More Commercials on METV, Less Content

[richyriles]

Anyone else notice a lot more commercials on METV? The half hour Gunsmokes, aka "Marshall Dillon", which used to have only 4.5 minutes of commercial time just a few weeks ago, now have 7 minutes of commercials, including a 4 minute commercial break in the middle of the show. This saddens me, as it looks like Metv is rapidly becoming TVLand. I called Weigel to complain, and they told me to email them.

Richard

 

[dougruss]

You get it for FREE and you complain ?

 

[turbosat]

I agree rich, they do seem to be chopping more content OUT, to stick more of the crappy commercials IN. I love it when they flash-cut right in mid-sentence from Elliot Ness to "WANNA TOMATO PLANT THAT PRODUCES 60BUSHELS OF TOMATOS A DAY?"

EDIT: I got curious, and tried to find the original episode length for Gunsmoke, The Wiki-place entry on gunsmoke said 26min for the 1955-1961 b/w eps, and 50mins after 1961 when it went to a one hour show. I'll see what they come out to, I've been recording some of them just for fun.

 

[Lone Gunman]

I picked up the entire DVD set of Boston Legal last year and those are 40 minutes without commercials so that means that for an hour show you were getting about 20 minutes of commercials and other assorted crap!

Just think, in another 5 years its probably going to be 40 minutes of commercials and 20 minutes of program.

 

[Tron]

MeTV is still by far the best, they'd have to fall a long way before becoming anything like TVLand...

 

[Diamond Jim]

I called Weigel to complain, and they told me to email them.

NUMBER 1, never, never call or E Mail to complain. That's how we lost the Anchorage networks. Some guy didn't like the NFL game his local FOX channel was showing, so he called them and boasted that he was getting his game on the Anchorage station. Didn't take long for them to scramble.

You get it for FREE and you complain ?

NUMBER 2, you get it for FREE. Take what you can get, keep your mouth shut and be happy with it.

 

[Bill_KY]

I wish I could just see the network. I'll have to wait till August when WLWT-2 will add it.

 

[radio]

"Take what you can get, keep your mouth shut and be happy with it." (quote bubble got missed somehow)

Me? I may not have been quite that "forward" with a response, though it did get right to the point... but on the principle, I agree...and.... in a similar vein......

Sometimes the public doesn't understand how (any) commercial broadcasters pay their bills! We even run into this with terrestrial radio. Had a listener get angry with the station recently because we were carrying commercials for a chain restaurant she absolutely hated. Was personally angry with me, the manager/owner for carrying the commercials, as if the restaurant's food or her personal issue with them was reason to refuse advertising dollars. If we don't sell, we don't exist. (as most of us here understand.) If it's not illegal, and its presentable content, dollars are dollars!

 

[icu1954]

that's right ,keep your ... mouth shut,what are you complaining about.This is not ota,just thank god you are getting some decent programming for FREE.

 

[richyriles]

It seems you guys are perfectly content to watch 7-8 minutes of commercials every half hour. Great!!! You'll be seeing Henry Winkler selling reverse mortgages 50 times a day.

Richard

 

[GenBap]

I am just trying to figure out a way to make MeTV happen for me. Trying to find that bigger dish to add C-band just for that, yes commercials and all.

 

[rv1pop]

It seems you guys are perfectly content to watch 7-8 minutes of commercials every half hour. Great!!! You'll be seeing Henry Winkler selling reverse mortgages 50 times a day.

Richard

You may get what you want --- no commercials. The rest will get what they do not want -- No METV.. We've been through this. Personally I do not have C Band right now, back hoe may be back on Saturday, so I would not be one who would miss it, however, if you read the forums you will see repeated examples of how contacting providers, particularly with complaints, causes us to lose FTA.
If you work for Ricks, I can see why you respond to suggestions the way you have. Otherwise ????????
POP

 

[Mr Tony]

yep. It wouldnt be that hard for Weigel to hit the scramble button. Its not like these TV stations that carry MeTV figure "hey I'll just grab the signal and whatever happens happens". They probably have an agreement with Weigel. And most TV stations it doesnt take no more than probably 5 minutes to get the signal if Weigel scrambles it. Remember we're not the intended audience in most cases.

It wouldnt work for us if they scramble it.

