RESIDENTS NEED TO PETITION FOR BETTER CABLE SERVICE TO THE CITY CABLE OFFICE. IF BROADSTRIPE IS HAVING FINANCIAL PROBLEMS, THE CITY NEEDS TO STEP IN AND ALLOW RESIDENTS TO UTILIZE A MORE SUITABLE CABLE COMPANY. THERE ARE ENOUGH COMPLAINTS THAT HAVE BEEN SENT TO THE CITY ABOUT THIS PROBLEM, FOR OVER 20 YEARS. IT IS TIME TO DO SOMETHING. MILLINIUM CHANGED IT’S NAME TO BROADSTRIPE; WHICH IS GOING THROUGH BANKRUPTCY; AND CONTINUES TO MONOPOLIZE APARTMENT COMPLEXES, AND WITH NEW APARTMENTS BEING BUILT; COMBINED WITH POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE, INADEQUATE SIGNALS, IT IS TIME TO DEMAND BETTER SERVICE OR ALLOW COMCAST TO COME IN.
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Writing comments in ALL CAPS is the text equivalent of shouting. And that’s how your post is “heard” by those who read it.
Editorial comments aside, I support your message of making issues known to the city cable office. You might also try to raise the issue with those running for election in Seattle.
I wrote to the City a few months ago, after reviewing its franchise agreement with Broadstripe. There is no contract that grants Broadstripe an exclusive right to provide services in the neighborhood. Look up the agreements and read them if you don’t believe me. However, I suspect there may be something going on that’s preventing Comcast from providing service in the neighborhood. Comcast tells me they’ll provide service whenever the City lets it. Of course, I’ve never actually spoken about it with someone who as actual decision making authority or other knowledge about the company’s operations, just customer services and sales reps. Meanwhile, the City claims that it has encouraged (probably an exaggeration) Comcast to provide service in the neighborhood. The issue might be that Comcast doesn’t want to invest in the infrastructure.
Anyhow, I think it will take a combination of writing to the City and writing to Comcast. Either way, it’s worth a continued effort. If you write to Comcast, find the name and address of an executive level employee. You’ll never get anywhere with low level service reps – not because they’re incompetent, but just because they don’t know about this issue and they are so far removed from this process.
No one has listened to us – it’s almost 2010 and we don’t have simple cable service in the middle of a metropolitan city???? GO AHEAD AND SHOUT!
I live near 24th and Cherry and our only option is Broadstripe. In December of last year I spoke with Megan who worked for Comcast’s Executive Care Team. She conferred with some of their engineers and determined that it would cost them around $40,000 to build the two plants necessary to bring service to our building from 2,000 feet away. They declined to invest that at the time. Maybe if enough people contacted them, they would expand their coverage; their service is available in some parts of the CD currently.
The number I have for Comcast’s Executive Care Team is 253-896-5618. It appears that this is no longer Megan’s number, but it does reach someone on their team.
Shout louder please!
No, better yet, SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM at the UGLY RACEIST UNJUSTICE!
OK, have you all noticed Broadstripe has GUTTED its digital music line up in July to add more HD stations, like HD QVC? Well, it turns out that this action violates the Franchise Contract with the City of Seattle, a binding legal document that allows it to do business in the City of Seattle. I believe, as with Al Capone and his tax evasion, that we may get rid of the ‘Stripe of Brown’ from our City by technicalities. I won’t go on about how horrible Broadstripe is as we all know the facts about them and many have gone on about the gory details. Here is the latest correspondence between me, the City and Broadstripe on this issue.
Hi Brenda
I am upset that Broadstripe has eliminated most of its Digital Music stations recently. I miss many of them and when I called Broadstripe up several times they said that they had to eliminate most of them to allow for more HD content. But when I checked the current Franchise agreement with the City of Seattle, in section 5, Broadstripe has to give us the same content as before and cannot effectively eliminate a whole segment of programming. I believe they have violated the current Franchise Agreement with the City of Seattle and us citizens.
