More True Visions Shenanigans - and the Viewer Suffers as Usual

[fountainhall]

A major uproar has erupted as a result of the decision by True Visions to cancel from tomorrow all its HBO and Cinemax channels. In the last few years HBO has been airing some of the best made-for-tv drama series including Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones and Westworld. What I have not seen mentioned anywhere is the dropping of the BBC Entertainment Channel which has also been showing some excellent drama series recently. Several new channels will be added, but their quality is yet to be determined. The viewers who will suffer most are those who pay for the higher priced Platinum and Gold packages.

Legally True Visions is required to give 30 days notice of such changes. In this case it did not and the issue was referred to the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission. Typical of the closeness of the relationship between the True organisation and government bodies, the Commission waived aside complaints and let True break the regulation. As its Chairman said in a Bangkok Post article -

Although the company did not comply with the rule, the board approved the request because the company claimed it could not reach agreements with the content providers

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1168833/truevisions-to-drop-hbo-cinemax

Bullshit! In other words, True Visions which charges more for its packages than any other similar broadcaster in Asia and provides an inferior service, has once again got away with increasing its profits at the expense of viewers. Let's recall that when True Visions took over UBC, it was an outfit forbidden to accept advertising. Its income had to come from subscriptions. Cronyism with the government saw that rule jettisoned soon after with a huge increase in True Visions profits. Having lost the rights to air the hugely popular English Premier League soccer matches 3 years ago, it tried to make their loss more palatable by adding more attractive channels. Now that it is again paying a fortune for the rights to air these matches, it is no doubt cutting costs on the entertainment front. Yet one wonders if the pittance it will save by dropping such popular channels will achieve much, as reports suggest a large number of subscribers are now so fed up they will cancel their high-end subscriptions.

In early October. a True Visions salesman called me to offer to up my package from Gold to Platinum for a year at just half the usual extra cost. I accepted. Today I cancelled. I believe the company was engaged in the legally dodgy business of deliberate misrepresentation. When that salesman called, True Visions will have known that its contracts with the channel providers were running out and they were not going to renew. Yet that salesman mentioned nothing about the inferior service it would be providing after January 1.

The complete ineffectiveness of regulatory bodies in this country strikes again.

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