Time Warner Cable vs Direct TV
One of the great things about modern cable and satellite TV is all of the sports programming now available to subscribers across the country. Specialized sports packages like ESPN Gameplan give the customer access to nearly 20 college football games every weekend. Even the NCAA tournament has expanded coverage with the Mega March Madness package on Direct TV.
The motto today is “Content is King” and as the saying goes the networks of course want to bring as much sports content as possible to the customer so they can make more money on ads. Quite a few brand new all-sports channels have popped up over the last few years. Some of these include Altitude Sports, which carries NBA Nuggets and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche matches, and also the Big Ten Network and the Mountian, the network of the Mountain West conference.
Certainly these networks are nice for fans in certain areas, disagreements between the providers of content and cable networks that deliver the content have brought difficulties to the customer. For example, the Big Ten Network began broadcasting in 2007, but they were unable to strike a deal with big cable provider Time Warner. Customers of Time Warner in Wisconsin were unable to watch some of the home town teams play because of the carraige dispute. While the battle lasted a whole year, the companies involved came to terms before the 2008 season, so subscribers could stay with Time Warner rather than having to switch to one of the satellite TV companies like DISH Network or Direct TV. An important thing to do when considering providers is to consider all factors, comparing Time Warner cable vs Direct TV.
Out of market sports packages are another consideration for the customer. The DirecTV Sunday Ticket package is exclusive to the satellite TV provider, so if you want this package you have to switch. This has upset some Comcast and DISH Network customers, who do not understand why a package Sunday Ticket isn’t available to every provider. Other packages though are more friendly to subscribers, such as the NHL Center Ice and the NBA League Pass, which are available on almost every cable TV and satellite company. Direct TV seems to have all of the sports programming like the NFL Sunday Ticket package.