Viacom, DirecTV talks fail; 26 channels go dark
Summary: Negotiations between Viacom and DirecTV have failed, forcing 26 channels off DirecTV's airwaves and leaving its customers to pay a 30 percent price hike if they want reconnected service.
Overnight, Viacom pulled the plug on 26 DirecTV television channels --- including MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon --- leaving millions of customers without content they had originally signed up for.
DirecTV claimed Viacom was looking for a 30 percent bump in royalties for DirecTV to renew its subscriptions --- around $1 billion in total --- but DirecTV claimed this was too high. Viacom cut off much of DirecTV's service just before midnight on Wednesday.
Viacom and DirecTV were playing with fire and blamed one another for the failure to renew the contract, but ultimately only the customers got burned.
In the past few weeks, DirecTV took to the Web to promote its "DirecTV Promise" calling the rate increase "unreasonable" and "exorbitant," and pinned the blame entirely on how Viacom "decided to take away channels from [DirecTV's] customers" to force the customer to pay "substantially more."
Viacom hit back with its "When DirecTV Drops" campaign along with several blog posts explaining how DirecTV "dropped Viacom’s channels before our midnight deadline."
Meanwhile, programme makers and channel owners have hit back mostly at DirecTV for the loss of service.
Viacom said it had "proposed a fair deal that amounted to an increase of only a couple pennies per day, per subscriber," and that "DirecTV refused to engage in meaningful conversation."
DirecTV reiterated its 30 percent increase stance and noted how "Viacom took these channels away from DIRECTV viewers." The company added that Viacom had "knowingly put our customers in the unreasonable position of either accepting their extravagant financial demands."
"We feel our customers should not have to pay more for these networks than the customers of any other TV provider. We reiterated this to Viacom today and have not heard back from them," said Derek Chang, DirecTV executive vice president of content.
DirecTV, which has around 20 million U.S. subscribers, said it will continue to work "diligently" on a new agreement."
Image credit: Twitter.
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Talkback
Blame DirecTV
good luck
Interesting.
How many inactive consumer lackeys would stand up and attempt to dissuade active consumers from voicing their displeasure? Because, after all, you pay DirecTV for a service...not channels. Just grin and bear it, right?
Pass it on
Cable has no problem raising rates. My cable company raised rates twice in 1 year, thus making me a DirectTV subscriber.
Go DirecTV
Sooo....
Right...
wat
Haha
Anyways, if you really think DirecTV gives a shit about their customers (other than their wallets), then you are dumb. They opposed this because it would cost them money. DirecTV uses third party companies for their customer service and from experience, it's total shit. I use to work for one of those companies and I've seen first hand just how shady DirecTV is. They intentionally write up their contracts in hopes that someone will mess up and end up having to pay out the ass for it.
One such example: If you don't have a phone line hooked to your box (which most people do not), then any PPV that you get will be stored on the box itself instead of transmitting to DTV to be processed for payment. This means you will not even KNOW if PPV has been purchased until after you turn your box back in. I've seen people have over $2000 racked up in PPV charges after they turn their box in and some of them didn't even purchase them themselves. I once had an old lady CRYING on the phone with me because of this. She lived alone, her grandson would come to visit on the weekends and she had a massive bill of nothing but Adult PPV's.
TLDR; the above poster is an idiot and DirecTV is a scumbag company.
none
Correction
The problem is...
Here's a better try
The bottom line is that Directv and Dish both shouldn't offer price guarantees because when channel providers try to renegotiate, things like this happen--blackouts.
I'm sure in the fine print Directv puts that they don't have to give a credit when they don't give you your channels but bottom line-- they project the idea that you're guaranteed to have the channels for the duration of your contract and that's all that really matters.
Comcast and other cable companies don't have contracts in the same way so they just accept content negotiation more readily. On the flip side, that's their main problem and that's why Dish and Directv both knock the cable companies for increasing rate constantly.
This does not make sense
Are you listening?????
Incorrect
That said, blackouts aren't unprecedented:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/24/news/companies/fox_time_warner_cable/
The difference is that, in general, cable companies eat the price hikes and have no problem passing them onto the consumer since potential for rate changes are right in the consumer contract. Satellite companies who compete on price over service can't afford to do the same... so they hit the news more often.
No, they don't.
good luck
thats what im saying.
if they do give credit it will be the cost of the package divided the amount of channels and then give you that amount X each day youve paid for it but dont get it= not much to actually give a sh*t about. it's not enough of a service loss to allow you out of contract.
yes, you can rally around others with your internet voice. of course. it is very effective. i do it all the time.
im just saying. the content providers on this level have a lot of power. this whole thing could just be two top level dicks not agreeing. what people should be doing is looking for alternatives to these guys. its hard. it might be illegal. you might not have the choice. etc
to me this is just another FWP. "I paid for a whole month but now i cant watch 16 and pregnant"
nice try.....really!!!!!!!!!!
Please