Reader Steve is displeased with the blackout restrictions that are affecting his ability to watch the Philadelphia Flyers:
My name is Steven [redacted]. This isn’t your typical rant about lousy customer service but I think it qualifies anyway.I live in the Harrisburg, PA area – “Comcast Country” so I shouldn’t have to explain my decision to subscribe to DirecTV. As part of my DirecTV service I also subscribe to the NHL Center Ice package so I can watch the Philadelphia Flyers games. I was happy with my service and my TV provider choices until about a week ago…
The NHL in its infinite wisdom (does a sports league qualify for your Worst Company in America contest? If so, I nominate the NHL for next year.) decided to start its own network. They also decided to broadcast 2 of the last 3 Flyers games before the playoffs on that network while also letting the local regional sports channels broadcast them. Therefore, due to the NHL blackout rules and Comcast’s policies (more on that later) I couldn’t watch the games even after shelling out the extra money. Seems that when a game is on a national network and a local channel, the national network gets blacked out in the local market. Besides the inanity of starting a TV station that fans of the game can’t watch, the NHL is also screwing anyone with DirecTV in a Comcast market.
Why? you ask. Because Comcast won’t allow DirecTV to show ComcastSportsNet on their service. I guess it’s not bad enough that Comcast drives customers away (like they did with me) with their corporate greed and stupidity but now they have to screw me again by not allowing a competing service carry their channels.
I have emailed DirecTV, the NHL (through their website) and the Flyers with responses from the first two. DirecTV actually responded over a weekend. Their response was to tell me to lodge a complaint to the FCC about Comcast not allowing them access to their channels. I have yet to do that. I was actually somewhat satisfied with their response as it seemed slightly more personal than I really expected (perhaps the threat to turn to FiOS had something to do with that, I don’t know.).
The NHL actually responded as well, with the previously mentioned blackout rules. The fact that I actually got a response was so shocking that I guess I shouldn’t have expected any better answer than what I got.
My question is this, do I really have any recourse in this matter or do I just have to suck it up and accept this? I knew when I signed up for the CenterIce package that I wouldn’t be getting the Flyers telecasts which I have learned to live with. I didn’t read and fully understand the blackout rules when the games were on national TV because, up to this point, I could always watch the national channels showing the games.
By the way, they’re doing the same thing to me with the first round of the playoffs by showing the games on Versus and ComcastSportsNet.
Thank you for your time.
Steve
Well, Steve, as someone who spends a mindbendingly large amount of money each year for the privilege of watching Rex Grossman misplace footballs like they were his car keys, you have my complete sympathy.
I really do hate to tell you this, but there’s essentially nothing you can do. When these sorts of conflicts come up it usually takes intervention or the threat of intervention by a fancy Senator before anything gets done. (Arlen Specter (R-PA), for example, likes to gripe about the Eagles and the NFL, and John Kerry (D-MA) gets embarrassingly emotional over the Boston Red Sox.)
We can’t think of any fancy government officials who have a taste for hockey, but if you know of any, we’d suggest starting a letter writing campaign right away. Since you’re from Pennsylvania, we’d at least try writing Senator Specter. Who knows, maybe he likes the Flyers? (We suspect it’s actually Comcast he likes, but maybe we’re just cynical?) If enough like-minded fans join you, perhaps he’ll take notice. After all, these are playoff games, are they not?
As much as it pains me to admit this, DirecTV was 100% correct when they suggested you complain to the FCC. Between complaining to them and complaining to your elected officials, it’s really all you can do.
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@qitaana: 1UP
@RavingRabbid: The explanation is all correct. But um.. by new infrastructure, you mean buy a satellite transmission dish which they already have, right? My own uninformed guess is that it probably costs them more to maintain the landline transmissions to each of the franchises than it would to replace it with a satellite transmission, but since satellite penetration is so much lower in Philly for just this reason, it pays to keep the system in place.
Anyway, it sucks doubly for us Philly fans (who are forced to use Comcast (U-verse not available STILL and DBS not an option) elsewhere….
@The Count of Monte Fisto: MLB.tv is blacked out, too. It goes off of billing zip codes unless you can call them up from an out of area number to “prove” you are not in that market, but your billing address is. The bad thing is that they also track your IP, so if you use Vonage or something to spoof your area code, it’s harder to spoof your IP. That would involve me leasing a server or VPS in a different state and then SSH tunnelling the feed to my house… which is just too much work just to watch a game.
The simple fact remains though:
-I am an Astros fan.
-I cannot watch Astros games… even if I pay hundreds of dollars a season to the MLB.
-MLB doesn’t care, just like my cable company even after I cancelled my service in favor of downloading my shows on BitTorrent.
