WTF is up with all the television providers and their threats to drop certain channels ?
A few months ago it was DirectTV. They were going to drop AMC and IFC. In addition to this, they did actually temp. drop some local channels where I live. They came back on about a week or so later.
Just recently, I think that Dish Network was also threatening to drop IFC + others. (they may still be ??)
Now I’ve been seeing ads on IFC that AT&T is going to be dropping it (and others?)
I realize that there could very well be 2 sides to these stories but IIRC, with regards to DirectTV, they were the ones being the inflexible greedy dicks.
Usually this stuff gets worked out–Peachtree TV was off Dish for about a month or so. However, DTV still hasn’t added back G4 as far as I understand which is the longest “hold-out” I’ve ever seen. I have Dish, and I’m also headed down the cord-cutting route. I re-upped some equipment so I’m still tied in for another 6-8 months. I’m going to use this as a reason to call and see if they’ll drop my subscription rate. I told my wife not worry about Walking Dead as I can get it online.
So, Viacom went off DirecTV last night. Looking at their channel list, this seems to have no effect on my viewing habits. I think Comedy Central was the channel I watched the most, and the stuff I watch there can be found on Netflix.
In theory, shouldn’t this lead to a lower cable bill? I’m gonna go ahead and predict that won’t happen.
I don’t know all about the business side of things. But this seems like a bad move to make as streaming becomes more popular and more people ditch cable. The cable companies acting like dicks will just make their situation worse.
Dish is having a similar issue with AMC right now–AMC wants to triple the price they charge Dish per subscriber (that’s not from a Dish propaganda website–AMC specifically said they want to up the price from like 26 cents a subscriber to 75 cents). And Dish’s Charlie Ergen, as he usually does, said “no”. So they’ll negotiate and eventually it will be back.
However, in the meantime, I had called Dish about something else, and said, “Oh yeah, and mark me down as a person that wants AMC back because of the Walking Dead.” The rep said, “Oh, well we have a deal going now since AMC is not available–we’ll send you a Roku box for free so you can order the episodes from Amazon and give you a $30 credit on your bill to offset the cost of ordering the episodes.”
So I got that going for me. Supposed to get the Roku box sometime this week.
The longest one of these stalemates I’ve seen for Dish is with Peachtree TV, which lasted a few months. However, Directv still doesn’t have G4, do they? I think that’s been off for like a year.
I don’t have DirecTV, but I did see the list of channels. I would pretty much be like Mangy - Comedy Central is the only thing on that list I watch and I can watch the majority of programs from it online. Sucks for the customers though.
Side note - if you had read the tweets last night from people saying “How am I going to watch Teen Mom now?”, you would have started crying.
Our local NBC affiliate is having a beef with BrightHouse, so they pulled their signal off the system. BrightHouse responded by adding an NBC affiliate from a different state in order to keep carrying NBC programming, which confused the hell out of people who woke up and saw that it was 47 degrees outside.
Like others here, I’m mainly concerned with getting my Daily Show, Colbert Report and Futurama fixes…
Although, there are going to be a lot of parents out there trying to explain to their kids why they can’t watch their favorite Nickelodeon shows.
While I am not entirely sure if there really is one ‘bad guy’ in this Viacom/DirectTV battle, from what I’ve read, it does seem like Viacom are being the bigger ‘dicks’ this time.
That being said, after doing a bit of online research into Viacom and Direct TV earnings.
I realize this info is simplistic but it’s a good jumping off point.
it would seem the only losers in this situation are the viewers
It’s listed as Xbox, but good for other devices; I activated it on my Roku. It should satiate my Comedy Central needs until this whole kerfuffle blows over. (Plus, I hope to catch up on as many Criterion titles as possible.)
For a couple of boring reasons, we’re sort of stuck with DirecTV (our local Comcast pretty much sucks anyway), and I was thinking I really wouldn’t miss much from Viacom, but it hadn’t occurred to me that Palladia might go; they’ve only got one or two things per week that are particularly interesting, but what they do show tends to look and sound fantastic. Wouldn’t mind getting that back.
AI don’t have cable (yet), but my Parents have Time Warner and I go over to watch shows or movies sometimes, and it’s been the only cable provider we’ve ever had. I’m glad that thus far, there hasn’t been any issues with any companies with them. I need my Breaking Bad weekly viewing, and I watch The Walking Dead and Comicbook Men with my Dad. Hell On Wheels I watch with both of my Parents.
It varies, and Hulu Plus will usually get you shows faster than plain ol’ Hulu. I have Hulu Plus and I usually have TDS and Colbert the following morning.