The Latest News:

The Options for Receiving The Outdoor Channel

First, the two quick and inexpensive fixes—the two mini-satellite companies, Dish Network and Direct TV.

Both systems offer The Outdoor Channel. Dish includes it in their $49 a month package. Direct TV adds it in their $99 a month package.

But both offer the channel “a la carte” (you need to say that to the phone rep.) for $1.99 per month, added to ANY channel package, of any size. If you only watched The Outdoor Channel to see Shooting USA, that would be 50-cents per show, but you’ll find more programs you’ll enjoy like the NRA’s American Rifleman, that will appear right before our shows on Saturday nights, and Guns and Ammo TV, and more.

Both satellite companies are offering packages to get you to convert that typically include four tuner boxes and free installation. And you can get your local channels delivered on the dish as well. Overall, switching from cable to satellite will likely save you money, since they are locked in a fierce struggle with the large cable companies for customers.

But that’s not going to be an option for you, if you are using your cable company for your high-speed internet connection. If that’s the case, they have you by your internet short-hairs.

So now we need to deal with your cable company and that probably means Comcast or Time Warner… together they are partnered to be the biggest players in the country. They’ve recently split up the pieces of the bankrupt Adelphi cable company to get even bigger.

Time Warner and Comcast are using their internet service and “Video on demand” to try to combat the threat of the less expensive satellite services. But they are running scared in the scramble to hang on to customers as the local telephone companies are being freed-up to offer TV over their DSL and fiber optic service lines. (With the end of analog TV broadcasting coming in 2 years, you ain’t seen nothing yet in the battle for customers.)

Already phone company Verizon is in hot competition with the cable systems in certain parts of the country. This quote is from one of the trade publications I receive:

Verizon has been aggressively building a fiber-optic cable network, called FiOS, around the country. It has been challenging Comcast, the country's largest cable company, by offering bundled packages of high-speed cable TV, Internet and phone service. Comcast has been adding telephone service to its video and Internet offerings. – Broadcasting Today

I hear from a viewer in Texas, who has Verizon FiOS, that the service is much less expensive than cable there and the picture and sound quality is better because of the fiber optic, digital delivery to his house. And Verizon includes The Outdoor Channel in their most basic packages of channels. So if Verizon is offering FiOS in your area it is a great new option. They are expanding as rapidly as possible across the country.

With all this new competition, we’re hearing that the big cable companies are quite sensitive to the suggestion that a customer might switch to a different service. One viewer wrote that he could only get The Outdoor Channel on his Time Warner system if he upgraded to the digital tier and got the digital converter box. He complained about the cost to the service rep and she gave him the box and the service for a year for free!

You might do as well, if you know the story behind the battle for your cable service buck. And what’s going to happen in the competition for your dollar in the next two years, as we get closer to the FCC shutting off traditional analog broadcast Television, is going to really heat up the offers and the action. If you aren’t following the FCC rulings (I’d be surprised if you are.) In February of 2009 all current Television Sets will cease to function off antennas, unless you have a digital converter box decoding the digital signal for your old fashioned TV set. On that date, you can either buy a box for each of your TVs, or use the boxes provided by your cable, satellite, or phone company providing your television service. Those companies all know what’s coming and they are scrapping over your business already.

So beat ‘em up a little. You might get The Outdoor Channel and save some money at the same time.

But there are some cable systems that simply will not offer the channel under any circumstances. Some Time Warner systems recently dropped TOC to make room for more High Definition Channels that take up more space in their limited, copper wire based cable systems.

In those cases, let’s hope Verizon rides to your rescue soon. Or your local phone company. Or that switching to DSL and Satellite works for you, like the systems we have at our house.

But I recognize we may lose you as a viewer for a while, until the new technology catches up to your neighborhood. It’s virtually certain The Outdoor Channel will get to you eventually as the only remaining channel dedicated to traditional programming for sportsmen and sportswomen.

In the meantime, let me know if you manage to solve your problem with one of the options I’ve listed above.

Jim