New channels added w/o notice

Question

Why won't comcast do us the COURTESY of letting us know when new over-the-air channels are added to our cable lineup?  I'm referring to metro-Detroit subchannels like 'bounce', 'movies', 'this', 'decades,' 'cozie','buzzr'. &'laff'.  They just 'show up' one day -  while I'm happy to see some of these channels added 'would like to know ahead of time.  And while we're at it who MAKES THESE DECISIONS as to WHICH ota channels are to be added?  Just found 'MeTv' and 'getTv' on my little ota tv set, would LOVE to see THESE added to our Detroit area comcast cable line up. {By the way, when comcast took AntennaTv-295 off our cable, the excuse given for not adding it back was"No room in the current line-up."  How strange that they've now added ch 289, 292,293,296 and changed 297 from LWN to LaffTv!}

Answer 1

ComcastTeds wrote:
dbnflower wrote:
Yes but my point is Comcast never advises us about new  subchannels added -not  even months later.
My original question was never answered - who makes these decisions regarding which subchannels to add to our southeastern Michigan Comcast cable lineup?
Last year when AntennaTv was taken off, we cable fans besieged both Comcast and WADL Tv , asking that it be put back on. Both Comcast and WADL Tv gave us the runaround - each blaming the other.
I've already contacted Comcast and WDIV-channel 4 regarding channel 4's newest subchannel 4.3 - 'GET TV'- asking if / when we might see it added to our cable lineup - with the same response -  no one knows anything! 
WE ARE TIRED OF BEING IGNORED!
Someone, somewhere knows who and how these decisions are being made - with absolutely No cosideration being given to suscribers' preferences!
Apologies. We can certainly review the customer notifications for your area and make improvements. I've already contacted the team that handles that for your area. 
As mentioned earlier, the local broadcast affiliates in your area make the decisions to add-change-delete-offer the sub-channel (dot two) channel(s) of their choice on the cable system.
As an update, I did receive some additional information, background and explanation from our local team that may be be helpful.
Multicast carriage of local broadcast sub-channels is based on several factors:
• Local TV stations do their own deals with multicast content providers
• Dependent upon a station’s must-carry election, our obligations differ:
o If the local TV station elects "must-carry" status, we are obligated to pick up their primary signal and HD signal, if transmitted in HD.
o If the local TV station elects "retransmission consent", we enter into a retransmission consent agreement with the station to carry sub-channels, typically which are all transmitted within their 19.4 primary signal.
Obligations for how many of their sub-channels we carry can differ depending upon the agreement. Sometimes all, sometimes there are terms as to how many (this is particularly important when you have duopolies within a market).
Broadcasters frequently change their sub-channels. For instance, if a broadcaster has a 1-yr deal for multicast programming and at the end of that term they do not renew for whatever reason they may have entered into a deal with another multicast programmer for a new term.
When this happens, the stations are typically good about notifying us ahead of time but sometimes they make the change without our knowledge.
Example: http://forums.xfinity.com/t5/XfinityTV-and-Equipment/Live-Well-s-slow-death/td-p/2533280
If the station notifies us with enough lead time, this change would go through our usual customer
notification process that you would see on your monthly cable invoice.
If they do not notify us with enough lead time, then it’s an after-the-fact situation. Our obligations for that are not as stringent since it is a broadcaster-induced change and not a Comcast-induced change and completely out of our control.
The decision to carry (or not) multi-cast subchannels is based on the carriage status with the specific TV station and what our rights and obligations are under their elected carriage.
We don’t make discretionary changes with regard to what we do and do not carry regarding these local broadcast sub-channels.
Having said that...
In the Detroit market, there has not previously been a MeTV multicast because Weigel (the owner of MeTV) could not get a local deal. As it happens, Weigel recently did a deal with WDIV for a MeTV multicast which they have launched commercially. That is why it is now available over the air (OTA). This is very recent.
We were notified by the station on 7/28/15 that they were launching a MeTV multicast for which we are obligated to pick up under our retransmission consent agreement. Our obligation is to launch within 60 days of notification. Our WDIV-MeTV launch is now scheduled for 8/27 in the Detroit Designated Market Area (DMA). This will be on channel 298 in the Detroit area.
In regard to Antenna TV from WADL: We do have a retransmission consent agreement with the station. Our agreement requires carriage of their SD and HD channels.
Up until May of 2014, we were carrying WADL in standard definition and Antenna TV multicast from WADL because they WADL was not transmitting in HD. When WADL began transmitting in HD, we replaced Antenna TV with WADL-HD as per our contract with WADL.
Carriage of Antenna TV was done as a courtesy to WADL until WADL launched their HD channel.