At least TBS has some original programming and sports. WGN America is just cheap reruns.

what's the real reason for this? (i can't be arsed to RTFA, or "read the fucking article" as they say over on bbtf) is it because CSN pays out the wazoo for as-exclusive-as-they-can-get rights? is it because WGNA has to pay more to the cubs in order to broadcast the games on a national network as opposed to local WGN? is it simply because the powers that be over @ tribune tower said "nobody in non-local markets wants to watch chicago sports?"

to me it makes absolutely no sense to do this unless there's some sort of a caveat where WGNA has to pay more for the rights to air a game on a SSINO (superstation in name only) as opposed to a local/regional broadcast.... cuz you figure if WGN already has the contract in place and they can choose to show the games either locally and/or nationally, wouldn't they want to put their already-paid-for sports games on the SSINO because at that point it's effectively free programming (and all of those old reruns cost a little something, even if it's the equivalent of getting a fountain drink @ a fast food restaurant where the cup costs more than the soda itself) and ummm...... you know, chicago sports broadcasts are the kind of thing that can end up providing much-needed branding for a SSINO that has absolutely nothing else going on?

weird decision that i can't help but believe was made due to external mitigating factors relating to the all-important bottom line... or hell, maybe it's an edict/mandate from MLB itself because this year they're REALLY pimping their awesome mlb.tv product hard (i.e. if you sign up for the MLB extra innings tv package you get a mlb.tv premium account for free all season) so therefore they want people who are fans of team X in a different market to use MLB.tv.... and i reckon if the NFL and NBA and NHL aint up on that mlb.tv tip they're gonna get there cuz man, i can tell you that if you aint get raped on your data plan (cuz it seems like the going rate for 2gb/month of data is $40-70/month while ppl like me are grandfathered in at 4gb/$30 so i can stream hours of shit every month and i dont even get into that last gig of data that often) being able to sit on the L or a bus/cab while watching the hawks game = PIMP aka THE FUTURE.

we just gotta hope that verizon and friends can stop the rape because even tho i know internet bandwith is a finite resource that's gonna run out if everyone keeps using it, man, you should be able to get 4gb for under $40/month.... i thought it'd get cheaper over time, instead it used to be unlimited data/month for liek $25-50/month.... then they got rid of that and partitioned it out to my ~4gb/$30 and instead of bandwith getting cheaper as everyone gets a cellphone, they saw an arbitrary way to make a shit-ton of $$$ by forcing ppl with new "Smartphones" to subscribe to a data plan.... and since, what, 97% of phones now are android or iOS "smartphones" and you HAVE to get a data plan, well thats where verizon says "FUCK YOU.... 2GB OF DATA IS $70 A MONTH AND IF YOU DONT LIKE IT? WELL YOU CANT HAVE THAT PHONE ON OUR NETWORK WITHOUT A DATA PLAN"

so yeah TL;DR i hope that if all these telcos get their end of net neutrality stuff and get to charge us up the wazoo for using non-corporate-sanctioned bandwith (the future of our internet = profit motives/hustles) that they can at least ease up on the price of 3G/4G/4GLTE data cuz man.... you know, if cars nowadays had a little android front end for their multi-purpose screens in the dahsboard it'd be so easy to get a 2-4GB/month data plan for like $25-40/month and then you can use an app like tunein to listen to a billion internet/radio stations across the world.... you can listen to audio streams of anything.... and i can tell you tht right now tunein has access to the di.fm stations (like ~30-50 different stations of different sub-genres of electronic music) and all kinds of little internet stations like ebm radio germany, radio caprice russia.... gtronic radio new jersey (oldschool/underground hiphop with a way more eclectic track list than anything on GCI or power 92.3) and etc etc....

but alas, since these companies are damn near fucking evil in wanting to destroy net neutrality and jacking up data rates simply because once you're forced into a corner where you have to get a data plan, man, why should they give you a proper deal? they dont have to.... you're a captive market so basically they're gonna force you to spend like $40/month on 512mb of data just because they can

and suffice to say it'd be the death knell for siriusXM, who have a nice lil monopoly in getting their hardware into new cars and then arbitrarily branding the radio either "sirius" or "XM" cuz that corporate merger was SOOOOO BENEFICIAL FOR THE CONSUMERS when basically they've been able to retain the split/multiple-companies identity in terms of like, you either have sirius or XM and if you want the good stuff on the other "brand" you have to give them another $5-10/month.... whereas when howard stern and others were pimping the merger to us over the satellite waves, they made it seem like the merger would be good for the consumer cuz you'd get all of the sirius and all of the XM channels on one service for the same price every month.... which of course is not the case because siriusXM is the only game in town so why do anything that benefits the consumer when you can basically treat them like the marks they are and charge them out the wazoo if they want anything that was supposed to be a benefit of the merger (i.e. as a sirius subscriber at the time i was like "hell yeah my sirius is about to get opie and anthony and the MLB radio package and all of the other music stations for the same price! this merger rocks!"

