Videotron: Peachy

On Dec. 30, Videotron removed a channel from its digital cable service. WPCH, formerly WTBS, is an Atlanta superstation that would broadcast a lot of comedy reruns, movies and Atlanta Braves baseball games. For the past year it’s been known as Peachtree TV.

On Jan. 15, more than two weeks after the signal on Channel 115 went dark, Videotron sent out a letter to customers who had it as a custom channel selection telling them it was no longer being offered:

Letter from Videotron

The gist of it is that WPCH demanded more money for carrying the channel, and Videotron balked.

Now, I could complain that the notice came out much too late, or that there was no mention of a refund to customers who had a dead channel for weeks, or that those forced to redo their channel selection are being charged more now because of new rates established for “new services”.

Instead, I’ll refer to the “attached directory”, a pamphlet of available channels, which apparently Videotron didn’t think to update:

Peachtree listing

I have no words to describe this level of incompetence.

17 thoughts on “Videotron: Peachy

  1. Shawn

    Steve, I had Peachtree as part of a “Tele a la carte” package that allowed me to change it as soon as the channel when kaa-plooey. I ended up switching to a newish Global offering, Movietime.

    So I guess my point us those of us with the custom package could switch away, right away, and the pre-set “theme” package customers did gain a new and somewhat similar service at about the same time, by my reckoning.

    Reply
  2. Shawn

    … I guess a key for a lot of people would have been the addition of Braves baseball. Which, by the way, was a factor in the substitution of the crappier Peachtree for top-o-the-line TBS in the first place, as I recall. There was something to do with baseball.

    So Peachtree gets the Braves after all. Peachtree then stops being cheap. Hence, no Peachtree, either.

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  3. Mr. Robertson

    Shawn is right. Peachtree TV was known as WTBS (a local affiliate of TBS in Atlanta), and a few years ago changed its call letters to WPCH and became independent of the TBS network. TBS still exists and does air baseball, usually during the playoffs.

    Reply
  4. Tom Clarke

    I had no problems. It was posted as no longer available. We called Videotron and re-did our channel listing. No problems. I’m actually very happy with Videotron services. I had the problem resolved within minutes.
    Try calling Bell for any changes and you’re in for a 45 minute ride and usually not resolved the first time around.

    Reply
  5. Shawn

    I didn’t know that. I’ve been griping about Videotron for years and thinking about changing to Expressvu. But one thing I will say about Videotron: when I call them they do seem to pick up right away. And yes the change away from Peachtree was a free and simple matter, handled within a minute.

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  6. Adam

    actually, they are 2 seperate stations, comming from someone who just spent two weeks in the states.TBS still exists, along with the relatively new peachtree. TBS shows original series and national baseball games, while peachtree has crappy reruns. Once peachtree was created the people at illico tried to pull a fast one on us, thinking we wouldn’t know the difference.

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  7. Shawn

    Adam, according to the Wikipedia article on Peachtree TV, Videotron and other cable companies in Canada were as surprised as we were when TBS Superstation was replaced by Peachtree. It had to do with the version — cable or terrestrial — that they were carrying, as I understand it. The article makes it sound like the companies didn’t really have the right to carry the Superstation, and so carried the local over-the-air Atlanta signal, instead. That was fine as long as they remained the same. When T-W did the split, however, they were left with a crappier product.

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  8. Pingback: Fagstein » Videotron wants more money

  9. GR

    Videotron has raised the monthly rate of the TMN by $1 because of the recent addition of HBO Canada. HBO Canada has replaced the old “position 212” Movie Network channel.

    Reply

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