(A) Without the written consent of the City and except as otherwise specifically provided in this Franchise, Grantee shall not delete, or so limit as to effectively delete, any broad category of Programming identified in Subsection 5.3 carried on Grantee’s Cable System as of the Effective Date of this Franchise
(B) In the event of a modification proceeding under federal law, the mix and quality of services provided by the Grantee on the Effective Date of this Franchise shall be deemed the mix and quality of services required under this Franchise throughout its term.
(A) A minimum number of Downstream Channels equal to no fewer Channels than are available to all Subscribers as of the Effective Date of this Franchise.
(C) In addition to Programming provided on PEG Channels and local off-air broadcast channels, if any, Grantee shall provide the following broad categories of Programming:
(9) Audio Programming (including a selection of local FM radio stations)
I am confused about how they have done this in violation of the Franchise agreement. Comcast has the same Franchise agreement here word for word and when I checked their line up they have digital music stations and local radio stations in the amounts required by the agreement, and still have the same amount of HD stations, how can one part of Seattle get a great music line up and the other part of Seattle where I live get a terrible one from Broadstripe? Please keep digital music in the Broadstripe lineup. They are in violation of the current Franchise Agreement.
Larry Adams
The whole section is as follows
SECTION 5. PROGRAMMING
5.1 Grantee Compliance.
Grantee shall meet or exceed the Programming and Channel capacity requirements set forth in this Franchise.
5.2 Maintenance of Existing Conditions.
(A) Without the written consent of the City and except as otherwise specifically provided in this Franchise, Grantee shall not delete, or so limit as to effectively delete, any broad category of Programming identified in Subsection 5.3 carried on Grantee’s Cable System as of the Effective Date of this Franchise.
(B) In the event of a modification proceeding under federal law, the mix and quality of services provided by the Grantee on the Effective Date of this Franchise shall be deemed the mix and quality of services required under this Franchise throughout its term.
5.3 Expanded Programming and Channel Capacity.
Grantee shall provide:
(A) A minimum number of Downstream Channels equal to no fewer Channels than are available to all Subscribers as of the Effective Date of this Franchise.
(B) Closed Channels in sufficient number and technical quality to permit the implementation of the Closed Channel requirements of the Franchise.
(C) In addition to Programming provided on PEG Channels and local off-air broadcast channels, if any, Grantee shall provide the following broad categories of Programming:
(1) Education (2) News & information (3) Sports (4) Cultural and performing arts (5) Government affairs (6) Weather (7) Foreign language Programming (8) Programming addressed to the City’s diverse ethnic and minority interests (9) Audio Programming (including a selection of local FM radio stations) (10) Business news (11) General entertainment (including, but not limited to, movies) (12) Children’s Programming (13) Family Programming (14) Science/documentary (15) Canadian Programming
The requirements for each category of Programming may be satisfied by providing a separate Channel devoted substantially to the category or by Programming from more than one Channel which in the aggregate totals the equivalent of a Channel devoted substantially to the category.
Hello Mr. Adams,
I appreciate that you brought this to our attention and that we will speak to Broadstripe about it. While we don’t like it, I do not think that Broadstripe is in violation of the franchise. The franchise does not require a certain number of audio stations. It says that they must provide a “selection of FM radio stations”. Broadstripe does appear to provide a selection and therefore have not eliminated audio programming. How many FM stations do you get now compared to the number you used to get? We will see what we can do.
Brenda Tate
Office of Cable Communications
206-386-1989
From: Larry Adams
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 2:39 PM
To: Tate, Brenda
Subject: Broadstripe Cable Digital Music elimination
Hi Brenda,
We Broadstripe customers until recently received about 60 digital music channels, now we only get 10 (please view the current lineup of Broadstipe, which the Office of Cable Communications should have on file; http://www.broadstripe.com/files/lineup/Seattle_Lineup_NW.pd ).
They eliminated all classical channels, broadway channels, hip hop, rap, some Jazz and country channels, all the Latin music channels, dance music etc. They do not carry any local radio stations either as asked for in the Franchise agreement; oddly Comcast does have these in contrast and manages to also carry all the other digital and HD programming requested by the City of Seattle. Broadstripe is offering a sub-standard subset of what the City of Seattle has contracted with them for in the Franchise agreement.
