Fewer Calif. options for Tahoe cable customers
By Kathryn Reed
Charter Cable customers in Lake Tahoe have one less California network affiliate. That means KCRA is the lone California station accessible to viewers around the clock.
Last week the company stopped providing KTVU, the Fox affiliate out of Oakland, during the day and instead offers Reno’s KRXI.
KTVU and KRXI representatives told Lake Tahoe News an agreement between the stations could not be reached. However, the 10pm news on KTVU can still be seen via the KRXI channel. KTVU is also available online.
This reporter placed an anonymous call to Charter inquiring about initiating service in South Lake Tahoe. At first the cable company salesman didn’t know if the network affiliates are in California or Nevada. Then after some research he came back and said all the channels are in California.
This just isn’t true.
The only California network channel that people in the Lake Tahoe Basin can get throughout the day and night is NBC affiliate KCRA.
The troubling aspect for California viewers is that during an election season all the news and advertising is from Nevada.
In summer 2004 Meyers got KCRA after not having the California channel for a year. At that time the problem was blamed on the need to put in fiber optic lines on the power poles in the Upper Truckee area, which of course required Tahoe Regional Planning Agency approval.
“The last time they dropped the ABC San Francisco station, the City Council asked the Charter regional manager to come in and explain why that had happened. The discussion led to the leaving of KTVU and KCRA. They wanted to be rid of KCRA at the time because of what they explained to us were transmission problems. The KCRA station managers also came up and said that they had the capability to provide the signal,” a Lake Tahoe News reader said in an email.
When Charter dropped KGO Channel 7, the ABC affiliate in San Francisco, years ago Charter claimed it was to free up the channel for others that viewers were “demanding”. That abandoned channel, ch. 23, remains abandoned now several years later with no substitute programming and no commensurate rate decrease for its elimination.
Best thing we ever did was cut the cable and its hassles and regular rate hikes, and switch to an antenna which gets its television signals from Slide Mountain if you are line of sight. Better picture quality and no more cable bills, it’s free.
Charter is to expensive .
I like KCRA out of Sacramento. The San Francisco news is nothing but murders. Dish and DirectTV have no California stations. I used to have Dish and they got so expensive I changed to Charter and I am paying less for my phone, tv and internet than what I was paying for just tv with Dish. Also, the Charter internet is so much faster than ATT.
Kill your TV , best thing i’ve done.
I hate Charter. Their recent upgrade left me with one useless TV, two useless VCR’s, one useless DVR and an increase of 30% in my bill.
They have explained to me that this is all being done for my benefit as a customer.
Why is Charter the only cable company we have in the Tahoe area? They are the absolute worst. The programming isn’t very good. The volume jumps up and down which requires holding the remote to control it constantly, then it gets garbled and the whole system shuts down and then powers back up again. We’ve had nothing but problems with it. Can’t get Directv because of the trees in the way. Anything would be better than Charter. They need some competition here.
I am very satisfied with Direct Tv, bundled with AT&T. However- KCRA is not on it. (“we are in the Reno market”) I encourage all DTV customers to call this provider and ask for KCRA. I find it sad that we know more about Nevada politics and candidates than California’s. It’s available on the internet, so should it be available on the Boob-Tube!
I am with AT&T U.VERSE. KTVU NEWS mornings noon and 10 oclock nightly news have been my choice for news since 2001. Where did this program go? And why? Who do I have to call to bring it back?! I pay. And now I lose a program that I do not want to lose!! Who do I call to fix this problem?
I’m with Charter too, and am upset that I have lost my only news for the state I live in, California.
Just called Charter, and left feedback, if enough people complain, they will try to bring the station back, Charter 1-888-438-2427
I’m not too happy with Charter here in SLT. I signed up for digital sevice with a lower cost offered to me with more channels.Here’s what happened…
Two “technicians” show up , one training the other.The trainer guy was rude to the other guy a bunch. It was close to a fist fight in my living room. I seperated them before it came to blows. I kicked them both out with the jerk boss telling me the box was all set and ready to go. It was not! I did get some new channels, but with no sound! Then I get the bill and it was double what I used to pay. We finally got another Charter guy to come over with a new box and then the sound worked. It was told to me that the reason my bill was $100 was because of labor cost and if it didn’t work on the first go round it was not their fault. What a joke!!! I
wish there was a different company in town that provided better service at a reasonable rate. OLS
I agree with OLS, Charter is the worst. Charter has hired a third party to make many of their installations. Charter has a monopoly and could care less about good customer service. Can the city council hold them accountable for their actions?
Rebel; At one time the city and/or county, could but that power was removed with deregulation. Deregulation supposedly let loose the free market to the benefit of the customer. The problem is that it doesn’t work when there is a monopoly.
Before Charter came to town the local company was pretty darn good. Before that it was when we had antennas. On a good day you could watch “Profesional” wrestling, with Pepper Gomez, Ray Stevens, Haystack Calhoun and roller derby,featuring the Bay Area Bombers, John O’connel on the mens team and Joannie Weston on the ladies team. All of this was on KTVU from the bay area. Don’t forget Mayor Art or Captain Sattelite which were bay area produced kid shows.
My friends and neighbors have had verying succses with Dish tv, I guess it depends on where in town you live. The dishes don’t seem to work to well in Sierra Tract. Hopefully another cable provider arrives on the scene. OLS
Every cable market in America is a monopoly, our only choice is Satellite, or now the internet has some Tv viewing options: Hulu, Netflix, Amazon. Also there is the Roku box.
Ok people. Any first hand comments or opinions on Dish, DirectTV or U-Verse?
I have to laugh when i see these comments about Charter being a ‘monopoly’. Clearly some of you do not understand what that is. Charter is a good company. Great internet, 200 HD channels and cheap phone. Sure, there are isolated problems, but the folks I have worked with at the local office and the techs have all been great.
Place an outdoor antenna toward Slide Mt. (reno)and you can get as many as 6 stations (in high def.)with as many as 15 channels for FREE or get Direct TV Or Dish and after set up change your physcial address to somewhere over Echo summit and you will get all the Sacramento stations.