Wrastlin’

Pro Wrestling Newz N Viewz (“PWNNV”) is a cable access television show that features three guys discussing professional wrestling. The half-hour long show is broadcast throughout the week on the Armstrong Cable ⇒ (“Armstrong”) public access channel that normally runs community announcement powerpoint slides for church pancake breakfasts and the like.

A typical PWNNV episode has low production values but features highly detailed discussion. Randy Fox, John Pithers, and Pat Gallagher sit behind a table with microphones that have championship belts around the stems and in front of a wall covered by a metal fence which in turn has some wrestling posters taped on. The conversation between the three guys will as often refer to matches that took place in the 1970s or in Japan as it will about current events within World Wrestling Entertainment ⇒. There will also be interviews with past wrestlers, footage from local wrestling events, and reader mail.

Viewerz

My Donor Brother*‘s enjoyment of the show was such that he asked my parents to drive him to a PWNNV anniversary live taping. The event was held in some theater in Butler, Pennsylvania. The impression that I got was that everyone that showed up got a free shirt along with as much Armstrong advertising as desired. My parents gave me their shirts as Easter gifts.

Slightly later, Donor, Donor, Receiver, & Proofreader Adam* mentioned that he found PWNNV to be amusing despite not liking professional wrestling. His enjoyment of the show, as it were, is about aesthetics. Still, I thought that he would get a kick out of the shirt.

I have neither interest in nor access to PWNNV. Television is boring to me so I am not a cable television subscriber. Soap operas for men never held my interest, even as a child. Further discussion on a topic of for which I have no interest is doubly uninteresting.

Small Potatoes

My memories of Armstrong include always having fewer overall channels with fewer still on the non-deluxe plans than the competition outside of the towns that had Armstrong. Plus, Armstrong always offered slower internet connection speeds per dollar to boot.

Yet, due to most cable tv markets being monopolistic there is nothing short of moving out of town or not subscribing to the services that can be done. American municipalities typically collect money for use of public land from cable companies by allowing bids for the right of way. These easements typically grant monopolistic control to the winners for an extended period of time. This lack of free-market competition affords Armstrong the luxury to lag behind other companies and survive. The company could expend more effort working to make a better service that more people would want to subscribe to so as to enter competitive markets. Instead, senior management green-lights throwing as large of a party as they could over a show featuring three local guys talking about a fake sport.

Clear & Fair

For the sake of clarity, I do not object to the PWNNV guys going along for the ride. Nor did I ever object to Donnie Iris ⇒ taking as much money as he could before being replaced by PWNNV as the Armstrong Cable flagship entertainment offering. I write from memory as a former customer about the smugness that the cable company projected.

To be fair, the rank and file Armstrong employees that I have interacted with are on the level. The people that Armstrong has sent out to the homes when I have been present for install or repair are nice and knowledgeable. The person that first took my one call was not knowledgeable, but the next person on the escalation scale was.