DirecTV Forced to Drop All Viacom Channels Over Fee Dispute

[Vwls]

Woke up today to find no Comedy Central, and no Logo TV. Yes I watch Logo - it's actually one of the primary reasons I opted for a much more expensive DirectTV package (pay twice as much a month just so I can get that gay channel!). Pretty shitty. DirectTV won't allow their customers to downgrade to the smaller channel package now that the Viacom channels are gone. I mean you can, but they'll pull all your "discounts."

http://gawker.com/5925062/directv-fo...er-fee-dispute

26 Viacom properties including Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, CMT, Logo, and BET, have gone dark for DirecTV's 20 million subscribers after both sides failed to reach an agreement over carriage fees.

According to a statement released by DirecTV shortly after midnight, Viacom is looking to increase fees by up to 30% — over $1 billion. "We have absolutely no problem compensating Viacom fairly, but they have now knowingly put our customers in the unreasonable position of either accepting their extravagant financial demands or losing some of their favorite TV shows," said DirecTV exec VP Derek Chang.

Viacom released a separate statement claiming DirecTV — America's second largest pay-TV operator — has been enjoying "way below market rates" for the past seven years, and the fee increase amounts to only "a couple pennies per day, per subscriber."

Analysts say a dispute over programming fees was inevitable due to the significant ratings drop experienced by Viacom in recent years. "We anticipated such an event, although we said we didn't know if it would happen in weeks, months or years," said Todd Juenger of Bernstein Research.

Still, Viacom's importance to DirecTV means the content provider will likely get what it wants. "Viacom claims its programming represents 20 percent of the viewing on DirecTV," said Alan Gould of Evercore Partners, "so we would assume DirecTV would lose some subscribers, particularly families that want Nickelodeon."

A similar dispute between Dish Network and AMC led the latter to pull its channels from the satellite provider. But analysts expect the matter to be settled in time for the return of AMC's popular TV show Walking Dead.

[BeerAndPoker]

Threaten to switch to Dish if they don't work out a deal with you.

Usually these "hold outs" get settled at the last minute before any channels get cut from any cable/satellite provider so they must be far off from a deal but when enough people call DirecTV to complain eventually they will be forced to settle to get the channels back for their pissed off customers.

[vegas1369]

Don't even get me started on how much of a shady company DTV is. They make Cox and Comcast look like saints.

Go ahead and try dumping them Vwls and just wait and see all the hoops they make you jump through. Then when you finally rid yourself of them, you will receive a bunch of scam phone calls from them where they call, you answer, and no one is on the line. That is just a few of the shady things they will pull.

FUCK DIRECT TV!

[Vwls]

Yeah that's the other super shady thing about DTV- they have you like an indentured servant for two years once you sign up. So you can't threaten to dump them for Dish.

[shortbuspoker]

We have Direct TV at work and I saw it on the bottom ticker yesterday that they were losing the Viacom channel family. I don't know the validity of it, but they are claiming that Viacom was wanting a $1 BILLION contract for Direct to keep the channels. If that is true, I understand why Direct TV didn't want to buckle( I googled it and they had $6.6 billion in revenue last year). I can't see any company giving up 1/6 of their revenue to a strong arm tactic.

edit:
I found a link

http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-...ther-channels/

The purchase of television programs is the single biggest cost for distributors, who have fought back in recent years against what they consider unreasonable "carriage fee" increases by content producers like Viacom.
Companies such as Viacom tend to bundle their networks together, forcing distributors to carry lower-rated networks, such as Nick Jr., along with more popular channels such as MTV.

"We have been very willing to get a deal done, but Viacom is pushing DirecTV customers to pay more than a 30 percent increase, which equates to an extra $1 billion, despite the fact that the ratings for many of their main networks have plummeted," DirecTV Executive Vice President Derek Change said in a statement.

[sonatine]

Yes I watch Logo

Fag.

[LLL]

Looks like they struck a deal.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/20/tech....htm?hpt=hp_t2

[nunbeater]

Fuck DirecTV. I got DTV and when I had it installed I asked the guy if I would be able to move it because I knew I would be moving out of the house in a month or so. He said yeah, no problem. I said hold up, I'm not going to get charged any fees when I move, right? He says no fees, you will be fine. Lo and behold a month later I ended up moving and when I call DTV up the first thing that they want is a 20 dollar deposit on the move. Now this is where it gets really shady. I said hey, the technician that installed the shit said I wouldn't have to pay to move. The (Indian, dot) guy on the phone tells me to hang on and transfers me to some chick. The chick tells me that not only do I have to pay for the move but it is going to be 200 fucking dollars. I was like you gotta fucking be kidding me, I tell her there is no way I am fucking paying that because it is bullshit, the installer said I wouldn't have to pay.

