I don't really see how the ads are illegal in any way. I don't think it's a question of legality. It's more the fact that it seems like very bad customer service to ask people to pay for TV, and quite a lot at that, to watch programming without ads, and then give them ads.
I don't think it's an FCC issue, but it could be something you write to your state public utilities commission. Afterall, they're the ones who allow providers into the local market.
Unfortunately, the cable providers have quite a racket going. One provider is just as bad as the next, because they never truly need to compete against one another. That's more of an issue, these little local monopolies. Yeah, you can switch from cable to satellite, but that's not really competition between the SAME type of service, that's a different type of service to provide some similar features. They need to do more like the phone companies were forced to do, share the same market and honestly compete on their prices and services provided.
To tell the truth, my boyfriend has Time Warner where he lives, and it's every bit as bad (actually, the guide we all got switched to looks just like the one he's had for years now, and no, I still don't know how to use it right). And, yeah, sometimes worse. They charge for every TV you have, and their equipment is even more troublesome.
As for getting porn, I don't get much of that, and I think your actual channel lineup is based on your local market region, but there is even some regular programming that I personally think is too mature for children to see, so I understand the desire to block channels, or reduce your subscription to a package with fewer channels. In my area, I don't get the porn, but I think I have at minimum 15 channels with televangelist nutjobs, all within the regular basic line-up (so if you don't subscribe to a more expensive package, you get mostly the nut TV). The annoying thing is if you use the parental controls to block them (I tried, because they irritate me), you don't skip those channels when navigating, you just get a screen that tells you the channel is blocked...my TV set is smarter than that, why can't the DVR box just skip over blocked channels? That was with the old guide system too, so no change, just a feature they really need to work on. I also get annoyed with those channels that are one channel during the day and another at night. Nothing worse than falling asleep at night watching a nice educational show on Discovery, and waking up in the morning to the shouting lunacy of some TV preacher trying to sell tickets to Heaven, or whatever their latest scam is, or paying for those channels and waking up to infomercials...on paid TV! I understand the free, over-air networks needing to put on those types of advertisements to pay the bills, especially during times when they don't have many viewers, but isn't that why we pay for cable TV? To have channels free of all that nonsense?
Believe it or not, I went a good 20 years of my life without cable TV or satellite TV. I managed to be content with whatever the rabbit ears picked up. The only reason I have cable TV now is that I moved to an area where I could only get 1 channel reasonably clearly with rabbit ears, and one or two more with lots of snow. It's just the local topography and the distance from the TV transmitting stations that the signal doesn't get through mountains well. Plus, I needed internet access from home, and when I first moved here, DSL wasn't available (too far out for decent signal again), and dial-up just isn't adequate for most internet sites anymore. Even for a long time, I got the bare bones minimum package. Then just 2 years ago, I decided to splurge on the fuller package, and less than a year ago to add on the premium channels. You'd think that after 20 years of no cable, and less than a year of premium channels that there'd be plenty for me to watch and catch up on. I'm already feeling like that old song, "57 channels and nothing on," except now it's more like 570 channels and nothing on. The premium channels seem to play 5 movies in continuous loops for a month. Watch TV for a week and you've seen everything there is to see.
So, my solution? I think rather than complain or go from frying pan into the fire with satellite, I'm just going to downgrade my subscription back to basics if they haven't sorted this all out by the end of the summer. I'll give them a little time to see and respond to the customer complaints, and if there's no improvement, buh-bye fancy DVR package.
You must be young ?
