FWIW, we have had Charter for a long time in our household. At one point we were having issues similar to what you describe, especially on HD channels. I complained on an online forum, and one of their customer service reps PMed me, and set up a swap out of our HD/DVR box the very next day. No real issues since. Once in a very great while (I mean extremely rarely) I'll get a "the channel you selected will be available shortly", but that usually only lasts for a couple minutes at most. I feel like Charter has stepped up their game a lot in the past couple years, probably due to increased competition from AT&T U-Verse.