Seattle is the only major city in the United States that Broadstripe serves. Really, there are no others they serve; look at their service areas. We have different needs and interests than suburbs and the countryside. I think they do not know how to serve an extremely diverse major metropolitan area and its highly varied tastes in music. There are many lifestyles, ethnicities, religions etc in our city, we should all get our programming. They now offer a pablum of inoffensive drivel and have eliminated all the great variety of music that provided a complete spectrum of music for the enormous variety of people and musical tastes in our Great Metropolitan area. Maybe this is OK in Missouri or Michigan in the countryside, but not in one of the most diverse and progressive major cities in the United States.
I do believe that the rule in the Broadstripe Franchise agreement section 5 that states “Grantee (Broadstripe)shall not delete, or so limit as to effectively delete, any broad category of Programming” means that they have violated the Franchise agreement. They barely broadcast any digital music since the recent change in channel lineup.
Please see the Broadstripe site link for their own bragging about their great digital music line up; http://www.broadstripe.com/cable/faq
You will see that they state on their own website “Q. What are Digital Music channels?
Digital music is an great added bonus to a subscription to Broadstripe Digital Cable. Dozens of channels are available featuring commercial-free, CD-quality music stations in a variety of categories; including: Modern Country, Lite Classical, 70’s, Smooth Jazz and many more. Plus, the digital cable receiver is designed to connect to your stereo system and television, delivering CD-quality sound that sets the perfect mood for any occasion.”
They write that they have dozens of channels available, not true. They have eliminated Modern Country, Lite Classical, regular Classical, all Latin, all dance, and many, many others. They do not have dozens of channels, which is at least 2 dozen channels (24 or more).
They also write that “Q. How does Digital Cable compare to satellite service?
Broadstripe Digital Cable is a convenient and affordable alternative to the services offered by satellite TV providers. With Digital Cable, it’s all there for you: all the entertainment, information, pay-per-view and digital music you want – right through the cable service you already have. Broadstripe’s Digital Cable offers the following advantages over satellite providers:”
Broadstripe writes there that they carry “all the…digital music you want”, which is misleading because they reduced the line up to 10 channels and no local radio stations.
As to how many they had, you need to ask them for the old line up PDF to make the exact comparison. I don’t have saved on my computer because they took it off line recently. They clearly do not want comparisons of the new line up to their previous line up that met the requirements of the Franchise agreement. Perhaps you have the previous line up PDF and can send it to me please?
If you have to get a copy of the previous Seattle line up from Broadstripe with all the music channels they had, I request that you please send me a digital copy for my records. Then I will list all the stations I used to have and the categories in comparison to the current lineup.
Again, I do believe they have violated the Franchise agreement because they deleted the vast majority of a broad category of Programming. The present lineup is so limiting an offering that it effectively deletes the whole category of digital music. I expect Broadstripe to offer a high quality of programming to me and my fellow Broadstripe subscribers and to have the City of Seattle police the Franchise agreement, if not I should be allowed to get Comcast and dump Broadstripe, which does offer the requested digital music in the City of Seattle Franchise agreement.
As I said earlier; Seattle is the only major city in the United States that Broadstripe serves. Really, there are no others they serve; look at their service areas. We have different needs and interests than suburbs and the countryside. I think they do not know how to serve an extremely diverse major metropolitan area and its highly varied tastes in music. There are many lifestyles, ethnicities, religions etc. in our city, we should all get our programming. They now offer a pablum of inoffensive drivel and have eliminated all the great variety of music that provided a complete spectrum of music for the enormous variety of people and musical tastes in our Great Metropolitan area. Maybe this is OK in Missouri or Michigan in the countryside, but not in one of the most diverse and progressive major cities in the United States.
The new 10 channel lineup of music is Coffee House Rock, 80’s hits, New Age, 70’s hits, Album Rock, soft hits, Traditional Country, Smooth Jazz, Holidays and Happenings and Christian Contemporary.
