Greetings RBRers. I'm new to RBR, but not MTBR. Hope you guys don't mind a hairy legged MTBer posting here...

Anyway, two mornings in a row, Time Warner Cable in San Diego has preempted live Tour de France coverage with disgusting infomercials. They are on from 5:30 until 7:00. At 7, OLN comes back on right in the middle of the Tour coverage.

I am incensed, and TWC says the "programming department" won't be in until tomorrow to clear it up. This means it will be at least one more morning with no live coverage.

The customer service lady today suggested that OLN is actually feeding them the infomercials, but this rings very false, because I have seen postings from west coasters who are watching the coverage live.

My questions:

Anyone else seeing the infomercials on TWC San Diego? If so, call them and complain, please! The number is (858) 695-3220.
Can someone confirm that they are seeing the live coverage on OLN at 6 AM on the west coast? This will debunk the ridiculous claim by TWC that OLN is feeding them the infomercials.


Thanks, and happy road biking!

/cb

I've also noticed this and I too seriously doubt that it is OLN's fault. I'll try to call....

Grim.

I use satellite, but that isn't perfect either. So far so good.

OLN was on the cable this morning. Of course I have no way to know for sure that they have fixed the problem permanently. TWC owes me a call back this morning. I'll keep you all posted.

/cb

BTW, it was a great stage this morning. Don't miss it!

I talked to someone in the marketing (?) department at TWC this morning. She said there had been some kind of mixup between Corporate and San Diego. They seem to have gotten a lot of complaints and felt they had been hung out to dry by Corporate.

In any case, it seems TWC San Diego has had their hand sufficiently slapped, and it shouldn't happen any more.

We'll see.

/cb

Here's the response from someone at TW regarding my e-mail:

Thank you for contacting Time Warner Cable. I do apologize for the inconvenience. At this time we are required to show infomercials during the first hour of the Tour de France due to contract reasons. We are looking into this and should have it corrected before the end of the tournament. Our Network Operations is working so that we can schedule the infomercials at another time, so they do not impact the live broadcast. The portion of the races that are left out are replayed once the coverage resumes, so you don't miss anything. I hope I have answered your questions. If there is anything else that I can assist you with, feel free to contact us by phone or email.

It doesn't sound like they have their story straight across their firm. I guess we'll see how it turns out.

It doesn't sound like they have their story straight across their firm. I guess we'll see how it turns out.

They sure don't. Please check your PMs. I sent you my email address with a request to forward the mail from TWC.