If MLB owners don’t want me to be a fan, so be it. I found a sport that welcomes me as a fan. Now I am a soccer fan. All of the Houston Dynamo (MLS) games are watchable online. No blackouts, very few commericals, and great picture quality, especially when they are broadcast on ESPN 2 HD and HDNET every week.
This happened to me as well, being a Leaf fan in L.A.. Bought the Centre Ice Package, but didn’t have all the games. So, upgraded the Directv package so I could see some games on NHL-N. Then I moved out and because it is the playoffs I had to buy a TV, which I really didn’t want to do just to watch the games. I bought the Centre Package online due to travelling/time constraints.
This is a costly expense and is definitely not a shot deal like some of the other packages being offered.
Whatev, GO PENS!
Meanwhile, living in south central PA, I’ve had times where I’ve been able to watch (on Comcast) the Capitals’ home announcers on ComcastSportsNet AND watch (if I actually wanted to) the other team’s announcers on Center Ice. Flyers games usually get blacked out on Center Ice though. Actually, what pisses me off more is when the Nittany Lions games are blocked on the one ABC channel that’s in HD, so I have to watch it on the other, standard def ABC channel we get. That’s irksome.
Oh, and go Caps.
Hey, be happy your team made the playoffs!
/Die Hard Isles Fan
@karmaghost: I’m not a sports fan but I was forced to get an antenna just to watch my freaking hi-def CSI (I don’t like to watch low-def anymore if I can avoid it, I’m spoiled on hidef).
I’m in St. Louis and the local CBS station STILL is not on Charter. Even after I’ve repeatedly filed complaints with Charter and CBS about it.
@mobbo: So get a friend to call?
Quite frankly, do you want to watch the Flyers get smitten by the Caps?
Go Caps!
He’ll be able to watch the Flyers loose to the Caps as all the games are either on Versus or NBC on the weekends. Game 2 will be on NBC on Sunday where I can watch in high quality over the air HD. He will know the name Ovechkin before this is over.
@humphrmi: That won’t do any good seeing as the Flyers are owned by Comcast.
Good thought, though.
Comcast holds onto CSN Philly because it’s really one of their last stands in their flagship market. They put Phillies games on CN8 and CSN; the same for the Sixers and Flyers. Both channels unavailable to satellite customers.
Until FiOS entered the market — and for all the bad said about FiOS, I welcomed it into my home and thanked Jeebus for the moment I could cancel my Comcast once and for all — Comcast owned the Philly market based on one thing: Philadelphia sports fans are wildly passionate, and they’ll sacrifice service/selection/etc. to have access to their teams. Comcast exploits this as to not be embarrassed by subscribers leaving en masse in their home market.
@mobbo: That really sucks. I guess the only consolation is that this might be a good year not to watch many Astros games. But as a die-hard baseball fan, I know that’s not much consolation.
I signed up for Center Ice – rather, I tried to – at the start of the season and it was a bunch of bickering back and forth by Charter, the NHL, and Dish [?] about who can air what, etc.
About two and a half weeks into the season I finally got Center Ice.
I caught a few good games of the Leafs and stored them on the old DVR. Laughed every time a Blues game was blacked out.
I feel your pain, being a Big Ten and a Bears fan on the west coast. Best thing you can do is get a slingbox for one of your friends/family who does have comcast or find a Sopcast stream.
@quail: Yeah but the satellite companies are fighting this trick in a way by insisting that they send their contractor out to do the installation. I don’t think you can do a new self-install for either Dish or DirecTV anymore.
However, you could let the contractor do the install out at your friend’s house in Montana, then your friend can dismantle the system and ship it to you for your own self-install wherever it’s needed. Don’t plug it into a phone line so they can’t capture the local number that it calls in from periodically, or else get a VOIP number for the receiver and have it assigned a number from a pool of numbers in the Montana location and area code. Just saying what I’ve heard…
Another way Dish fights this is to restrict an account to a maximum of two HD receivers. There’s no technical reason a house can’t have an HD box in every room if you were willing to pay for it. But that’s their rule now.
I go crazy b/c although comcast does broadcast a lot of the “local” hockey games (I live in the southern/western part of Virginia) but I come from Michigan, so I would rather watch the Redwings, but there’s no way for me to get them, I don’t even think I can get it with Center Ice…anybody know? I can see them every so often when the games are on NBC, but other than that…I’m out of luck.
Doesn’t really matter – I have Comcast in State College, PA and all of the Flyers games are blacked out on CSN. I bet they are also blacked out in Harrisburg also.
I never pissed enough to write to find out why but I imagine it’s because they consider anyplace in PA to be a local market. Sure – we’re 200 miles away from Phila but we’re a local market.
