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Football fans in New York are fuming Time Warner Cable had plenty of room to add eight new porn channels to its pay-per-view lineup, but still has no room for the NFL Network.
New York tabloids are having a field day over the introduction of racy networks like “Manhandle on Demand” and “Penthouse on Demand,” coming just days after a deal to renew Disney’s family-oriented programming and company-owned broadcast stations.
The NY Post called the affair “Sleeping beauty and peeping booty” and quizzed Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley about the expanded red light district on the cable dial:
Dudley insists that it’s nothing but a coincidence that it’s suddenly offering the new porn channels.
Asked about the remarkable coincidence in timing, he insisted, “The two are unrelated.”
And he said in a deadpan voice, “We’re always adding a variety of content that we think our subscribers will enjoy.”
To keep children from tuning in to its latest offerings, Time Warner Cable alerted its customers in a recent mailing to the new adult channels.
“You may need to adjust your parental control settings,” the mailing said.
Big Apple Day
The irony of the glut of available channel space for porn wasn’t lost on NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. He tweeted: “Interesting page 3 story in today’s NY Post. Time-Warner is offering 8 new porn channels [but not NFL Network!]. What a world! What a world!”
The football network, reportedly asking around 80 cents per cable subscriber, has been rejected for carriage on Time Warner Cable lineups because it is too expensive, and the network will not allow itself to be carried in a specialty sports tier interested customers can pay extra to receive.
But one commentator asked, “aren’t the audiences for these two kinds of channels the same people? What a quandary!”
It’s simple: NFL want’s TW to pay them almost $10/year and consume bandwidth for something that a few folks will watch 3 months out of the year, while the On Demand Porn networks: 1) PAY TW for every view, and; 2) only consume bandwidth when someone is paying for watching porn.
The NFL network is one of the best arguments for “a la carte” choices in cable.
Agreed, I got rid of cable years ago, but if I was still a customer I would support this decision. I don’t want my money going to the NFL (or ESPN for that matter – their charge is a big component of cable bills). Maybe the money from the porn channels will offset the increases from the other networks.
I doubt many new networks are likely to get sympathy when cable companies won’t pay for them in an era when customers are crying out for a la carte pricing.
Glenn Britt needs to get his stroke on