I am here today to support the thousands of people who want to see their favorite channel included on their local cable company’s expanded basic channel line-up.

There is no reason why subscribers should continue to be held hostage to the tactics of the cable company in its pursuit of improving its bottom line.  So many people will not be able to see the quality programming on the channel if it is left off the system completely or buried within a special extra pay tier.

That’s why I support the movement to demand that the Oxygen Channel be made more widely available to all cable television subscribers…

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Doesn’t that request sound ridiculous?  Of course it does.  So does the request by sports fans across the country clamoring that cable companies do the same for the NFL Network.

I have already written about this issue.  You can find it here.  My opinion hasn’t changed.  Although both the network and the cable companies are concerned about their personal income,  it is the sole responsibility of the cable company to decide where a good portion of its programming resides…and for what price.

Peter King had a great take on this issue in today’s column.  He talks about how the NFL Network wants to charge 80 cents per subscriber per month for cable companies to carry the channel.  That figure is well below cable television offerings such as CNN.  King (who indicates his potential conflict because he is employed by SI parent company Time Warner) sums up his opinion with this thought:

“I have nothing against it, and I’m sure I’m missing things by not watching the regular programming. But there’s a sea of NFL programming on ESPN and Fox and everywhere else, and you could go blind watching it all. The NFL Network, it seems to me, would have a better case if it had more live events than eight games, the week at the NFL Scouting Combine and draft coverage.”

Well put.  The only travesty is that Time Warner may not come to an agreement with the NFL Network to at least offer it in some form for its subscribers before the network debuts its eight game schedule on Thursday.  That’s too bad.