H&I Missing from 116 and 1012 in the Seattle Area

I've already left several comments expressing my displeasure with Comcast and the removal of the H&I channel, but this one is going to be short and sweet and in line with the last few comments posted here. Comcast, please find a way to bring back H&I, which is clearly an important channel to many of us. My bill just went up $26, to $304 per month, which is, in and of itself, outrageous.

The responses from the "representatives" in this thread have been next to worthless, providing no relief and copious amounts of misinformation. I and others are being pushed perilously close to dropping your company altogether.

Bring back H&I!

We're evaluating our options again, in the wake of the announced latest huge increase from Xfinity on Cable TV, plus further erosion of the service. Part of that analysis is to see how well HD antenna works, and I found last night that we can reliably get all the KVOS stations, including 12.8 with H&I (and KFFV with it), using a $12 HD antenna I bought some years ago. Impressive, given the transmitter is I think 71 miles away. It helps if I place the antenna outside, and helps a little further if on the roof. If we want TCM, SCI, and others, we note that the Sling TV interface appears to have improved a bit since we last looked at it (a few times ago of them jacking the rates and eroding the service by moving TCM to an expensive and largely unrelated package). Interestingly, much of what we want we can get straight off the air with just the HD antenna (and that's all made more attractive via an antenna-capable TiVo). So we're evaluating, which is silly for Comcast as a company given that we have no quibble with the reliability, instead, with the reduced or awkwardly bundled content and continually jacked up prices. Having to call up every year or two and beg or explain that each transgression threatens to exhaust my tolerance  has eroded my patience. As I said, the only reason that has kept us with Comcast for decades now is that they support TiVo, but if we ditch Cable TV with them, we then have no reason to stay loyal to them for internet.

I have posted about this before but now that I know more I want to expand my answer.  I too have no love for Comcast and also have a $250+ bill for the triple package.  But I think the disappearance of H&I was out of their immediate control.  They were getting the signal from the KVOS station subchannel and KVOS made the switch to Univision.    Something like that happened to the CW signal when KSTW dropped the CW signal.  Comcast put at least the primetime CW onto channel 328 with Comet.  That made tuning to it with the Guide awkward.  They have since restored CW to 112 but I don't know what they dumped from it.  As stated, H&I is now on the KVOS station and I hope Comcast makes a deal with them to get it back.  Hell, they are charging us more than $22 a month for local channels.

Added note:  When will they change the software in the DVR to temporary turn off the captions when the Guide is brought up?  They overlay the schedule.  And while I am at it, why do I keep getting the RDK03033 error?  It happened yesterday and the DVR would not do take any commands while the error kept popping up.  My cable connections are fine! 

Comcast, bring back H&I!

Please read through the previous comments. I assume Comcast and KVOS are probably in negotiations, but if KVOS was not carried at all, then they have to start from scratch. That can take time, and lots of money for lawyers. It also depends on KVOS and how greedy they are, too. Comcast is very well aware of the rapid cord cutting due to rising costs, and they don't want to have to raise rates any more. Yes, people posting here may love H&I, but again, there are many who couldn't care less about it. Just like the rapid fall of RSN's (Regional Sports Networks), forcing Comcast to push them into higher tiers so they can LOWER the bill of the 99.9% who never watch those obscenely prices sports networks.

Comcast, bring back H&I!

Hey Comcast: Since you jacked up the price for ROOT Sports, I have a decision to make regarding whether to stay with Comcast in the spring when baseball starts. If H&I is back or not will be a factor in that decision.

I decided to cut the cord with Xfinity. After not having H&I and then jacking up my bill I've had enough. I may still use them for internet depending on how CenturyLink works at my place - if the speeds are good then I'll stick with them, if not I'm ok just using Xfinity for internet. 

I want Hawaii 5-0 and Star Trek and the A-Team back.  This move is totally bogus.  Give us H&I now!

This forum has been super helpful to me, as losing H&I has been frustrating and disappointing.  Thank you to everyone who has posted, and thank you to Xfinity for allowing the forum.  Because of the way that Comcast has handled the H&I issue, I have discontinued Xfinity TV altogether (kept internet) and substituted two streaming services, one with H&I (and fortuitously INSP as well).  I also saved a lot of money, but I didn't realize that this would be the case at the outset.  I would never have taken the time--never would have made the effort--to investigate other options had it not been for H&I and how it was handled--the ongoing lack of communication apparently even to agents trying to help us when H&I was so important to many customers, including me.  I hope that Comcast lets the community know if they are in negotiations with H&I, and a timeframe for when they hope to have service restored.

I too have cancelled xfinity, going with Ziply Fiber for internet and Fubo + Hulu for live TV. With all that, my bill will be 1/2 of xfinity.

Why do other Comcast cities like Chicago have H&I, but we don’t?  Can we hear from an agent that they have spoken to or escalated this to an executive in programming instead of shallow replies?  Again, Pluto is not an acceptable alternative.

Xfinity. It's been over 3 month's since H&I was removed from your programing line up. Your agents told me it was being negotiated...no status update from you just price increases..what [Edited: "Language"] kind of company doesn't listen and respond to customer complaints? 

Why put all the blame on Comcast? The station may be making unreasonable demands of their own. Corporate America will blame each other, while customers get flushed down the toilet.