This past September, to the delight of many, Brighthouse turned on four new HD channels — HGTV HD, TBS HD, The History Channel HD and Food Network HD. Over the last 2 months, they have been sending out flyer’s to it’s customers talking about the addition of Discovery Channel HD, Animal Planet HD, TLC HD, Science Channel HD and National Geographic HD on February 1st. Unfortunately, what a large community of Brighthouse Customers found, was that instead of adding 5 new channels, they had lost four (Or Nine if you include the new ones).
What is rapidly turning out to be a PR Nightmare for Brighthouse, they decided to disable these channels to all Cablecard users — Which include owners of Tivo’s, HDTV’s, and Media PC’s that choose not to use the craptacular equipment that Brighhouse charges it’s users for.
The original thought for the reason that these channels had been disabled was that Brighthouse had enabled SDV [Switched Digital Video] — A technology that is not supported at this time by cable cards. However, after the sleuthing of the Tivo Community Brighthouse employees admitted that Brighthouse has not switched to SDV, and have purposely chosen to disable these channels specifically for Cable Card users.
[Note: The press release says nothing about changes to Cablecard Users — or that the change is only for Brighthouse Equipment Users]
“Bright House Networks Added Five High Definition and Two Digital Channels on Fri., Feb. 1, 2008, at No Additional Cost to Subscribers”
Oh really? Seriously? They why are you telling us to pay more to upgrade to Brighthouse Equipment?!?!.
Despite as an “olive branch”, Brighthouse offered me a complimentary cable box, if I choose to keep my cable cards I need to keep paying $2.95/ea (keep in mind, they took me 4-weeks to get) and also pay $9.95 for their DVR Service (which is horrible since TiVo controls all the usability patents). Also, until a solution for cablecard SDV support is released, Brighthouse now has a feather in their cap to keep people from purchasing any 3rd Party equipment. This means they now collect the hardware rental fees, and DVR subscription fees that pads their pockets and keeps their network a nice proprietary money making machine.
Futhermore, Third party hardware users have additional media delivery options beyond what you get with Brighthouse’s equipment. I can rent movies from Amazon, stream MP3’s, share media with family, Watch TV I recorded on my computer, view digital photos, etc. All of these services are either better or directly compete with Brighthouse’s premium services ie. Video on demand, Digital Music, Pay-Per-View — All of which you pay extra for, so by having such a device, users can minimize their bills.
So, to simplify. Brighthouse Networks is forcing customers to pay upwards of $20 additional to receive channels that there is not a single reason why they can not receive with their own hardware and a $3 cablecard. They have also removed my premium features I get with my Tivo — And now, instead of buying a movie from amazon and having it delivered to my Tivo, the comperable solution is to use Brighouses PPV. Instead of streaming Music from my computer, the comprable solution is to subscribe and use Brighthouse’s music channels. And on top of all of the additional fees, they have now managed to launch a slander campaign against 3rd Party Technologies like Tivo. [That’s right! Because now, when someone asks me (Or any Cable Card User) if they should buy such a device, we now need to say “Well, only if you don’t want to be missing 25%+ of the HD Channels.” ]
*Clap* *Clap* Well Done Brighthouse. At least your J.D. Power customer service award was fun while it lasted.
Details around the Web:
Orlando Sentinel
EngadgetHD
TivoCommunity
UPDATE!
Within 30 mins of publishing this. 3 Seperate IP addresses within the “MyBrighthouse.com” domain have hit this blog post. I know you’re out there Brighthouse! There is a comment form below. Use it — I’d like to hear what you have to say.
