A number of e-mails asked me about DirecTV and if I like it better than my local cable options. Yes, I do. My local cable company is Time-Warner and about twice a day — via phone call, e-mail, paper mail or even someone coming to my door — I'm offered their service for increasingly low prices. If the trend continues, by November they'll be paying me to take their service.
But I don't want it. They keep saying, "We have 200 channels." Well, yes, but they're missing a number I enjoy, plus they don't have both the west coast and east coast network feeds which can be obtained in certain areas. I am in one such area so this makes it possible for the TiVo in my office to record the following each Monday through Friday for me…
- 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM — Countdown with Keith Olbermann*
- 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM — The Rachel Maddow Show*
- 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM — The Jay Leno Show
- 8:00 PM – 8:30 PM — The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
- 8:35 PM – 9:35 PM — The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
- 9:35 PM – 10:35 PM — The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
- Then I used to record The Colbert Report from 11 PM 'til 11:30 but for reasons mentioned earlier here, I now record the 6:30 AM showing. Finally, there's…
- 11:35 PM – 12:35 PM — The Late Show with David Letterman
(*Before anyone accuses me of watching only Liberal shows on news channels, I only watch Olbermann when Olbermann's on, I rarely watch more than a little of Rachel if that much, and earlier in the day, I usually catch a random hour or so of whatever's on Fox. Hey, did you know Obama has appointed 82,000 "czars" and George W. Bush only had three?)
So you can see why I like getting the west coast and east coast network feeds. It makes it easy to record shows that are opposite each other. (For a brief time, I also TiVoed Late Night With Jimmy Fallon after Conan and recorded Ferguson after Letterman. But I rarely got around to watching Mr. Fallon's program so I unTiVoed it and moved Craig into that slot.)
I have another TiVo downstairs on which I can record any show I want that airs while the above programs are being recorded, and then I can transfer them upstairs to watch on my office TV. But this way, I get the regular shows directly on the office TiVo and can watch them as I work or blog or do Sudoku puzzles or whatever it is I do on my computer here.
Sometimes, I tell a Time-Warner hard-seller that I would consider their service if they had the east coast network feeds and if they ran stations like Comedy Central from an east coast feed. I would imagine there's some contractual reason why they can't do this but they never say that. They say, "Uh, we wouldn't want to take up a channel slot with something that just repeats what's on another channel earlier." No, but they'll take them up for multiple shopping channels or nineteen versions of Encore, MTV or ESPN. I suspect more subscribers would rather have two bites at CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox than to get every possible gospel and shop-at-home network. On the other hand, they do run CSPAN3, which DirecTV somehow refuses to pick up.
The reason I mention all this is to wonder: How long before CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox start encouraging cable companies to carry multiple feeds of the same programming? It could only increase viewership, which is something those networks fervently crave. It works so well for me I can't believe a lot of folks wouldn't like it. Even if I had a DVR that could record two channels at the same time, it's still handy to be able to watch shows earlier. I watched the Emmys three hours before anyone local with cable got to see it. Multiple feeding may not be the next step in television but I'll bet it's not far off down the line.