TimeWarner Cable
 

I live in Moultonborough and my television cable service is provided by Time Warner Cable. Negotiations between TimeWarner and Hearst Broadcasting have failed. We now no longer get ABC. Who knows if or when we will get it back??

Time Warner Cable
 

You're right Time Warner is now a big waste of money. First they lost WBZ 4, from Boston, then Channel 7 from Boston, and now WMUR 9 from NH, and Channel 8. AND Time Warner doesn't seem to even care! The only shows are continuous reruns of the same shows. No Red Sox, no local news, no local weather. I am going to start looking into some other type service. Any suggestions?
The Eagle

From WMUR website
 

NOTICE TO TIME WARNER CABLE SUBSCRIBERS:
Update as of July 10, 2012:
Time Warner Cable, on behalf of itself and Bright House and Insight, for which it has negotiating authority, has terminated negotiations with our company, Hearst Television, for continued carriage of WMUR. Hearst has successfully concluded over 150 carriage agreements in recent months with other cable companies with no disruption of service to subscribers. This contrasts with Time Warner’s disruptions of service and withdrawal of carriage of local television stations in other cases.

Time Warner Cable refuses to pay our station a reasonable fee relative to what it pays for other significantly less popular channels. Time Warner’s characterization of the percentage increase in carriage fees we are seeking is inaccurate. We have sought a reasonable increase consistent with the increased costs we have to pay for our highly valued programming and the carriage fees now paid to us by Time Warner’s competitors. The fees we are asking from Time Warner are based on the fees we are being paid by other cable companies under our recent deals, which is the real measure — not Time Warner’s exaggerated and distorted claims — of the fairness of our proposal. In fact, retransmission fees paid to stations are just 7 cents of every dollar of the total carriage fees paid to cable networks, which are less popular than local TV stations, according to recent independent research.

We regret the inconvenience Time Warner Cable has imposed on its subscribers, and we will keep you fully informed of developments.

Contrary to Time Warner’s claim, we have not “blacked out” our station. You may continue to receive our station for free, over the air, or by satellite from DirecTV or DISH, and, where available, from other cable operators.
You can determine the type of antenna you will need to receive our signal at http://www.antennaweb.org/
Customer service numbers for other providers carrying our signal include the following:
DIRECTV: 1-888-777-2454
DISH Network: 1-800-823-4929
Hearst Television, a national multi-media company, owns and operates 29 local television stations and two local radio stations, serving 30 U.S. cities and reaching approximately 18% of U.S. television households. The TV stations broadcast 60 video channels, featuring local and national news, weather, information, sports and entertainment programming, and local community service-oriented programs. The stations also host and operate digital on-line and mobile platforms that extend the company’s brands and content to local, national, and international audiences. Hearst Television is recognized as one of the industry’s premier companies, and has been honored with numerous awards for distinguished journalism, industry innovation, and community service. Hearst Television is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hearst Corporation. The Company’s Web address is www.hearsttelevision.com.

This statement is a joke, right?

If WMUR requires some kind of fee to broadcast, the subscribers to cable/satelite ultimately pays for it.

Don't shoot the messenger!!

For satellite TV.
03226 gets the Boston channels.
03254 gets the Maine channels.

You can get channel 9 free with rabbit ears........no fee to anyone.just have to be in the right spot.

That is the same way they ALL work not just WMUR. Why do you think we had the same things happening with Direct TV last year?
Direct TV has soo much more going for it then cable TV. We have Dish at the camp and Direct at home, Direct is far superior to Dish in programs per cost.
When we build our lake house we are going switch to direct.

Loss of another channel but of course there won't be a reduction in the monthly bill. Probably a reason for another rate increase.

Did we lose the Maine ABC channel as well? I apologize...we rarely turn on the TV in the summer.

Also - if one resides in Moultonborough and chooses to go with Dish or Direct TV, what does one do for internet? Fairpoint? Is that a reliable, cost-effective choice?

You can get just internet through TW if you want. About $50/mo for the 20Mbps down/1Mbps up package.

I know that, but we want the NH channel- WMUR.

In Moultonborough we lost both ABC's channels. We lost Maine and New Hampshire.

so, are 8 & 9 still gone from TW???

Twc
 

Go to your selectmans,(Town Meetings) usually held every few weeks. VOICE your Dislike of TWC. Have them look into other providers. That is the best way to send the message I think.
When something isn't going good, change it!

Yes. They have been replaced with the Hallmark movie channel. Still no ABC.

Ah. Where acting careers go to die.

Extremely aggravating!! Not getting channel 9 is chapping my A$$. Email campaign perhaps??

To whom?

TW, who wants to increase their profit margin to get more of your $, or Hearst (WMUR) who wants to increase their profit margin to get more of your $?