There is no Hip Hop, Rap, Blues, Classical Lite or Regular, Broadway, Big Band, Standards, Regular Jazz, Latin, Salsa, etc…
They serve the Central District and carry no Hip hop or Rap music, nor Latin music…
I also am not a Christian and they are supplying Contemporary Christian music as 10% OF THEIR ENTIRE OFFERING, while they eliminated almost all the stations that I listened to. Why provide only Christian? Why not also Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist music etc.?
They are doing a disservice to the great diverse people of our wonderful City, we do not deserve this sub-standard, Franchise violating provider. They need to give us what they promised and signed on the dotted line to give us; a true broad variety of digital music and local radio stations to suit our Major Metropolitan Area.
Please reconsider this issue, clearly Broadstripe has cut off the air supply to the digital music line up to effectively kill it.
Sincerely
Larry Adams
—– Original Message —–
From: Larry Adams To: Tony Perez ; Novik, Jill ; [email protected] Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 11:45 AMSubject: Re: Broadstripe Cable Digital Music elimination
—– Original Message —–
From: Rick Clark To: Larry Adams Cc: Tony Perez ; Novik, Jill ; [email protected] ; Tom Martinson
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 9:48 AMSubject: FW: Broadstripe Cable Digital Music elimination
Good morning Dr. Adams,
My name is Rick Clark. I’m the Government Relations contact with Broadstripe. I received a copy of your August 20, 2009 e-mail about our digital music channel programming and am writing in that regard.
As you might well imagine, managing the bandwidth of our network is one of our highest priorities, one which is of utmost importance to all cable companies. In general, bandwidth is the capacity of each cable network to carry video programming services, provide high-speed Internet access services, supply a Video-On-Demand service, offer telephony service and transmit electronic carriers, like those that make our digital converters, high-speed data modems, phone modems and digital converters work correctly, on the network.
One of the bandwidth demands placed on cable operators relates directly to high-definition (HD) programming. Our customers are purchasing HD television sets at an ever increasing number. One reason is to watch more HD programming, but another is because analog TV sets are no longer available. To meet the demand for more HD programming, Broadstripe has been steadily increasing the number of HD channels it carries. We plan to continue adding to that number. However, there are still many customers watching analog TV sets. For that reason, we continue to carry the local broadcast stations in analog format (down-converted from digital standard definition), their HD channel and their secondary digital broadcast channel, when applicable. A good example of this is KIRO-TV; KIRO-HD and KIRO RTN, Retro TV. Additionally, many of our satellite-received channels, like ESPN, HGTV, FOOD and A&E, carry a corresponding HD channel. ESPN-HD, HGTV-HD, FOOD-HD and A&E-HD are just some examples.
In June of this year, we added six more HD channels to the line-up: USA-HD, Sci-fi HD (now Syfy), ESPNU-HD, CNBC-HD, Universal HD and QVC-HD. We added Chiller, ReelzChannel and HRTV in the standard definition format. We now carry a total of 30 HD channels.
All of these additional channels require using additional bandwidth on our network. To effectively manage our use of that bandwidth, it was necessary to streamline our digital music service to the ten channels as you mentioned in your e-mail. This allows us to continue our focus on carrying quality HD programming as more customers purchase HD TV sets and as we all transition digitally.
Nonetheless, music programming is still a major component of our line-up. In addition to carrying ten audio digital music channels, we carry eight music video channels: VH-1, VH-1 Soul, VH-1 Classic Rock, MTV2, MTV Jams, MTV Tr3s, MTV Hits and CMT Pure Country.
We are also in the process of updating our Broadstripe website to reflect the changes in our carriage of digital music channels.
None of us at Broadstripe likes replacing programming like digital music services. Nonetheless, just like television and radio stations must effectively manage their air time, Broadstripe must also effectively manage its bandwidth in the best interest of all of its customers.
Although we reduced the number of digital music channels we carry, we are not in violation of our franchise. Even though the addition of HD channels to our channel line-up is customer-driven, we have agreed to increase the number of HD channels available to our Seattle customers.
Thanks for writing. I appreciate your thoughts.
