™s one big package.

So letā€™s say your cable company has a good balance of programming content (channels) that youā€™re happy with and along comes a little mom & pop station locally and they spend a year on the air, during which time they provide more than a legal minimum number of hours devoted to public service announcements, local news and information, etc. If they can show the FCC they exceed minimums, that REQUIRES the cable company servicing that community to carry them in their basic lineup. The cable company has no choice; itā€™s a federal law, they must comply within so many days (I think itā€™s 120, but not sure on that).

Well if the basic lineup is 75 channels, and they are already full, now here comes another station saying ā€œHey, cable company, you have to carry us!ā€ā€¦ something has to go. Likely it will be a channel that either has no obligatory lineup restrictions, and one that has a fairly low viewership in that market. What percent of your market watches Catholic programming? Probably fairly low, so EWTN was a candidate for replacement.
 
Same thing happened here with Comcast a few years back. EWTN used to be part of the most basic package ($15 a month). Then, they dropped it. In order to get EWTN now, you have to go two or three tiers up in their package plans paying at least $55-$60 a month. The reason they gave was that they had to make room for more digital channels, which makes no sense to me as we didnā€™t gain a single channel by them doing this. šŸ¤·
 
Joe_5859 said:
Same thing happened here with Comcast a few years back. EWTN used to be part of the most basic package ($15 a month). Then, they dropped it. In order to get EWTN now, you have to go two or three tiers up in their package plans paying at least $55-$60 a month. The reason they gave was that they had to make room for more digital channels, which makes no sense to me as we didnā€™t gain a single channel by them doing this. šŸ¤·
Click to expand...
Right, thatā€™s what Iā€™m talking about. EWTN does not have the draw of audience that ESPN or the Food Network or the History Channel does. So when it comes time to see whoā€™s in the basic lineup, it starts with federally mandated local channels, then the powerhouse networks that can demand it by contract (ESPN, etc.) If you arenā€™t one of those groups, and you arenā€™t a local news channel, they can afford to shift you to a more premium package.

During the changeover from analog programming to digital, things were a bit different. Cable companies passed on what they received, meaning if the network fed them a digital signal, they could pass it on digitally. If they fed an analog signal, the cable company could only pass it to you using analog.

You might recall that the federal mandate to shift to all-digital like we have now began in 1986 and there were two previous deadlines that were pushed back. Converting from analog to digital on the part of a network was expensive, and they had to eat that cost. Along with that, the cable companies had to reconfigure all their equipment but felt the pain a bit less because this is something they have to do on a regular basis to keep services like broadband internet fast.

No cable company wanted to wait until the last minute to be up and running with all digital. Because of that, some few networks and stations lagged behind and had to be moved across various tiers of programming because of the room their signal took up.

If you draw a simple number line, an analog TV signal would need all the space between 0 and 10 just for one single channel. The federal government allocated long ago 176 of those 10MHx-wide bands for television broadcast use. Today, we can pack 32 or 64 digital channels into the same space we used to use for one single channel. In other words, the amount of spectrum that used to be used for channels 2-12 can now carry about 300 channels of digital programming, another 50 HD channels, internet, and phone signals. Really they use more than that, but that amount is theoretically possible.

The goal was to free up this enormous amount of spectrum that the industry no longer needed, and free it up for use with other needs like more cell phone bands, more wireless network bands, more government radio bands, etc.
 
Write to them and complain. Get lots of of other people to do it too.

We have a local Catholic television station here. It used to be on a shared channel with EWTN. Used to drive me crazy because if I wanted to watch one of my favorite EWTN shows you could be sure that the local channel would be on. And in my opinion it wasnā€™t very good although it has improved some since the Bishop has been doing some teaching type shows. Anyway they recently split the two and we now have two Catholic Channels.

Amazing!
 
Thanks DOShea. You have answered the part about switching EWTN to digital correctly. For others of us, how can a cable company justify refusing requests to add EWTN to any tier? Fortunately for us, after many years of denial, Mediacom appears to be adding EWTN as they switch to a more (completely?) digital format. If Mediacom can soon honor our requests, they can expect my favorable letter to our city council at franchise renewal time.
 
you can always write a letter to the company or call in and demand the channelā€¦ or just go to the EWTN website and stream it, thats how i watch it at work every day.
šŸ˜ƒ
 
Our area is covered by Charter, but we donā€™t subscribe to their TV service. We use Dish Network instead. I like it much better than cable, anyway.

Then Sirius for EWTN Radio and The Catholic Channel.
 
We had EWTN for 12 years, but we decided during Lent last year against any TV on in the house. We cancelled our subscription. It turned out to be a very good decision, and we have not had any TV since. We can however get EWTN on the internet, both the radio live and TV live. Actually, you can also access some of their past programs in the archives at ewtn.com.
 
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