So I am watching one of the best tennis matches I've seen in a long time on the USA network on DirecTV. Agassi vs. Blake. Blake wins first two sets 6-3. Agassi wins next two, 6-3. Tied 4-4 in the fifth.
Then they decide to stop showing it on USA and switch to CBS. Except it is not on CBS, "Rock Star" is. (Incidentally, some chick was getting booted off the show, and she and these other dudes and chicks -- bandmates? -- were totally crying, which is about as un-rock as it gets.)
And the worst part of it is that USA went away to show LAW AND ORDER SVU RERUNS. Freaking *RERUNS*.
What probably happened is that on the east coast they decided to switch to CBS, but on the west coast they didn't, and I get a local (west coast) CBS feed, and the national (default: east coast) USA feed.
But so do millions of other DirecTV viewers.
Amateruish idiots.
A modern version of the Heidi game. More technology involved, but still a case of disorganized decision-making.
Re: Timezones
pudge on 2005-09-09T16:09:27
I got this reply:Thank you for expressing your concerns about our US Open coverage. Regarding Wednesday night's match between Andre Agassi and James Blake, our commentators announced several times that viewers in the east would need to switch over to CBS to continue viewing the match. Due to contractual obligations we could not continue our coverage after CBS's US Open Highlights show began at 12:37AM (Eastern). Requests to allow us to continue our coverage were denied.
While the eastern feed of USA network left the match, the western feed continued to broadcast the match until its conclusion. If you live in the western part of the country and had the match cut off, this means you were viewing the eastern feed. Contact your cable or satellite provider for information on why you are not receiving the western feed of USA.
To which I replied:Yes, I know that is what happened. Of course, this is probably a form message, but I said that is what happened in my email: I get the east coast feed of all the networks, including, USA, on DirecTV. And I get local west coast network channels through DirecTV.
But no, I won't complain to DirecTV. You know full well millions of your viewers get to you through DirecTV, and that they are incapable of offering two or more of each network to their subscribers, due to limited bandwidth. And yet you still set up your contract with CBS so that it was quite possible that this would happen: two matches, back to back, starting at 7 p.m. ET. Knowing this was possible, you still went ahead and set up the contract that forced you to stop broadcasting.
Don't try to pass off the blame. It won't work. You're the ones who put yourselves in the situation for this to happen.
I now fully realize that you are a network that is incapable of handling this situation properly, and cease to bother watching sporting events on your network, as I'd rather not watch at all than to watch and then be deprived the ending.
