Tuned In+January 4, 2010

Paying for TV, One Way Or Another

By James Poniewozik

I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, but sometime this month Apple is likely to announce its giant iTouch, which will singlehandedly make people fall in love with reading again, persuade them to pay money for electronic publications and thus save journalism. Crisis over! Problem solved! Screw all you guys, I’m going to be rich now!

TV, though, still has business problems. It’s true, that, unlike with the news, people are not likely to stop watching The Office in order to read an unpaid blogger on the Huffington Post sum up The Office in three paragraphs. But more people are finding ways to watch TV for free online, skip ads with TiVo, or otherwise undermine the old TV business model. And as some recent network-vs.-cable-company fights have shown, the TV business is still going to try to get you to pay for TV somehow. Even for the “free” stuff.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | August 18, 2009

Tivo-vival: Lessons From Tech Support

By James Poniewozik

My TiVo lives! The TiVo which replaced the one that died, that is. Which replaced the one that died eight months ago. Last December, I let you know in detail when replacing my defective TiVo box required 14 hours on the phone with TiVo and Time Warner NYC customer service to finally get the CableCard [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 6, 2008

I Love L.A.

By James Poniewozik

The city of Los Angeles is suing Tuned In’s soon-to-be-former corporate sibling, Time Warner Cable, for shoddy customer service. Mind you, I’m not a lawyer and can’t judge the validity of the suit one way or another. But I have to enjoy the idea of anyone creating headaches for a cable-company customer-service department, rather than [...]