Whoa relax sir, she says. If you don't pay it will be a 480 dollar early termination fee. At that point I'm like this is fucking bullshit but obviously it was cheaper to keep the service. She also found me a great discount where I would only have to pay 100 dollars for the move instead of 200. Wow such philanthropy. Anyways I'm like fuck it, send the guy out but just for the record this is some shady bullshit. She straps it on and pours on some sympathy lube.

Lucky me, the guy comes out and tells me that the trees in my yard all prevent me from getting a proper signal. He looks at me and says yeah, I can't find shit. This will get you out of your contract. BOOM. Fuck you DirecTV. The funny thing was he was expecting me to be all son I'm disappoint and I was happy as fuck, I was like dude you don't know how much of a hassle you just saved me. I mean fuck the termination fee and all that shit, I just didn't want to have a two year contract with a shady fucking company like that.

Of course after he leaves I get calls calls and more calls. Oh we can send out someone else for a second opinion, they tell me. No, I'm through with your ass, I tell them.

cliffs: death by unga-bunga or directv

[JUSTIFIEDhomicide]

DTV is for shlubs

[Dan Druff]

It's over.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/20/tech....htm?hpt=hp_t2

Viacom is getting 55 cents more per customer from DirecTV than they were before.

DirecTV is not bad, but it has its share of flaws.

On the customer service front, these include:

- Scams involving equipment. While I believe this practice has stopped, in previous years salespeople for both DirecTV and third-party vendors would lie to customers and claim they were buying their equipment. Instead, the "purchase" was simply an upgrade fee, and the customer was actually RENTING the equipment! Many customers would not discover this until they would cancel DirecTV (and expect to be able to sell their expensive equipment on eBay), and were forced to return it to DirecTV!

- Terrible third-party installation/service companies. DirecTV charges you for service calls, and they hire third party companies to actually perform the service. Guess what happens if you get poor service and the job isn't done right? Yup, they want to charge you again for another service call! You can talk them out of it, but it's often a LOT of hassle to do so.

- Lousy retention deals. The cable company will often give you incentives to stay if you call and say you want to cancel, especially if you're not on a promotion at the moment. DirecTV will only give you something lame like $5/month off for 6 months, and will often lock you into a 2-year contract if you want a better discount than that.

The DirecTV service itself is okay. Their channel lineup is pretty good, and their prices are overall pretty comparable with cable. In most cases, you'll have a pretty good picture unless you have a lot of really severe weather.

If you can get Verizon FIOS (or your local equivalent, such as CenturyLink PRISM), you should always get that over cable or satellite. The service itself AND the prices are superior. Unfortunately, these aren't available in a lot of areas yet. If you do get Verizon FIOS, you should also prepare for a LOT of customer service nightmares if the slightest thing goes wrong with your bill (and trust me, it will!) Still, I'd recommend it because it's so far superior to anything cable/satellite has to offer.

[BeerAndPoker]

I was surprised they held out as long as they did. I had DirecTV once but dropped that shit and was over a friends house the other night who was complaining about losing the channels which I thought they would of had back within 24 hours of the shutoff but DirecTV put up a better jew fight then I thought but eventually it is either cave in or lose customers.

[ErickAA]

i have directv. i was not inconvenienced in the slightest by the loss of viacom channels. i saw the list of viacom channels and there is not a single show on any of those channels i watch, except for occasionally tosh, but this isn't a planned thing, only if i catch it flipping channels. not a big fan of ru pauls drag race of 1 girl and 5 gays and whatever else is on the logo network, so no loss there.

as far as the quality of directv, i do not even worry about it. as long as directv is the only service that has the nfl network and the nfl season package i am sticking with direct, and paying whatever they charge.

my wife's sister has a 3 year old, and they said it was a little rough, as most of the shows he watches are on the nickelodeon network. But my son is only 9 months old, so he is cool watching the dodgers bungle away games with me (as i am typing this guerra is blowing a game in bottom of 9th at mets).

never had a problem with directv except for sometimes losing service during very bad weather.

[Muck Ficon]

i have directv. i was not inconvenienced in the slightest by the loss of viacom channels. i saw the list of viacom channels and there is not a single show on any of those channels i watch, except for occasionally tosh, but this isn't a planned thing, only if i catch it flipping channels. not a big fan of ru pauls drag race of 1 girl and 5 gays and whatever else is on the logo network, so no loss there.

as far as the quality of directv, i do not even worry about it. as long as directv is the only service that has the nfl network and the nfl season package i am sticking with direct, and paying whatever they charge.

my wife's sister has a 3 year old, and they said it was a little rough, as most of the shows he watches are on the nickelodeon network. But my son is only 9 months old, so he is cool watching the dodgers bungle away games with me (as i am typing this guerra is blowing a game in bottom of 9th at mets).

never had a problem with directv except for sometimes losing service during very bad weather.

I was kind of pissed because I love Comedy Central and Spike TV. Other than that I didn't really give a shit. Besides, you can find anything on the internet.