DRutka

I do not know where YOU are getting your information from. The old agreement between TW and Lin was the "free" agreement. Lin would not charge a cent, but intern, TW had no choice but to carry WIVB and had no choice but to put them on a lower tier, basic cable available station. By Lin opting for the "pay" choice, TW does not have to carry them, does not have to put them on a lower tier channel, and does not have to make them available to basic cable subscribers. Lin choosing this option is a set up to fail. Lin has the most to lose, and are foolish for going this route.

No longer??? They have not paid money to them in the past, they do not want to, and should not have to start now.

If TW agrees to pay for WIVB's transmission rights, WIVB no longer has a say where they go on the channel line-up. By Lin-TV letting TW carry WIVB for free, TW must carry WIVB in the lower channels and it must be on basic cable. I would find it quite funny if TW decided to pay for WIVB's signal, but then put them on an upper tier, digital channel. Then TW would have to pay less money to Lin because of the less households it reached. Lin-TV would be totally screwed.

But Lin-TV IS already being paid. What part of that do you not understand? They can charge way more to advertisers while on TW's system. That is their pay!!! Not being on TW's system decreases their advertising rates charged, thus losing money. Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.

Yes, it increases TW's value to their customers. But, TW does not have to carry WIVB if they do not want to. This might just be a financially responsible thing to do on TW's part. WIVB will lose more without TW than TW without WIVB. Because of that, WIVB in a sense is already being paid. From what I have heard, it has NOT been a financially responsible decision for WIVB. If WIVB folds. It will be Lin-TV's fault and no one else's. And I don't care what is fair because of what is being charged by other stations. You have to do what is best for THIS situation and for this (WIVB) company. Sure they can use other stations as a negotiating point, but life is not fair and those other stations charges or whatever are irrelevant. As any business owner would agree, if an employee used someone else's pay to negotiate their own pay, they would be told what other people make is absolutely none of their business, and if they do not like it, to go work elsewhere.

I do not know where you recieved your information from, but any agreements that were reached in the past, with those providers, were before Lin-TV wanted all this money per subscriber. Now that Lin-TV wants money paid to them, they will have the same problem in the future with these providers. So, more investments in more equipment. Just what the average person wants do do. I am saying it will be Lin-TV's fault because they are letting their station fail. If they would have left well enough alone, WIVB would have continued on in their profitable ways. Now they are losing money by the truck load. How is that Time Warner's fault? I own a business. Say a supplier that is making money and is profitable suddenly wants to charge me more for their product. I decide to no longer carry their product. Because I am no longer carring their product, that company starts to lose money and eventually fails. Is that my fault? I don't think so.

What I am saying is that WIVB IS being paid for their product because of the increased prices they can charge with the increased viewership supplied by Time Warner. If my point was mis typed about reaching customers, I am sorry. What I meant was that outside of the immediate Buffalo area, WIVB's signal is hard to pick up on an antenna. With Time Warner, these areas get WIVB, or recieve them with a clear signal.

Your point of view is just that, a point of view. What many people forget (as pointed out by a previous poster) is that WIVB's signal can not reach Time Warner's full viewing audience. By Time Warner carrying WIVB, they increase WIVB's viewership, thus allowing WIVB to charge higher rates to their advertisers. That increased revenue because of this is payment enough in my opinion. Options that just are not there for cable channels. I have a friend that works at WIVB. WIVB was financially sound up to this point. Now, things are not going well for them. Many part time employees and news reporters have been laid off. Local advertisers are pulling their adds, or not paying their bills because they were charged based on how many customers their adds would reach. Without Time Warner, WIVB can not reach those customers. With each day that passes, according to my friend, WIVB's managers are becoming more and more frustrated with executives at Lin-TV. With the weak Buffalo market, WIVB may reach a point of no recovery financially. WIVB may cease to exist. If that happens, no one is to blame but Lin-TV. Currently, Direct TV, Dish Network, and Verizon FiOS are not paying for, or paying next to nothing to carry WIVB. When those carriage agreements expire (most within the next year), everyone that is jumping ship on Time Warner will have the same problem all over again. A problem you will not be able to do anything about because you either have too much money invested in equipment (Direct TV or Dish Network), or can not get out of your contract (Verizon).

