So I come home from a typical long day at the office, looking for a little mindless entertainment to zone out to for an hour or so only to find my world thrown into disarray. We're watching an uninteresting NBA match-up (Lakers versus the woeful Wizards), when I ask my brother to turn to the Monsters HD channel. "Can't do it," he says. I look at him puzzled. "It's off the air. Not there anymore." Incredulous, I demand the remote and begin scanning through Comcast's HD channels. Lo and behold, he's right. It's gone. Finito. Kaput. WTF, Comcast?! I quickly head on-line to figure out what's going on only to discover the devastating truth: all the Voom HD channels were decommissioned as of Jan. 20th; Comcast announced this decision back in December, but I'd completely missed it. I hope they're happy. They just lost a customer.
Monsters HD was the only fully-dedicated horror channel, broadcasting uncut, unedited, commercial-free horror films from the black-and-white schlock of the fifties to the glorious Hammer films of the seventies and up to the mass-produced slasher franchises of the eighties and nineties. It was simply the greatest channel ever. Every film was given a beautiful 1080i full high-definition transfer. Sure they had a relatively small library, but it was rich, diverse and growing.
The station knew how to work what they had. There were werewolf marathons (The Howling and its various sequels, An American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps); zombie marathons (Night of the Living Dead and numerous sequels/spin-offs, Dead Alive--a gore masterpiece from Peter Jackson, Undead--a zombie flick from down under); marathons for the big Three: Friday the 13th, Halloween and A Nightmare on Elmstreet. And I watched (and re-watched) them all constantly! Thanks to Monsters HD, I probably watched Friday the 13th III-VIII a half-dozen times each. There was nothing better than coming home after a long Friday and just vegging-out on Jason Vorhees until two in the morning. I am in mourning.
To add insult to injury, to throw lye on my tear-stained cheeks, to further take a crap in my oatmeal, the geniuses at Comcast then decide to replace the Voom HD channel suite (which also included an all-Kung-fu channel, a live music performance channel, an anime channel and an oddly addictive video game channel--imagine watching someone playing PS3 on your HD TV for hours; I don't even play video games much anymore, yet it drew me in on occasion) with all premium HD channels such as HBO HD and Showtime HD. So basically I'm paying the same for less. They're crazy if they think I'm going to pony up more lucre for those stations. I've no use for HBO or Showtime in the age of Netflix. I do have a use for random horror movies 24/7.
As I understand it, the writing was on the wall for the Comcast-owned Voom HD when Dish Network unceremoniously dropped the package (they wanted a la carte, Comcast said: "all [15] or none"). Comcast couldn't justify the expense, I'm sure they'll claim, of broadcasting the package only on their cable network. I had managed to avoid getting screwed over by James Dolan unlike the millions of Knicks fans who I privately chuckled at as he drove the franchise to dizzying new lows. Now the joke's on me. How could I have ever trusted such a man? A pox upon your empire, Mr. Dolan! You've completely 'harshed' my post-inauguration euphoria.
2 comments:
I don't understand why a la carte channel subscriptions aren't a consideration. I guess you could say block packages protect boutique channels, but this clearly is not the case -- they're all owned by some conglomerate or another. I suppose that's the problem; each side demands to negotiate en masse.
I've long thought pay-per-view games, i.e. single games, for the various sporting leagues made a ton of sense. Many a time I'd plop down five bucks to watch an important game... Unsurprisingly, consumers are finding their flexibility online.
I don't think cable/satellite will be able to maintain the same pricing structure beyond the next decade. As delivery systems become more efficient and cost-effective, the exclusivity windows that the cable/satellite congloms enjoy will shrink even further. I can't imagine too many consumers will decide to pay $100+ per month for a bunch of shows they can download three days or less later on iTunes--especially if iTunes had some kind of subscription based model for TV shows.
My viewing habits are pretty minimal now, but if Food Network, ESPN, Discovery and TNT streamed on-line, I'd dump cable tomorrow. I don't think Time-Warner and its ilk can hold out on the a la carte pricing for too much longer.
Monsters HD was such a good channel though. If somebody is smart, they create another channel just like it. The library shouldn't be too hard to get broadcasting rights. The biggest expense outside of that would have been the transfers. I have no idea how much that set them back though. I would have been fine if they even went to an advertising model--but that would undoubtedly mean no more "uncensored" films. Argh!
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