Both sides are trying to make the other look like the bad guy. One thing is for sure, the existing agreement will NOT be renewed. No matter how a new agreement plays out, the price will go up, and the consumer will get stuck with the bill.

On January 1, the locally owned Waterville Valley cable tv, SkiSat Cable, was sold to Time Warner. With the recent shut-off of channel 9-WMUR by Time Warner, Waterville Valley still gets local news from Vermont and Maine which are actually a lot better than WMUR ever was and done with less flash, but no New Hampshire local news....and no Tennis Channel........boo-hoo!

NECN probably has the best local news stuff anyway ......

I am currently paying $29.99 for "budget internet" to Comcast in Londonderry, NH. $50/month seems a bit rich.

I agree with the first two sentences...perhaps as suggested above, it means a trip to a selectman's meeting.

Yes, it is steep. That's the going TW rate here in the boonies of monopolyville, and I'm pretty sure that's not the budget package. They probably have a cheaper (lower speed) option too, but since I telecommute, I need (well, ok...want) the faster package, and can justify it by not having to pay for gasoline to get to work.

AND...as a special bonus...they apparently can't/don't/haven't figured out how to block all the digital TV channels if you are an internet-only customer. Our digital tuner TV still gets 6-8 channels...in both SD and HD. Not that I've watched any of them for more than an hour or so since we cut our TV service and went internet-only in 2010. YMMV...

internet options
 

We do not want TW and have Direct TV. We don't have or want a land phone line. Any suggestions for internet? I've tried Sprint and Verizon cell cards but so slow I couldn't get anything done. Any suggestions????

FWIW - WMUR.com will let you watch the local news.

Dont you have to give back the digital tuner to them? So how would you do that to get the few channels?
Just curious.

We get channel 9 in Meredith and it's the worst channel of them all - constant static and voice problems - what's with that???:(

Digital is not cable. Think of it like a record and CD. The record is analog, the CD is digital. Both hold music, but they need different machines to make them work. Analog TV signals were broadcast, then cable companies came along and sent the same signal over wires. Now everything is digital...both broadcast and cable signal.

The cable box is cable co property. It's a digital tuner *and* also does the premium channel decryption stuff and DVR, etc. It gives you the ability to convert the signal so you can connect to an old (analog) TV on channel 3, or using the red/white/yellow plugs, or using an HDMI cable to a newer TV, etc. The cable co likes those because they support all TV sets, but mostly because they bypass your TV's tuner so they have absolute control over what signals will get to your TV.

Newer TV sets (basically everything that is a flat LCD screen) have built-in digital tuners. You can connect them to an antenna and get a digital SD or HD signal...if you're in the broadcast area...no cable required.

Here's where the 'leak' comes in. With internet-only TW service, and a TV with a built-in digital tuner (and no cable box) I get the 6-8 channels by hooking the cable to the TV. (Ironically, I think the Hallmark movie channel is one of them) The digital TV signals are blocked for most channels, but some still leak through. If you actually pay for even basic cable, you'd get more channels.

An analog TV will not work directly with broadcast (antenna) signals or the digital feed on the cable since the national cutover to digital signals a couple of years ago. You can however get digital converter boxes that are (NOT from the cable co) that will convert the broadcast digital signals to analog channel 3, or the red/white/yellow plugs. That will probably work to take advantage of the leak too.

Probably more than you wanted to know...

About ready to switch to time Warner from direct tv basically to get broadband Internet. Hopefully the tv portion will have something to watch :) and Internet will work well

I have TW for just the internet at $40/mo. and use ooma for unlimited phone @ less the $5/mo.

Don got me to look into ooma and I replaced vonage with it. I have also have Directv.

Actually, not totally true in my case with Comcast anyway. Besides my hd box I have 2 of the small digital converter boxes that give me their70+/- channels. I also have 2 other analog(crt) tv's that I have connected to just the cable without any box. Its limited but I do get 2-23 which was Comcasts lowest level of basic. Btw channel 9 is one of them. fwiw

Ah, I stand corrected. IF you subscribe to at least basic cable, they still send the 2-23 analog signals on the cable. If you don't get basic cable (like me) there's no analog signal, just the 'leaked' few digital channels.

SIKSUKR - are you saying that you currently have Comcast and they are not exclusively digital and that you are getting channels 2-23 with a cable-ready TV? AND you are currently getting ch 9??

Comcast is available in Moultonborough?

LOL - that was going to be my 2nd question...
SO, i guess not? I don't know because my in-laws own, not me...

Not exactly...

The cable coming into your house (or more technically from the pole to your house) is carrying ALL of the signals for your node (the subsection of the overall cable system you are on).

On-demand movies and shows are really just channels that are created on-demand. If your neighbor is watching last week's episode of True Blood right now, that signal is also coming into your house.

