The Vanishing Cable

I have basic cable. It was not so long ago that we didn't even subscribe to cable, opting for just plain ole free broadcasting channels. Who needs more than CBS, ABC and NBC, right? Wrong! Little did I know I'd get hooked on all those reality shows, not on the major three. You know, Project Runway, Top Chef, Desperate Housewives, to name a few. Anyway, so now we have to have cable. Ok, I don't mind paying for cable, although the programing is redundant on most of the channels, isn't there a movie I haven't already seen like twenty times? So a couple of months ago, I got really irked at my cable company. They kept streaming the message on the TV guide channel that they were moving that station to a higher channel, translation, pay more money if you want to get TV guide. How sneaky is that? How low and despicable! How the heck are we supposed to know what is on TV? I can see the big heads of cable saying how can we squeeze more money out of the little guy. Let's see, what is the one thing people need when watching TV, what is the one question they ask? What's on? Yeah, a rousing choir of greedy CEO's and COO's calculating that if we move the TV guide to a higher channel, people will have to subscribe to the next level. Is that not the most nit picky thing you ever heard? How petty and greedy can they be when you already subscribe to their cable stations and they yank the tv guide out from under you. Isn't it enough that we pay $100.00 for cable and internet services? Yet they want more money from us. Cable is slowly getting rid of channels at the basic level. They got rid of Oxygen, I think it's like somewhere in the 200 numbers. They got rid of channel 38 or something like that and now it's some kind of man channel showing hunting or fishing, real entertaining! How many viewers are interested in how to stalk a deer or sit in a duck blind? The other week, they yanked 19 off the air, just plain left it black screen. Pretty soon, there won't be anything left on basic cable but the three major networks and black screen stations. Well, I'm not giving in. If I have to use the internet to look up the tv guide, (I will and do) I refuse to give into their arm twisting, downright nasty petty mean nickle and dime-ing the public to death. Anyway with almost 70 channels there's still nothing to watch on TV, so why get 200 or 300 channels more, it's all the same thing, just on different channels. Maybe that will get me to read more. So there!

And oh by the way, channel 19 is still a black screen.