Rick Clark
Government RelationsBROADSTRIPE Washington/Oregon 10427 Martin Luther King Jr. WayTukwila, WA 98178800.205.5440, ext. 3173 office
Michigan 2512 Lansing Rd. Charlotte, MI 48813 800.205.5440, ext. 3173 office517.319.3173 office 517.543.8057 fax
Web Site: http://www.broadstripe.com
Hi All,
Please let me translate into lucidity what Mr. Clark is writing to us, as his meaning may not be clear to you (Corporate babble is often misleading and obfuscatory). By the way to obfuscate is to be evasive, unclear, or confusing.
I believe that Rick Clark is saying that Broadstripe has not violated the Franchise agreement even though Broadstripe has violated the Franchise Agreement.
First he lists a set of reasons (perhaps Broadstripe customers like me would call them excuses) for deleting most of the music line up.
Second he makes a play for his company’s Video networks being the equivalent of the deleted music channels.
Third he says that they provide sufficient music diversity for our extremely diverse major metropolitan area, 10 music channels and 9 Video Networks.
Now, I am a fan of simple facts and the truth, not lies and corporate opinions and spin.
Again, Mr. Clark is saying that the Franchise agreement has not been violated, however the simple facts show that it is being violated. Section 5 of the Franchise agreement has been violated.
“Grantee (Broadstripe)shall not delete, or so limit as to effectively delete, any broad category of Programming” (Section 5)
No amount of Broadstripe Company spin and obfuscation can change simple facts.
His letter to us is simply his and Broadstripe’s corporate opinion about their change in the lineup, it is our job to point out reality that Section 5 of the Franchise agreement has been violated.
I will point to Comcast as a positive example. Their digital music line up meets the Franchise agreement; Channels 901-946 are digital music and Channels 964-986 are digital radio stations. That is a total of 68 music carrying channels, that is above and beyond their Video music Networks.
How come Comcast can meet the same Franchise agreement language and Broadstripe cannot?
Is the answer simply that Broadstripe is an inferior product with inferior bandwidth and inferior management of its resources? Because they don’t update their system they cannot offer the channels they need to or provide the Internet speeds they advertise they can (they advertise 15 Mbs speeds on TV and in print); Seattle only gets ~6 Mbs on a good day.
The City of Seattle has allowed us Broadstripe customers to be saddled with this inferior Bankrupt (Chapter 11) company, which rarely updates its physical cable infrastructure, poorly maintains its system, poorly manages itself, and gives an expensive product for all that?
Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Broadstripe has a Franchise in the Central District, Miller Park and Beacon Hill? But not in Magnolia, Wallingford, Queen Ann etc.?
I simply want them to meet their Franchise agreement. I love classical music and now it is all gone, for instance. They carry no classical music any more. Heck, they don’t carry Hip Hop or Rap either!
I have previously mentioned they do not carry a LGBT themed network. Now they have reduced the digital music variety.
All they seem to want to do is reduce variety, and deny minorities their programming.
We are one of the Major Metropolitan Cities in the USA, why are we letting this substandard Cable Company continue to supply a consistently mediocre and reduced variety of programming?
Is it OK for them to ignore our Great Diversity here in Seattle?
If you let them dumb down our programming, then you are rejecting the needs of our diverse and complex multiethnic and multi-lifestyles population here in Seattle.
Sincerely
Larry Adams
—– Original Message —–
From: Larry Adams
To: Tony Perez ; Novik, Jill ; [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 11:45 AM
Subject: Re: Broadstripe Cable Digital Music elimination
Hi All,
Please let me translate into lucidity what Mr. Clark is writing to us, as his meaning may not be clear to you (Corporate babble is often misleading and obfuscatory). By the way to obfuscate is to be evasive, unclear, or confusing.
I believe that Rick Clark is saying that Broadstripe has not violated the Franchise agreement even though Broadstripe has violated the Franchise Agreement.
First he lists a set of reasons (perhaps Broadstripe customers like me would call them excuses) for deleting most of the music line up.
Second he makes a play for his company’s Video networks being the equivalent of the deleted music channels.
Third he says that they provide sufficient music diversity for our extremely diverse major metropolitan area, 10 music channels and 9 Video Networks.