Usually if you are an Internet-only customer, or a basic-but-not-premium cable customer they install one or more filters on your line. A low-pass filter is common for Internet-only subscribers, it only passes the signals BELOW a set frequency, but it's not a perfect system, so there can be some "leakage" of the upper-frequency signals.

The digital cable signals use a technology called QAM (Quadrature amplitude modulation). QAM signals can be encrypted, or they can be what is known as "clear QAM", digital signals with no encryption. Most modern TV's have digital tuners, which are clear-QAM tuners.

In your case it sounds like a tech didn't install a filter or installed the wrong filter, or the filter is slightly out of spec. In any case, your TV is picking up some signal level that it is able to tune to. The nice thing about QAM, unlike analog signals, is that you can sometimes lock onto a lower-level signal and still get a good/usable channel image (the probably of that channel not containing total garbage in terms of the quality of the program is another issue altogether ;) ).

In the "olden days", like around the early 2000's, clear-QAM tuners were less common, and there was little or no encryption on the PPV/On-Demand channels. So, you could go hunting through the spectrum and stumble across on-demand shows that people were watching in your neighborhood, including watching them pause/rewind/fast-forward :) In many hotel TV systems this is still the case... If you travel you can get a clear-QAM USB tuner for your laptop and sometimes pickup some 'interesting' things being viewed by other hotel guests. If the hotel has the TV checkout system, you can sometimes also see people settle-up their bills on the morning they checkout.

Direct TV doesn't have a broadband Internet component.

They have a bundling deal with local DSL providers, which can vary from crap to tolerable. Then there is satellite Internet which is about the most-expensive and least-satisfactory way to get on the Internet. It's slow, unreliable, frequently throttled, has horrible data caps, and just all-around sucks.

A verizon/sprint/at&t card, even with a 1-bar EVDO/EDGE signal, is still going to be more enjoyable than satellite Internet.

Yep, the filter is put on the pole before the wire goes to the house. I was simplifying a bit. If you're internet-only, they put on a filter that will block all the analog signals. (It still works reasonably well as an FM antenna with the right matching transformer though...go figure.)

Exactly what I suspect happened, and I have to believe it's not uncommon. The old analong bandpass filters had the same problem, and since they didn't want to adversely affect the legit channels, plus some tolerance variations, it wouldn't cut off exactly at the channel frequencies they were supposed to, so you'd get some leakage there also. If (as in my case) you're internet only, they don't care much about affecting adjacent analog frequencies so much, and the filter they put on is...<cough> effective.

Interesting topics
 

That explains why channel 97 on Metrocast sometimes shows a PPV movie. A neighbor ordered it and I can receive it. I'm supposed to have basic cable and with an analog tv that was what I got. Now with an HDTV I get the expanded basic but I had to figure out what the QAM equivalent of the analog channel, for instance SYFY channel 56 is 73.9 on the HDTV, WMUR-HD is 9.1

QAM channels is not always available, sometimes I get a 'No Signal' on my tv and sometimes I get a 'low signal'. I guess the HD converter box also boost the signal?

WMUR TV closed captioned comes in beautifully on DIRECTV. It is garbled on Metrocast. I get 'pixeling' of the pictures on Metrocast.

If you call Metrocast for help, they would give you the 'tech support' number. Hours of canned music recordings later, they would tell you to 'update the software on the tv'? A lame excuse if I ever heard one.

Just saw this posted on WMUR's FaceBook page!
 

http://www.wmur.com/tv/about/Hearst-...m/-/index.html

:)

Thanks so much. Earlier we still had the Hallmark movie channel on the usual WMUR. Now ABC/WMUR is back. You made my night.

Generally, no. No signal could come from the channel being temporarily remapped to a different frequency for some reason. You might want to look into a whole-house CATV amplifier, especially if you have a lot of splitters and/or crappy old RG-59 cable.

This one is very good, and not too expensive: http://www.amazon.com/8-Port-Bi-Dire...dp/B000WDR94U/


They are contractually obligated to deliver a clear picture with no visible signs of signal degradation. This includes sending a tech to your house, and potentially installing an amplifier like the one above, at no cost. This only applies of course to the channels you are paying for.

Exactly. It makes me wonder why I get those. I'm guessing 2-23 are maybe broadcast analog? I have 3 tv's that are not digital and they all get these channels. And yes, channel 9 is one of them.

A few years ago, I ask for internet service. The installer notice a very weak signal because of the old cable and series installation. I was allowed one installation only and the technician place a new cable from the box outside the house to the internet outlet. Other installed outlets in the house can be connect by an electrician who will rewire the whole house. After the install, the technician says the signal meets 'minimum requirements' and the transmission wires to the house may have to be replace. Since the utility wires on the street are buried he sees little chance that will happen. Since then I have been getting mediocre service and power off and on the router at least once a week to get back online. I'm going to request that they put an amplifier in, if I can get them on the phone.

