Carlos A Torres – Designer & Photographer

So we have DirecTV here and we have an array of channels both in english and spanish courtesy of the Familiar Ultra + HD package with HBO, Showtime and Starz added. That’s like $100 worth of programming. One day I’m watching some tele and I see a certain DirecTV commercial come on the screen….this commercial advertises their free DirecTV’s Mix Channels and how they’re part of “my” programming, compliments of DirecTV. That sparks my interest because I’ve had the Mix Channels before so I go to check them out and what do I see? A “Channel Not Purchased” warning. I decide to call DirecTV customer service to ask them where my mix channels are, since they’re supposed to be “compliments of DirecTV”. Well every person I speak to says that they’re not included with our package, that I need to switch to an English only package. I leave it at that and do some more research, of course not only is the commercial still running but even their website’s package comparison clearly states that the Mix Channels are part of any package, english or spanish or italian or freakin’ farsi. So I then decide to contact the higher-ups directly and they get back to me and say they’re going to look at their discrepancies. Well not only has that commercial disappeared but their website has been changed to reflect the lack of offers “complimentary” from DirecTV. Is this a win for me? I don’t know. I guess I got their left hand to talk to their right hand and now they’ve stopped with their false advertising. Way to go DirecTV, you guys are just like any other satellite or cable company.

It’s incredible to see just to what extent some of the networks go to in order to outwit each other, to outperform each other and ultimately to win whatever ratings war is out there to be had. As you’ve all noticed, American Idol has been pulling some weird time schedules this season. My belief is that a lot of people nowadays use some sort of Tivo/PVR/DVR device to handle their TV viewing. Well let’s say you want to record and watch 2 of the most popular shows on TV right now, American Idol and Dancing With The Stars. On the days when both the shows are on, what you do is set American Idol to record and then attempt to set Dancing With The Stars to record also…but what do you find when you try to do this? even though they’re on at different hours? What you find is that there’s a conflict because the powers that be have deemed it necessary to end AI at 9:01PM while DWTS begins at 9:00PM. What sort of ridiculous concept is this and why should viewers put up with this? Of course one can “manually” change this conflict so that it works but come on? I’m sure there are some sort of FCC or broadcast standards that can change this but who knows. All I know is that due to these conflicts people are missing results, performances and essentially losing out entirely. Utterly ridiculous!