Now, I am a fan of simple facts and the truth, not lies and corporate opinions and spin.
Again, Mr. Clark is saying that the Franchise agreement has not been violated, however the simple facts show that it is being violated. Section 5 of the Franchise agreement has been violated.
“Grantee (Broadstripe)shall not delete, or so limit as to effectively delete, any broad category of Programming” (Section 5)
No amount of Broadstripe Company spin and obfuscation can change simple facts.
His letter to us is simply his and Broadstripe’s corporate opinion about their change in the line up, it is our job to point out reality that Section 5 of the Franchise agreement has been violated.
I will point to Comcast as a positive example. Their digital music line up meets the Franchise agreement; Channels 901-946 are digital music and Channels 964-986 are digital radio stations. That is a total of 68 music carrying channels, that is above and beyond their Video music Networks.
How come Comcast can meet the same Franchise agreement language and Broadstripe cannot?
Is the answer simply that Broadstripe is an inferior product with inferior bandwidth and inferior management of its resources? Because they don’t update their system they cannot offer the channels they need to or provide the Internet speeds they advertise they can (they advertise 15 Mbs speeds on TV and in print); Seattle only gets ~6 Mbs on a good day.
The City of Seattle has allowed us Broadstripe customers to be saddled with this inferior Bankrupt (Chapter 11) company, which rarely updates its physical cable infrastructure, poorly maintains its system, poorly manages itself, and gives an expensive product for all that?
Perhaps its not a coincidence that Broadstripe has a Franchise in the Central District, Miller Park and Beacon Hill? But not in Magnolia, Wallingford, Queen Ann etc.?
I simply want them to meet their Franchise agreement. I love classical music and now it is all gone, for instance. They carry no classical music any more. Heck, they don’t carry Hip Hop or Rap either!
I have previously mentioned they do not carry a LGBT themed network. Now they have reduced the digital music variety.
All they seem to want to do is reduce variety, and deny minorities their programming.
We are one of the Major Metropolitan Cities in the USA, why are we letting this substandard Cable Company continue to supply a consistently mediocre and reduced variety of programming?
Is it OK for them to ignore our Great Diversity here in Seattle?
If you let them dumb down our programming, then you are rejecting the needs of our diverse and complex multiethnic and multi-lifestyles population here in Seattle.
Sincerely
Larry Adams
—– Original Message —–
From: Rick Clark
To: [email protected]
Cc: Tony Perez ; Novik, Jill ; [email protected] ; Tom Martinson
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 9:48 AM
Subject: FW: Broadstripe Cable Digital Music elimination
Good morning Dr. Adams,
My name is Rick Clark. I’m the Government Relations contact with Broadstripe. I received a copy of your August 20, 2009 e-mail about our digital music channel programming and am writing in that regard.
As you might well imagine, managing the bandwidth of our network is one of our highest priorities, one which is of utmost importance to all cable companies. In general, bandwidth is the capacity of each cable network to carry video programming services, provide high-speed Internet access services, supply a Video-On-Demand service, offer telephony service and transmit electronic carriers, like those that make our digital converters, high-speed data modems, phone modems and digital converters work correctly, on the network.
One of the bandwidth demands placed on cable operators relates directly to high-definition (HD) programming. Our customers are purchasing HD television sets at an ever increasing number. One reason is to watch more HD programming, but another is because analog TV sets are no longer available. To meet the demand for more HD programming, Broadstripe has been steadily increasing the number of HD channels it carries. We plan to continue adding to that number. However, there are still many customers watching analog TV sets. For that reason, we continue to carry the local broadcast stations in analog format (down-converted from digital standard definition), their HD channel and their secondary digital broadcast channel, when applicable. A good example of this is KIRO-TV; KIRO-HD and KIRO RTN, Retro TV. Additionally, many of our satellite-received channels, like ESPN, HGTV, FOOD and A&E, carry a corresponding HD channel. ESPN-HD, HGTV-HD, FOOD-HD and A&E-HD are just some examples.
In June of this year, we added six more HD channels to the line-up: USA-HD, Sci-fi HD (now Syfy), ESPNU-HD, CNBC-HD, Universal HD and QVC-HD. We added Chiller, ReelzChannel and HRTV in the standard definition format. We now carry a total of 30 HD channels.