I do not get all these people that are trashing Time Warner on this one. Time Warner, when carrying channel 4 and 23 increase the viewership of those stations. By increasing the viewership, LinTV can charge more to advertisers for commercials. Therefore, LinTV is already being paid for Time Warner carrying their stations. As far as everyone saying to switch to satellite: I went to the website that was linked to on wivb’s website. After inputting my information to get a quote on the package that I get from Time Warner with all the extra channels and boxes, they want $595.00 setup, then want to charge way more per month after the “4 free months” (that still would cost me $100.00 per month) than Time Warner charges me. On top of that, that would only cover 4 of the 6 rooms I have TVs in. No, I do not have 6 TVs ever on at once, but it should be MY choice where in my house I choose to watch TV. And I should never have to watch the exact same thing on 2 TVs at once if I choose not to. On top of all that, my sister has satellite and only lives about a mile away from me. She always complains about how when it is snowing or raining real bad, her picture quality is terrible or totally out. Yeah, really worth it. As far as Verizon: First of all, Verizon customer service has ALWAYS been the worst EVER!!! Why would I think that just because they offer TV now, their customer service would change. Second, even though they are constantly calling me and knocking at my door, their service isn’t even available to me yet. Still they keep bugging me and trying to get me to SIGN A CONTRACT. Third, one of the many times they have called, I figured I would humor myself and ask a few questions. Sure, their initial package is a little cheaper than Time Warner. Then I started asking about the extra HD-DVRs and extra boxes I have. They told me that “sure, that would cause some extra charges”. When pressing them on how much, their response was “well we can discuss that later”. They want me to sign a contract, but are reluctant to tell me exactly how much it would cost. After still pushing further, I finally got a quote. Low and behold, they are more money (about $25 per month more) for the exact same service I receive from Time Warner (minus one channel, NFL Network). To me, the NFL Network is not worth $25 per month. With all that said, I’m glad Time Warner is taking a stance against Lin TV. In the long run, it will benefit me, the customer. Something that Lin TV, Dish Network, and Verizon FiOS do not care about. For now, I went and got my free antenna so I can watch the Bills and some other shows I do watch on CBS. I can deal with the inconvenience for now.

I am trying real hard to accept the choice that was made. I am a Bills fan first, before any coach or player. With that said, why do I have this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach? It’s the same feeling I had each time the Bills lost the Super Bowl. Something just isn’t right with this pick. We had an excellent choice at hand, and blew the call. We had a proven winner ready to take charge and we settled on mediocrity. It’s almost like we had a Jim Kelly in his prime sitting there and we took Rob Johnson. Why, why, why?

The call on the field was incomplete! If we had declined the penalty, it would have been 4th and goal at the one. That is the choice that should have been taken. Our coach is to blame on this one again!

Looking forward to it.

Sure you are, I respect your opinion. I do have mock ups with blue on blue, white on white. The point of this is not to push for changes, but to pass on ideas that I have had since the Bills first announced they were changing a few years ago. To say the least, I was disappointed in what they came out with, especially the road uniforms. But this is all in fun and I just wanted to share my ideas.

The old style helmet doesn't go with the "modern" look. As far as our current helmet and logo, I think it is one of the best in the league if we could just get rid of the mega-stripe.

I decided to rework the Bills uniforms. The overall look I'm going for here is modern but classy with a touch of tradition. I wanted the red, white, & blue equal in importance. I eliminated the two blues currently used by the Bills along with the "buffalo nickel". I lightened the blue so it's between the old Bills blue and the navy they use now. I also darkened the red so it is not so bright. Click Here => Buffalo Bills Redesign

I'm not someone who just changed his name, that was seriously my first post on this board. I have read it for years, but this is a topic I feel strong about and I wanted to vent. Isn't that what these boards are for?

The last time the Bills made the playoffs, John Butler was GM, Wade Phillips was Coach and Rob Johnson was quarterback. That was a long time ago in “sports time”. Bledsoe was brought in here to move this team to the next level. The level we have not known since Jim Kelly. The fans were excited, the city was buzzing. In Bledsoe’s first season here, he started like he was the next Joe Montana. In his first 10 games in Buffalo, he threw for over 3,000 yards (of his 4,300+) and 18 touchdowns (of his 24). Man, we were going somewhere. But as it turned out, it was down hill. Since week 11 in 2002, Bledsoe has been on cruise control. He hasn’t cracked 3,000 yards in a season the last 2 years. In his last 38 games, he maybe has single handily won 2 games. He has not thrown for over 300 yards since week 2 in 2003. That’s 30 games ago. He has not got the Bills into the playoffs in his 3 years here. This is the same guy who makes $6,000,000+ per year. When a quarterback makes that much money, he not only should make sure we just don’t lose games; he should be able to win them when other parts of the team are not producing enough. The top quarterbacks in the NFL can do that. This past season, especially during the 6 game win streak, we scored a lot of points. The Bledsoe backers will be saying “see what he can do?” But the reality of it is the defense and special teams along with McGahee helped inflate those numbers. These high scores were not because of Drew. He has had his time. This team can no longer be Bledsoe’s team. Bring on Losman. Is he ready? Who knows? Will he win us games? At first, probably not. Will he loose games for us? Maybe, in the beginning. But the only true way for this kid to get ready is in meaningful games. He needs the experience. With his mobility, his accurate throwing arm, and Sam Wyche helping him along, he will develop into the quarterback this team needs. It may take half of a season for Losman to find his groove again and learn the “NFL” game, but we need to do this now. If he sits on the bench another year, we will go nowhere next year and then his “learning” year will be put off until 2006. Let’s take the chance now. If we do not make the playoffs in 2005 with Losman, just remember, we probably wouldn’t have with Bledsoe either. But we will have a strong shot at 2006. If we start Bledsoe next season, we might as well wait until 2007 before we get our chance at the playoffs. Bledsoe says it’s his team. Sorry Drew, it WAS your team. It is now J.P.’s team. LET’S GO BUF-FA-LO!!!!!!!!!!