AZN shutting down ...
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:01 am
... which leaves me with only three half-good channels on all of cable to watch.
** rant follows **
For those who don't know, AZN is the only pan-Asian (and only any-Asian) channel on Comcast, at least in Denver. I've been able to watch Oshii's Tachiguishi retsuden, various Korean and Indian dramas, Asian music videos, film shorts, travel and food shows, foreign news, and anime on this channel, and a week or so ago Comcast decides to tell us that the channel is shutting down (Comcast owns AZN). So now we get probably (just guessing) 30 sports channels, 20 pay movie channels, 5 Spanish language channels, and countless one-off channels for everything from gaming to food to people's podcasts, yet we can't get even one channel covering events/films/etc from the most populous half of the world? (For that matter, there's only one other "international" channel at all, BBC America.) Are we that blindered? Do advertisers think the only shows us Americans will watch (including the over 13 million of Asian descent) are about ourselves as North Americans? (Are they right????!!!!)
This kind of "we can see only as far as the end of our noses" mentality makes me so angry, especially in a world as economically and culturally interconnected as the one in which we live.
There's nothing I can think of to do about AZN's shutdown, since it was announced so close to the channel's demise and really is a fait accompli by Comcast. I'm sure complaints will be directed to the same round file in which every other complaint finds a home. So I could only think to vent here. Sorry!
But it just makes me so mad. Now I barely have any reason to have cable, and they spread the few channels I watch across packages so I have to pay more to see them. It's all so closed-minded and ridiculous.
Ah well.
** rant complete **
** rant follows **
For those who don't know, AZN is the only pan-Asian (and only any-Asian) channel on Comcast, at least in Denver. I've been able to watch Oshii's Tachiguishi retsuden, various Korean and Indian dramas, Asian music videos, film shorts, travel and food shows, foreign news, and anime on this channel, and a week or so ago Comcast decides to tell us that the channel is shutting down (Comcast owns AZN). So now we get probably (just guessing) 30 sports channels, 20 pay movie channels, 5 Spanish language channels, and countless one-off channels for everything from gaming to food to people's podcasts, yet we can't get even one channel covering events/films/etc from the most populous half of the world? (For that matter, there's only one other "international" channel at all, BBC America.) Are we that blindered? Do advertisers think the only shows us Americans will watch (including the over 13 million of Asian descent) are about ourselves as North Americans? (Are they right????!!!!)
This kind of "we can see only as far as the end of our noses" mentality makes me so angry, especially in a world as economically and culturally interconnected as the one in which we live.
There's nothing I can think of to do about AZN's shutdown, since it was announced so close to the channel's demise and really is a fait accompli by Comcast. I'm sure complaints will be directed to the same round file in which every other complaint finds a home. So I could only think to vent here. Sorry!
But it just makes me so mad. Now I barely have any reason to have cable, and they spread the few channels I watch across packages so I have to pay more to see them. It's all so closed-minded and ridiculous.
Ah well.
** rant complete **