yeah well, if i give them another $5-10/month i can get opie and anthony.... but i cant get the MLB i dont think. i'd have to buy a whole different XM radio and then a proper XM subscription to get that.... even tho it's the same company supposedly, well, they keep them separate for maximum-profit-reasons because, honestly, what are you going to do?

so yeah TL;DR people need to go protest the cell phone companies arbitrarily jacking up data prices to crazy levels simply because everyone has to have a data plan now. it's unethical, immoral, and just flat out "FUCK YOU PEASANT" because once they know they're focing 95%+ of their customers to buy a data plan, why offer the same prices they had ~3yrs ago when a "smartphone" was optional? why give people enough bandwith to live comfortably doing whatever the fuck they want on their phone? theres $$$ to be made!

also extra FUCK YOU going out to verizon/motorola (the former owns the latter now) because the new android kit kat update has disabled the registered ($7) version of foxfi wireless hotspot software i have (you know, i can turn my phone into a little wifi hotspot with internet for any computers that connect to it. example, this season i did a fantasy baseball draft on my laptop in the backseat of a car because i was able to have my laptop connect to the internet via my cellphone, so i could use all of the native windows/flash draft software instead of hoping and praying that there was an android app that could do drafts) ---- welp, verizon says that's great.... but you gotta pay us $30/month to be able to use your phone's mobile plan (which again, reminder, you're supposed to pay $70/month to get 2GB of) as a hotspot cuz i mena.... FUCK YOU! YOU HAVE NO CHOICE!

verizon was taken to court over this forced-$30/month-for-a-wifi-hotspot thing AND THEY LOST.... basically it's illegal for them to completely disable the functionality of a phone to be tethered into a wifi hotspot unless they can extort you for $30/month.... but that said, they still technically can block any and all sofrware from using the wifi hotspot capability unless you pay them $30 because LOLSOFTWARE..... so yeah i think i almost have to root the phone or hope that this foxfi development team can find out a workaround for kitkat.... because basically android 4.4.2 found a way to 100% block out 3rd party wifi hotspot software with some new way that they thought up between android versions 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 or whatrever.... so basically yeah, the hustle is on. smartphones very well might be "the mark of the beast" that the bible talked about cuz their proliferation into everyone's everyday lives has basically held off the mandatory microchipping of the population (since a phone tells the powers that be EVERYTHING about you, and that's before you realize anyone can use your camera/microphone whenever they want since internet security nowadays is an abstract concept at higher up levels.... security is only there to keep your fellow peasants from fucking with you... the powers that be have a red carpet rolled out and they will use it whenever they want (MUH TERRORISM!) and uhhhh... yeah where did this tangent come from?

oh yeah, it came from the SSINO and the state of modern media.... welp, since basically the social contract nowadays from government/business to you is "FUCK YOU. IF YOU DONT LIKE IT THERE'S 500 OTHER PEOPLE WHO WILL BE HAPPY TO ACCEPT OUR TERMS SO KNOW YOUR PLACE PEASANT" and thus with the SSINO..... yeah man, doing what makes the most sense aka what's right isn't a priority at all.... it's all about maximum profit.... and if MLB/cubs/CSN/someone fights the good fight because making 1.6bil in revenue isn't nearly as good as making 1.7bil in revenue, even if they have to piss off 90% of their customers in the process, hey, that's 0.1bil dollars that goes to the people who make that business work: THE CEOs. so in the end you're just an asshole resource leech sucking on the teat of the world at large because seriously.... why does society owe you anything? get a high school degree and work hard and you can be middle class? pfft. do you expect CEOs to have to shit on anything but solid gold toilets? you want them to shit on sterling silver? what are you smoking and where can i get some foreal?

You typed that first sentence then barfed all over the keyboard like that?!? REALLY?