Sometimes I just watch the color bars for 2 hours…
“…watching Rex Grossman misplace footballs like they were his car keys…”
That’s hilarious. I’m originally from Rex Grossman’s hometown, and frankly, I can’t stand him. What a pompous, egotistical ass. I’m fairly sure he started the “Sexy Rexy” nickname himself.
wait! wait! WAAAAAIIIT!!
People still watch HOCKEY?
@aclaver: The Flyers are blacked out in State College because it’s in the Johnstown/Altoona DMA, which is a home market for the Penguins.
Games on CSN aren’t national broadcasts, so they’ll be blacked out outside the home DMAs. Same reason why a Red Sox or Bruins game on NESN would be blacked out for a sports package subscriber outside areas in New England.
Harrisburg is a Flyers market. Comcast subscribers there can watch all the Flyers they want on CSN.
Too bad you can’t get “Hockey Night in Canada” eh?
@knightbass:
There are plenty of people who say that government should stay out of sports…but when it annoys them that government is involved in sports. They either conveniently ignore or are completely unaware of their protected monopoly status, and taxpayer funded facilities, either one of which is enough to make professional athletics beholden to various levels of government.
Hate to make this political but it is – you might as well wait to complain until 2009 and hope there is a Dem as president and a new FCC Chairman. The current FCC is much loved by Comcast. Same reason – forget Sen. Specter – he’s a Comcast favorite! I would complain to Sen. Casey and your local Congressperson, and complain to DirectTV because they have their own lobbying group through Liberty Media.
Also file a consumer complaint in PA. I hear they are logging complaints like this.
@Shutterman: No, not the Death Star, but close. It’s a postmodern 57-story skyscraper in Center City Philadelphia, paid for with a Pennsylvania state government subsidy and Comcast Nation’s subscription dollars.
[phillyskyline.com]
(There IS a building in Philly that looks like the Death Star, but it’s an AT&T central switching office, not surprisingly…)
The solution for OP might be to subscribe to Comcast and watch the Flyers on CN8 or Versus (which are basically the same when it comes to hockey coverage). Then again, that would involve subscribing to Comcast.
This story sounds so familiar. The NHL has a huge opportunity to expand its fan base. There are so many past fans that woud love to return to the league if only they were allowed to watch the teams they want to watch.
1. Where can we find the actual rules for NHL Blackouts?
2. How does one determine where the blackout zones are?
3. If I move, I want to know where these networks and blackout zones are, how do I get informed. If it’s not online, what numbers do I call?
For the past decade I have been unable to watch Pittsburgh Penguins games at any price. Trees in my neighborhood prevent any satelite options, so Time Warner Cable (Northeast Ohio) is the only option for sports broadcasts. My regional sports network is FSN-Ohio. The Penguins network, FSN-Pittsburgh is not offered at all. Even though FSN-Pittsburgh is not my regional network all Pens games are blacked out on Versus and Center Ice. On top of that, all Blue Jacket games are also blacked-out on FSN-Ohio. So the only hockey I’ve seen is on NBC or on NHL Network as National Broadcasts. I still can’t understand how both Pens and Blue Jackets are blacked out. If FSN-Ohio is my regional network shouldn’t I see Blue Jacket games and why are Pens blacked out. I need a better explanation and some information to make relocation decisions in the future.
Comcast does the same crap with the Sixers as well. If you have DirecTV you don’t get Comcast Sportsnet and they block it out if you have their NBA league pass.
It helps when Comcast owns Spectracor, which runs the arenas and owns the teams.
I hate Comcast and I live in Phildaelphia!
I don’t get it – I live on the Delmarva Peninsula (within 150 miles of OP) and I have DirecTv out of necessity. I get MASN and ComcastSportsNet, and haven’t missed a Caps game this year. And I don’t even buy the Sports package – that’s the two local sports services that come with my service.
Sounds like they singled-out Philly area people to screw. Or maybe it just effects those within the main market of a club. Although my bro-in-law has DTV in Frederick, MD, qualifies for Washington DC local channels, and Comcast doesn’t screw him out of MASN and he gets the Caps games on CSN, I’m positive.
@pal003:
I love the ‘we need a dem as president’ comment. Guess what, the legislation that allowed Comcast to carry on with blacking out flyers games was passed by an FCC commish appointed by Bill Clinton. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle, they all love the money from big business.
Ed Snyder, who owns the Flyers, is Chairman of Comcast-Spectator, a merger between Comcast and Spectrum Sports. Comcast was started by Snider out of the ashes of PRISM sports. This should be illegal (afterall, Microsoft got nailed for their monopoly).
This is why I’ll always cheer against the Flyers no matter how much I hate their opponent.