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No more major television stations


jabberjaw070596
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It's not like Carnival is charging less than it's competition for its cruises. I'm talking about the newer ships. In a lot of cases, they are more than NCL, RCCL,Celebrity, and Princess. At least with some of them you also get perks, which is a dirty word in Carnival's vocabulary. I didn't mention HAL, because of the vastly different demographics, or MSC, who has very low prices to attract cruisers from the other lines, including Carnival.

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Would also be nice if the closed circuit cameras, pool deck, bridge view etc stopped using potato cams and got some high def cameras, they are inexpensive these days. Whatever resolution the tv can support, probably 720 or 1080.

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It's not like Carnival is charging less than it's competition for its cruises.
Hmmm... seemed to me that they were. For our November 2017 cruise, we were able to reduce our total budget by $49 by switching from a 6 day Royal Caribbean cruise to a 7 day Carnival cruise.

 

I'm talking about the newer ships.
This was Carnival's third newest ship.
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I usually don't watch too much TV in our cabin aside from the weather and ship information channels. However I do watch some news (I'm a news junkie - can't help it:o) Which brings me to probably the most surreal experience in my cruise history. Back in 2007, while aboard Carnival Liberty on a Central America cruise, I had the TV on while getting dressed in the morning - and saw the story of how a group on our cruise were the victims of an attempted mugging while in Costa Rica, and how one of the passengers killed one of the muggers in a headlock. While I had heard rumors about the incident (it's amazing what you can learn while sitting in a hot tub;)). nothing was publicly stated aboard.

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I usually don't watch too much TV in our cabin aside from the weather and ship information channels. However I do watch some news (I'm a news junkie - can't help it:o) Which brings me to probably the most surreal experience in my cruise history. Back in 2007, while aboard Carnival Liberty on a Central America cruise, I had the TV on while getting dressed in the morning - and saw the story of how a group on our cruise were the victims of an attempted mugging while in Costa Rica, and how one of the passengers killed one of the muggers in a headlock. While I had heard rumors about the incident (it's amazing what you can learn while sitting in a hot tub;)). nothing was publicly stated aboard.

 

 

 

Now that is weird, we were on the same cruise. Came back to the port and found about 40 police cars. Did not know what had happened till that night when walking by a bar and heard some of the patrons yelling Semper Fi, Semper Fi (he was an ex marine). We were among the first off back in Miami and there was many TV crews there asking if we knew who he was.

 

 

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What a Crock!! I hope they are getting a lot of complaints. We do like to keep up with all the sports without having to fight our way in the sports bar. Come On Carnival, we pay enough for our cruises to have this. Who wants to turn on the tv and watch the ship? This is sad!!!

 

Elaine

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To many this is obviously a concern and for them I am sorry. For me, this is a 'so what' situation. I haven't watched the big three in many years. They all have their agenda and I don't want, or need, to hear it. I would much rather watch Discovery, Science, History, PBS , etc. At least they have some educational value.

I don't care about the sports either and their overpaid bunch of cry babies. Could not care less about ESPN.

 

I'm not on a cruise to watch TV. For those that do, my sympathy. Personally, I would be happy to see the cruise cost lowered and TV being pay per view except for cruise related information. But that's just me. We all have our own priorities I guess.;)

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and FOX, do some research 90% of viewers watch the networks, Jan 13, first cruise is the second round of the playoffs and this just stinks

 

Doesn't change my answer, you can still watch TV in your cabin. I would think you would still be able to catch a game or two in the bar as well.

 

It's not like Carnival is charging less than it's competition for its cruises. I'm talking about the newer ships. In a lot of cases, they are more than NCL, RCCL,Celebrity, and Princess. At least with some of them you also get perks, which is a dirty word in Carnival's vocabulary. I didn't mention HAL, because of the vastly different demographics, or MSC, who has very low prices to attract cruisers from the other lines, including Carnival.

 

You must be looking at cruises at different times than we are. We have never come across this before.

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Doesn't change my answer, you can still watch TV in your cabin. I would think you would still be able to catch a game or two in the bar as well.

 

 

 

No networks, no games even in the bar

 

 

And to the person who does not watch sports, you will never understand. Let's put it this way, if I knew this in advance I would not have booked the semi final playoff weekend, seriously.

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I assumed that Carnival received free C-band satellite broadcasts, and that's why the TV channels were always in standard definition. As standard definition television has been replaced by HDTV, they've lost the channels they used to carry. At least it makes sense to me.

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It's not like Carnival is charging less than it's competition for its cruises. I'm talking about the newer ships. In a lot of cases, they are more than NCL, RCCL,Celebrity, and Princess. At least with some of them you also get perks, which is a dirty word in Carnival's vocabulary. I didn't mention HAL, because of the vastly different demographics, or MSC, who has very low prices to attract cruisers from the other lines, including Carnival.

