• by Lydia Loizides , Op-Ed Contributor, June 4, 2007

At what point will service providers stand up and take responsibility for the quality of their service? Moreover, when will content providers have the leverage they need to force service providers to get it together? Perhaps we ought to be writing more letters like the one below.  The following is fictional and does not depict any real persons or events... but it just well might.  

Date: Today

Topic: Cancellation of Showtime Premium Channel

Dear Mr. Blank,

I am writing to inform you that I will be dropping Showtime Channel. Please understand! This has nothing to do with the content that you provide -- “The Tudors, “This American Life,” “Weeds” and “Dexter” are all household favorites.  We have so enjoyed being subscribers, but have found our programming provider to be, well, sub-par.  I know that this isn’t your fault, but I have to say that I would rather wait for the DVDs than go through the nerve-grating experience of trying to access content through the VOD system that my cable operator provides.

How frustrating is it to be 35 minutes into a program, only to have the video stream become pixilated, the audio become inaudible and then have the whole screen go black? I am afraid that we have experienced this one too many times to justify the amount that we are paying. And yes, I have brought this problem to the attention of my cable operator, but it has gotten me nowhere.

So I apologize in advance for unsubscribing myself from your service. I know how important subscribers are to your business.  I do look forward to finding your content online somewhere, in some form or another.  And while I have thought about a DVR solution -- well, it is going to have to be one that the cable operator doesn’t manage. I have had to swap out the operator’s DVR technology twice since they gave me the privilege of paying them almost $10 a month so I could capture content that I would otherwise have been watching on VOD.

I wish you well on Californication and Meadowlands.  I was really looking forward to spending more time watching your content.

 A True, But Disenfranchised, Showtime Fan