Comcast: You Didn't Really Want All The "Extra Innings" Channels You Paid For, Did You?

Reader Phil writes to tell us that he’s not receiving all the channels he paid for when he signed up with MLB Extra Innings with his Massachusetts Comcast franchise:

As of today, 4/20/07, Comcast has refused to give us the full 15 channels in my area, and I am not alone. In conversing online with many, many other consumers, lots of Americans are getting the shaft. I have checked with Cox cable, Time Warner, and Direct TV, they all have supplied their customers with all 15 channels for the same price of 159.95. Comcast charges us the same price, yet only delivers 10 channels, two-thirds of what we are offered.

I have checked with the package provider, and have found out that they do provide all 15 channels to Comcast, but that local Comcast offices decide which channels they wish to give us.

Out of the 10 channels they give us…

4 of them show Hockey Games! On some nights, I only get 6 games! Certainly not the 14 channels promised!

Their commercials promise “Don’t miss a minute of the action!”

So far, i have missed my favorite team 6 times! i have even spoken to Comcast Corporate in Philadelphia, and they give me several different excuses. “It’s a bandwidth problem” (not true), We don’t promise you all the channels (Not true, either), and my favorite, “It is a decision by the marketing department”. Yet, when I asked to speak to that department, they tell me that “They don’t speak to customers, ever”

Phil attached a memo from InDemand (the provider of Extra Innings) that instructs cable systems on the proceedure for serving the Extra Innings package to customers. We’re not sure what’s up with Comcast, but we’re going to post the memo so that they can reread it. —MEGHANN MARCO


InDemand Memo (PDF)

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