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Despite having success in its first five seasons, the super-popular poker show High Stakes Poker decided to make a big change by dropping the witty A.J. Benza from the commentator booth and replacing him with the sultry Kara Scott. When the move was made, people immediately started criticizing the Game Show Network producers who made the decision, and some online poker rooms even considered pulling their advertising.

Well it’s a good thing those Internet poker rooms didn’t make a hasty decision because High Stakes Poker’s ratings are actually up in Season 6. Amazingly they have climbed above Season 5′s target audience of ages 18 to 49 tuning in nearly 30 percent more! The poker sites that like to advertise their rakeback deals and services can be very happy with the growing popularity of Season 6.

The VP of Programming and Development at GSN, David Schiff, actually believes the improved ratings are a result of the participants themselves as he stated, “”We’re very gratified to see this season of High Stakes Poker performing so well among these important demographic groups, and we can attribute it to an especially strong player line-up this season. We have some of the biggest names in poker this season, including more international players, and the viewers are clearly responding to the outstanding game play.”

Some of the players Schiff is talking about include Patrik Antonius, Antonio Esfandiari, Barry Greenstein, David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, Tom Dwan, Eli Elezra, and Daniel Negreanu.

Getting back to the whole announcer switch, fans of the older format are still complaining that the chemistry between A.J. Benza and Gabe Kaplan is missing from the show. They don’t think that Kara Scott works as well with Gabe Kaplan in the booth. It’s hard though to disagree with the switch when the show has attracted nearly 30 percent more of the target audience they were aiming for.

If you don’t have time to join in with the debate and just want to enjoy a game of Internet Poker then why not take a look at Absolute Poker or perhaps Party Poker.

Cable television deals aren’t hard to find, that is as long as you aren’t already a subscriber to cable TV.

The reason for that is because the cable television company wants to increase their customer base, so of course they are willing to offer you a great deal, usually for the first six months of service. The cable company figures if you sign up with them, you may set up a so-called triple play bundle that puts all of your services together like voice, video and hi speed internet.

Often you can get a triple play bundle for just $99 per month for the first year. Consider what the typical cable TV company charges: Basic TV costs $55 per month, high speed internet is $40 per month, and phone service is $35 per month. With prices like this, your overall bill would be $140 per month before all of the taxes that find their way onto your cable bill.

But it is good to think about how this might turn out down the road Well think about where you will be once the promo is over. You will have all of your TV’s connected to cable TV, your high speed internet including your e-mail account through the cable company, and of course your home line with the cable company as well. But all at once your price goes up nearly 50%, from around $100 every month to $140+ per month. Its not alway easy to switch out of your provider?

Maybe, maybe not. The smart thing to do beforehand is compare companies before making your final decision.One would be wise to comparison shop Cable TV vs America’s Top 120 before making a hasty decision.

While you might say to yourself it is not a problem to switch to some kind of DirecTV deal or something else from your local phone company like Verizon FiOS. As they say though, easier said than done. Often the time and inconvenience of switching providers makes the customer yield to whatever service they have. Even if the monthly cost is high, the customer stays because they have all the services on the same bill from the same provider. That is what the cable company counts on when offering short term deals to acquire the subscriber.