Believe me. I'd love to have the MeTV pre-national launch. Alot of the programs on the sister station "MeToo" use to be on MeTV. But rights made it so they couldnt show it nationwide.
I know on the transponder there is a "MeTV2" with color bars most of the time. Folks keep asking if MeToo is coming? The answer was and still is no due to rights
Another station I'd love to get on Satellite is Antenna TV. They have a good variety of programs. But its scrambled. And from what I have heard it wont be available to us at all.

So I'll take whatever I can get free and enjoy it. Thats what makes this hobby great. I dont complain because well I have no right to complain because I'm getting it for FREE.

 

[Diamond Jim]

You'll be seeing Henry Winkler selling reverse mortgages 50 times a day.

Who cares how many times we see The Fonz, that's what pays the bills. I'd rather it be the Reverse Mortage company than us.

 

[Corrado]

Another member here complained to RTV about changes made and their response was not favorable to us. The scrambling threat was made. I agree with enjoying what we have and saying nothing. I have several classic series on DVD and the 60 minute programs are 48 min and the 30m episodes are 23.

I'm thankful that Me TV doesn't ruin the end credits. Antenna TV doesn't either and not even a screen bug in the corner.

 

[concord]

Simple solution: Buy a DVR receiver, record the programming and use the SkiP button .

 

[jbmiller]

talking about a fta channel in the open forum is bad. i seen so many channels go away (scrambled) that way. for me i never talk about any channels i just enjoy them while i can.

 

[richyriles]

FTA is not totally free, at least to me. Maybe you guys can do your own work on your dishes to eliminate costs, but I can't. I'm older than you guys, and I won't go up on my roof. After a real stormy winter, I paid a lot of bread for an installer to fine tune my old roof top Perfect 10 just a few weeks ago, and now have it locked on AMC 3. I was hoping to record a lot of the shows on METV, as their lineup is real good. The increase in commercials is frustrating. I did not expect this so soon. This TV still shows Highway Patrol, and Sea Hunt uncut, and I was sure METV would follow that policy, at least on some of their shows.

Anyway, I have 3 guys telling me to shut-up. I'm not sure I appreciate being told what to do, especially in that manner. Sorry.

Richard

 

[Mr Tony]

Richy
I dont know how long you've had a FTA system but if you take all the channels out there that are in the clear (both C-Band and KU Band) and we'll exempt the KU channels on 97W (I'll explain later) the amount of channels out there intended for home use is probably less than 10%. The reason I exempted 97W is because most of those channels are intended for home use. Globecast is a home satellite system. Glorystar (the religious channels) are also home use and those stations advertise heavily that its for home use. NASA is in the clear I think per some law...but they want as many eyeballs seeing their channel as possible.

But most of the stations the intended end user is the cable/satellite companies or in the case of news/sports feeds the TV station. We're just "here" watching them. Weigel did not put up MeTV and ThisTV in the clear for the folks with a FTA system. It was for the affiliates to gain access to it over the air. If we complain to the company that is broadcasting it they could scramble it. TV stations have numerous receivers that can pick up scrambled programming and having them authorized for that programming takes like 5 minutes. So as example here in Minneapolis we have ThisTV on a subchannel (45-2). So lets say Weigel decides they are gonna scramble it. They would send info to the affiliates that we are scrambling the signal on ______ date with powervu (using an example). The affiliate (KSTC 45) gets a powervu receiver set up and has ThisTV programmed in. The powervu reciever has a authorization number (like any receiver that receives scrambled programming has). KSTC sends the info to Weigel who in turn tells the company uplinking the channel to add this # to the "approved" list which takes less than 5 minutes. Boom they're authorized when it gets scrambled. (I've had some good conversations with folks in the broadcasting industry so its amazing how quickly and how finite a receiver can be authorized for a channel. They can authorize for 3 channels, 2 or even 1 channel only)

While it is nice to see this programming up there for free, the rule of thumb is in most cases (I've posted the exceptions above) we do not contact the company to complain. The commercials in alot of cases is what helps pay the bills for these channels.

FTA is not totally free

yes I think we're aware of it. I have spent oodles of money on receivers/dishes/switches etc on my system. I'd like to enjoy programming with it We've had lots of sports feeds scrambled due to the actions of a few knuckleheads. I dont want good channels to leave.

 

[19psi]

Everything said has just sailed right over your head, hasn't it?

I bet you're the kind of dense person that would pick up a free item offered on Craigslist and then complain to the person giving it away that it's not up to your standards. After all you had to spend money on gas to go there and pick it up.

Consider a 4th person telling you to shut-up.