All of these additional channels require using additional bandwidth on our network. To effectively manage our use of that bandwidth, it was necessary to streamline our digital music service to the ten channels as you mentioned in your e-mail. This allows us to continue our focus on carrying quality HD programming as more customers purchase HD TV sets and as we all transition digitally.
Nonetheless, music programming is still a major component of our line-up. In addition to carrying ten audio digital music channels, we carry eight music video channels: VH-1, VH-1 Soul, VH-1 Classic Rock, MTV2, MTV Jams, MTV Tr3s, MTV Hits and CMT Pure Country.
We are also in the process of updating our Broadstripe website to reflect the changes in our carriage of digital music channels.
None of us at Broadstripe likes replacing programming like digital music services. Nonetheless, just like television and radio stations must effectively manage their air time, Broadstripe must also effectively manage its bandwidth in the best interest of all of its customers.
Although we reduced the number of digital music channels we carry, we are not in violation of our franchise. Even though the addition of HD channels to our channel line-up is customer-driven, we have agreed to increase the number of HD channels available to our Seattle customers.
Thanks for writing. I appreciate your thoughts.
Rick Clark
Government Relations
BROADSTRIPE
Washington/Oregon
10427 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Tukwila, WA 98178
800.205.5440, ext. 3173 office
Michigan
2512 Lansing Rd.
Charlotte, MI 48813
800.205.5440, ext. 3173 office
517.319.3173 office
517.543.8057 fax
Web Site: http://www.broadstripe.com
Hi Brenda,
We Broadstripe customers until recently received about 60 digital music channels, now we only get 10 (please view the current line up of Broadstipe, which the Office of Cable Communications should have on file; http://www.broadstripe.com/files/lineup/Seattle_Lineup_NW.pd ).
They eliminated all classical channels, broadway channels, hip hop, rap, some Jazz and country channels, all the Latin music channels, dance music etc. They do not carry any local radio stations either as asked for in the Franchise agreement, oddly Comcast does have these in contrast and manages to also carry all the other digital and HD programming requested by the City of Seattle. Broadstripe is offering a sub-standard subset of what the City of Seattle has contracted with them for in the Franchise agreement.
Seattle is the only major city in the United States that Broadstripe serves. Really, there are no others they serve; look at their service areas. We have different needs and interests than suburbs and the countryside. I think they do not know how to serve an extremely diverse major metropolitan area and its highly varied tastes in music. There are many lifestyles, ethnicities, religions etc in our city, we should all get our programming. They now offer a pablum of inoffensive drivel and have elimnated all the great variety of music that provided a complete spectrum of music for the enormous variety of people and musical tastes in our Great Metropolitan area. Maybe this is OK in Missouri or Michigan in the countryside, but not in one of the most diverse and progressive major cities in the United States.
I do believe that the rule in the Broadstripe Franchise agreement section 5 that states “Grantee (Broadstripe)shall not delete, or so limit as to effectively delete, any broad category of Programming” means that they have violated the Franchise agreement. They barely broadcast any digital music since the recent change in channel line up.
Please see the Broadstripe site link for their own bragging about their great digital music line up; http://www.broadstripe.com/cable/faq
You will see that they state on their own website “Q. What are Digital Music channels?
Digital music is an great added bonus to a subscription to Broadstripe Digital Cable. Dozens of channels are available featuring commercial-free, CD-quality music stations in a variety of categories; including: Modern Country, Lite Classical, 70’s, Smooth Jazz and many more. Plus, the digital cable receiver is designed to connect to your stereo system and television, delivering CD-quality sound that sets the perfect mood for any occasion.”
They write that they have dozens of channels available, not true. They have eliminated Modern Country, Lite Classical, regular classical, all latin, all dance, and many, many others. They do not have dozens of channels, which is at least 2 dozen channels (24 or more).
They also write that “Q. How does Digital Cable compare to satellite service?