SIKSUKR - what area/town are you in? (if you don't mind sharing)
As someone else mentioned - I wasn't sure if Comcast was even an option - in Moultonborough anyway...

Abc is back on. They made an agreement.

Sorry if I mislead you.I am in Bedford NH.I was just responding to a post by Patman that stated no analog tv will work on cable now without a converter box.I have at least 2 that work fine.

ahhhh... I see. No worries. Thanks for the info. :)
So, yeah, I'm assuming Comcast is no longer available in M'Boro then...

Time Warner is the only franchised cable provider in Moultonboro.

Speaking of Skisat Cable, they're lineup was totally different from Time Warner's lineup out of Plymouth, NH which is a few miles from Waterville Valley and both are part of the Burlington-Plattsburgh TV market, but this is what their lineup was like before January 1, 2012:

2-WGBH (PBS) Boston, MA
3-HBO
4-WBZ (CBS) Boston, MA
5-WCVB (ABC) Boston, MA
6-Waterville Valley TV
7-WHDH (NBC) Boston, MA
8-WSBK (MNTV) Boston, MA
9-WMUR (ABC) Manchester, NH
10-WBPX (ION) Boston, MA
11-WENH (PBS) Durham, NH
12-WFXT (FOX) Boston, MA
13-WLVI (CW) Boston, MA
14-CNN
15-Headline News
16-Fox News Channel
17-CNBC
18-The Weather Channel
19-C-SPAN
20-WGME (CBS) Portland, ME
21-WBIN (IND) Derry, NH
22-TV Guide Network
23-Cartoon Network
24-USA Network
25-TBS
26-TNT
27-ESPN
28-ESPN2
29-Versus
30-New England Sports Network
31-Comcast SportsNet New England
32-MSNBC
33-Disney Channel
34-ABC Family
35-Nickelodeon
36-Comedy Central
37-VH1
38-MTV
39-Lifetime
40-A&E
41-AMC
42-HGTV
43-Food Network
44-Discovery Channel
45-TLC
46-History Channel
47-Travel
48-National Geographic
49-Animal Planet
50-TruTV
54-LMN
55-C-SPAN2
56-QVC
57-ShopNBC
58-Camera
59-MSNBC

I'm not kidding here, they had EVERY station from Boston-Manchester plus 1 station from Portland on the lineup including my favorite station WGBH-TV Channel 2 PBS In Boston, they never offed any stations from Burlington, although they did have WNNE sometime in the 1990's though, the only way people could get stations out of Burlington was by sattelite dish. But now that Time Warner of Plymouth has bought the locally owned cable company Skisat in which they bought it around Sep-Oct 2011, this is what their lineup consists of now as of January 1, 2012:

1-EWTN
2-WVTA (PBS) Windsor, VT
3-Waterville Valley TV
4-WFFF (FOX) Burlington, VT
5-WBZ (CBS) Boston, MA
7-WHDH (NBC) Boston, MA
8-WVNY (ABC) Burlington, VT
9-WMUR (ABC) Manchester, NH
10-WNNE (NBC) Hartford, VT
11-WENH (PBS) Durham, NH
12-QVC
13-WCAX (CBS) Burlington, VT
14-WFFF (CW) Burlington, VT
15-C-SPAN
16-C-SPAN2
17-HSN
18-ION Television
19-NECN
20-Local Access
21-TWC TV
22-Local Access
24-CNN
25-HLN
26-CNBC
27-MSNBC
28-FOX News Channel
29-The Weather Channel
30-TCM
31-ESPN
32-ESPN2
33-Comcast SportsNet
34-NESN
35-AMC
36-Bravo
37-TV Guide
38-EWTN
39-Oxygen
41-TV Land
43-Nickelodeon
44-Cartoon Network
45-ABC Family
46-Disney Channel
47-TBS
48-USA Network
49-TNT
51-SyFy
52-FX
53-TLC
54-History
55-Discovery Channel
56-HGTV
57-Food Network
58-Animal Planet
59-Hallmark
61-Spike
62-E!
63-MTV
64-VH1
65-CMT
66-GAC
67-Comedy Central
69-A&E
70-Lifetime
74-Travel Channel
75-TruTV
79-Jewelry TV
81-TV Guide
99-EWTN

I just can't believe they got rid of every TV Station from Boston from their lineup except for WBZ & WHDH and replaced them with Burlington stations, at least they brought back WNNE to Waterville Valley, if only Time Warner had not bought Skisat in the 1st place then they would've still had ALL the stations from Boston and still not get any stations from Burlington for a little bit longer, and WMUR would've still been on the lineup if Time Warner did not buy Skisat, but they just had to, and it sucks now dosen't it?:(