 

 

 

There is a reason that those "perks" you get for free.....

 

 

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Doesn't change my answer, you can still watch TV in your cabin. I would think you would still be able to catch a game or two in the bar as well.

 

 

 

No networks, no games even in the bar

 

 

And to the person who does not watch sports, you will never understand. Let's put it this way, if I knew this in advance I would not have booked the semi final playoff weekend, seriously.

 

The link that the OP provided, which is not Carnival by the way, says the change will impact the TV lineup on stateroom TVs. It says nothing about the bars or the big screen.

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Before you 100% blame Carnival - you might want to check with the ABC, CBS, FOX & NBC stations in Miami and see what they were asking Carnival for in retransmission fees. Maybe they doubled or tripled the amount of $$ they wanted from Carnival and Carnival said no.

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Getting rid of the expensive satellite provider and switching to a broadband internet service will allow them to make money on those who wish to stream their entertainment.

 

Without passing on that cost to the rest of us who aren't interested in watching TV in the cabin. Sounds like a win-win to me:).

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Before you 100% blame Carnival - you might want to check with the ABC, CBS, FOX & NBC stations in Miami and see what they were asking Carnival for in retransmission fees. Maybe they doubled or tripled the amount of $$ they wanted from Carnival and Carnival said no.

 

 

 

Don't go ruining the day for the bashers...this is one of a long, long, long, long list of cutbacks. Cruisers have to bring their own food now and also need to chip in for stops for fuel.

 

 

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Getting rid of the expensive satellite provider and switching to a broadband internet service will allow them to make money on those who wish to stream their entertainment.

 

And I suspect (just a hunch) that perhaps this feature will be added at some point in the future as an up charge to have extra channels (e.g. major network stations, sports channels) delivered to your cabin's television. It would be like ordering your own cable package for the cruise.

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I assumed that Carnival received free C-band satellite broadcasts, and that's why the TV channels were always in standard definition. As standard definition television has been replaced by HDTV, they've lost the channels they used to carry. At least it makes sense to me.

 

No, these were taking the Ku&Ka band DIRECTV feeds. Not that much different what home users get. The only difference is their dish has the ability to track and has substantially more gain that makes it less likely to be affected by rain fade.

 

DIRECTV re-transmits the local stations in every major market and they too pay retransmission rights that are then pass on to the consumer. I suspect Carnival was paying a considerable amount due to the FCC rules that prevent local networks from being rebroadcast outside of their local market.

 

The C-Band broadcast network feeds have been encrypted for years. Local TV stations(the ones not owned the network) pay an access free to rebroadcast national content.

 

I was a broadcast engineer for 7 years and I can tell you retransmission rights is a very complicated thing in the industry.

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One other relevant data point: It was a big deal when television screens were added to seat backs aboard aircraft. For years there there were discussions about when it would extend beyond first class, and then every-seat entertainment systems were the aim. Now, what we're seeing are airlines deciding to, when next rehabbing aircraft interiors, leaving out seat-back entertainment systems. The reality is that so many travelers these days are carrying their own personal entertainment systems. My spouse and I carry aboard four separate devices that could, if we chose to use them that way, present downloaded video entertainment. While it doesn't address the need to watch a broadcast network news broadcast, or a live sporting event on a broadcast network, the fact that so many people are relying on their personal entertainment systems reduces the need for video entertainment provided by the cruise ship/airline to just those live presentations, and that's a lot less of a demand as compared to when many people didn't carry with them their own personal entertainment systems.

 

As the linked article indicates, some airlines are going in one direction, removing the systems from their aircraft, while others are seeking to capitalize (and remember the root of the word "capitalize" is "capital" which is synonymous with "money" - so read: "monetize") their seat-back entertainment systems. The question is how will you as a passenger motivate (again, when you see "motivate" read "give money to") the airline in response to their offering seat-back entertainment as they have been in the past, now that there isn't enough motivation coming from just being there for you? And reflexively, what would it take to have Carnival offer broadcast networks again? Clearly, again, there would have to be some kind of movitivation (i.e., "money") rather than just expectation.

 

 

 

Agree with the general gist of both you posts. Why spend money on retransmission fees when you can encourage the passengers to spend money out of the room or on an internet plan.

 

 

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In another big move, Carnival is cutting the cord on showing the ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX networks on in-stateroom TVs. The TVs will still show channels like CNN, TBS, TNT, and the Discovery channel in addition to the ship channels like the lido deck camera and cruise tracking. However, the overall size of the TV guide will be significantly reduced

 

 

 

They changed providers. No real big lose for us as we only watched the ship cams.

 

 

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