Broadstripe Digital Cable is a convenient and affordable alternative to the services offered by satellite TV providers. With Digital Cable, it’s all there for you: all the entertainment, information, pay-per-view and digital music you want – right through the cable service you already have. Broadstripe’s Digital Cable offers the following advantages over satellite providers:”
Broadstripe writes there that they carry “all the…digital music you want”, which is misleading because they reduced the line up to 10 channels and no local radio stations.
As to how many they had, you need to ask them for the old line up PDF to make the exact comparison. I don’t have saved on my computer because they took it off line recently. They clearly do not want comparisons of the new line up to their previous line up that met the requirements of the Franchise agreement. Perhaps you have the previous line up PDF and can send it to me please?
If you have to get a copy of the previous Seattle line up from Broadstripe with all the music channels they had, I request that you please send me a digital copy for my records. Then I will list all the stations I used to have and the categories in comparison to the current line up.
Again, I do believe they have violated the Franchise agreement because they deleted the vast majority of a broad category of Programming. The present line up is so limiting an offering that it effectively deletes the whole category of digital music. I expect Broadstripe to offer a high quality of programming to me and my fellow Broadstripe subscribers and to have the City of Seattle police the Franchise agreement, if not I should be allowed to get Comcast and dump Broadstripe, which does offer the requested digital music in the City of Seattle Franchise agreement.
As I said earlier; Seattle is the only major city in the United States that Broadstripe serves. Really, there are no others they serve; look at their service areas. We have different needs and interests than suburbs and the countryside. I think they do not know how to serve an extremely diverse major metropolitan area and its highly varied tastes in music. There are many lifestyles, ethnicities, religions etc. in our city, we should all get our programming. They now offer a pablum of inoffensive drivel and have eliminated all the great variety of music that provided a complete spectrum of music for the enormous variety of people and musical tastes in our Great Metropolitan area. Maybe this is OK in Missouri or Michigan in the countryside, but not in one of the most diverse and progressive major cities in the United States.
The new 10 channel line up of music is Coffee House Rock, 80’s hits, New Age, 70’s hits, Album Rock, soft hits, Traditional Country, Smooth Jazz, Holidays and Happenings and Christian Contemporary.
There is no hip hop, rap, blues, classical lite or regular, Broadway, big band, standards, regular jazz, Latin, salsa, etc…
They serve the Central District and carry no Hip hop or Rap music, nor Latin music…
I also am not a Christian and they are supplying Contemporary Christian music as 10% OF THEIR ENTIRE OFFERING, while they eliminated almost all the stations that I listened to. Why provide only Christian? Why not also Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist music etc.?
They are doing a disservice to the great diverse people of our wonderful City, we do not deserve this sub-standard, Franchise violating provider. They need to give us what they promised and signed on the dotted line to give us; a true broad variety of digital music and local radio stations to suit our Major Metropolitan Area.
Please reconsider this issue, clearly Broadstripe has cut off the air supply to the digital music line up to effectively kill it.
Sincerely
Larry Adams
Hear hear. I think its ridiculous that such a monopoly exists. In our apartment building (60 units), I have to reset our internet at least twice a day because Broadstripe has done a terribly poor job mediating our service. When we call for support, we get no help.
But when we wish to find an alternate provider, we’re told we can’t.
…what the he** ? This is what people PAY for? To get stuck with a useless service? We have people who use the internet to do business. To go to school. To find jobs. While I don’t care about digital audio channels and frills (but that was a very convincing argument!), everyone in this neighborhood deserves fair and equal access to basic internet services. If Broadstripe can’t provide it – then they should shove off.
Go satellite… we have DirectTV (and they have a competitor – DishNetwork is available too) We have no problems with it, one or two very short outages due to weather in the last 5+ years (a minute or so because of a rare thunder storm and we had to clear the snow off this winter)- plus the basic package is $20/month cheaper than cable…..
For internet and phone we use Earthlink. There are options besides Broadstripe. For apartment dwellers I would guess the biggest hurdle would be talking the management into changing.
… we are the management. :)
Why not switch to satellite? I think you can even get internet that way too, but I’ve never tried it, so I don’t know how well it works. We have DSL for internet and phone.