Xfinity Later!

Like flipping to the next lame channel - Breaking up with your cable provider is easy to do!

Like many relationships, it started out with love, a feeling that we could never be apart, ever again!  How could I imagine a time when we wouldn’t be together, entertaining each other, laughing, crying, sometimes just quietly sitting like zombies, staring at one another.  How could such a perfect, bombproof, essential relationship come to an end?

Well, as many such relationships do, it ended in betrayal, in one of us expecting far too much from the other, when one of us got stupid greedy, giving less and less but demanding ever more and more. 

Yes, over the years, Comcast kept adding more and more crap channels to the lineup, and refusing to offer the most popular channels without adding extra fees.  Finally I determined that there were only fifteen channels that I EVER actually watched, and 100% of my favorite shows were available elsewhere, especially on the internet.  That was the tipping point. 

I started adding it up.  I was paying $192 for my cable TV/internet bundle, which increases at least $5 - $10 a year for no reason - and that didn’t include any premium movie channels, just basic plus a sports upgrade.  I bought that sports package only to watch the Tennis Channel, currently in a heated legal battle with Comcast for that very reason.  Now – I can get Tennis Channel online as well as ESPN, so why do I need to pay $9 a month for 40-50 sports channels I never watch?  Now I’ll pay less than $50 for high-speed internet, saving me about $140 per month total.

Now – I have streaming internet via Apple TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime and a world of cheap DVD and blu-ray disks to keep me warm at night – more stuff than I will ever have time to watch.   (If I want porn, well, I never tried Comcast’s vast selection – but I assure you there is no shortage on the web.)

Unfortunately Comcast and other cable providers are actively seeking to change internet access so we have to pay much more for our chosen content, and they also plan to heavily restrict access to everything they don’t control.  This move will likely bankrupt our nation in favor of these gluttonous media conglomerates getting even more rich and powerful – their goal truly is “Xfinity” of all media.  But hopefully before that actually happens, us cable-haters will stage a serious protest, in an attempt to break up their increasing death-grip on the world’s entertainment and information flow - instead of  meekly allowing another quiet, almost clandestine court decision similar to the one they won recently.

To be fair – I must point out that I have made some money over time by producing some of these crappy shows airing on these struggling, barely-watched networks – some of which will be swamped in the process – but that’s inevitably going to happen anyway.  To my fellow hack TV producers – beware, our days are surely numbered.

And to Comcast, U-verse, Time Warner, and all of you big, fat, rich media moguls, I offer you a twist on the time-honored breakup line:

Baby – it’s not me, it’s you.

12:30 pm, Thursday January 30, 2014

You are officially cut off, Bitchcast!