Comcast Locks Customers’ Screens On C-SPAN In Middle Of Basketball Game

Nashville-area Comcast subscribers have twice found their TVs locked on C-SPAN.

Nashville-area Comcast subscribers have twice found their TVs locked on C-SPAN.

Comcast customers in the Nashville area were watching college basketball this weekend when the broadcast was interrupted by emergency alerts about coming storms. Problem is, when the alert was over, the basketball game had been replaced by C-SPAN and customers were unable to change the channel.

The Tennessean reports that this happened twice to area Comcast subscribers in just the last few days, once on Saturday night in the middle of all the conference tournaments, then again yesterday morning.

And it wasn’t just people watching college hoops viewers that were affected. Anyone tuned into a local network affiliate found their TVs stuck on C-SPAN after receiving an emergency weather alert. The only way to fix the problem was to contact Comcast, where they presumably unplugged something, let it sit for 30 seconds, then plugged it back in.

“The Comcast cable system serving middle Tennessee has experienced a problem with its emergency alert system,” a Kabletown rep tells the Tennessean. “Impacted customers had their equipment locked onto CSPAN until Comcast personnel were able to resolve the problem shortly thereafter. The company is working diligently to find the root cause of the matter.”

Back in January, Comcast’s emergency alert system caused customers’ screens to freeze, leading the Tennessee Association of Broadcasters to ask the FCC to exclude local stations from the alert system.

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