Time Warner Cable Set To Lose Viacom Channels

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Time Warner Cable Set To Lose Viacom Channels

Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central are set to disappear from Time Warner Cable's lineup on Midnight Wednesday, if a deal with Viacom doesn't go through soon.

Viacom wants to charge an extra 25 cents a month for its channels - about $3 a year. Time Warner has come back and said that if Viacom makes good on its threat, other networks will follow suit, ultimately adding nearly $30 a month to your cable bill.

"Advertising revenue stinks so they are looking to stick our customers for the difference," said Alex Dudley, Time Warner Cable spokesman. "They are holding our customers hostage for a bunch of networks with sagging ratings and only one or two good channels. We have to hold the line for our customers."

The interesting angle to this story is that most of Viacom's programming is available absolutely free on the interweb. That means that any smart cable subscriber can just download the programs they'd want to watch anyway, so Viacom's position is decidedly shaky.

Time Warner also doesn't have to worry about the NFL playoffs being pulled, as Viacom no longer owns CBS. That makes the idea of pulling 23 channels for an extra 25 cents seem just a little like money-grabbing.

Source: LA Times [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2008/12/viacom-threaten.html]
(Image) [http://www.flickr.com/photos/mccaffry/2300322501/]
Newslink from 007Loser.

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[Brokkr]

It seems rather petty. An extra $30 a month is a bit much if other networks decide to do this as well.

 

[Jhereg42]

All of the networks in question have a scrolling message on them encoraging customers to call Time Warner and some other cable company and tell them you WANT TO KEEP THESE STATIONS. (Bold caps theirs.) They of course neglected to mention that they are raising the prices on your cable bills.

 

[Jhereg42]

I saw a story about this on Yahoo that had me cracking up in spite of myself. Listen to the details of this add from Viacom.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081231/ap_on_bi_ge/viacom_time_warner_cable

Instead, Viacom appealed directly to Time Warner Cable's customers, with TV ads in major markets. In Wednesday's New York Times, the company ran a full-page, color advertisement with Nickelodeon's animated bilingual heroine "Dora the Explorer" crying and clinging to her monkey pal, Boots.

"Why is Dora crying?" the ad asks. "Time Warner Cable is taking Dora off the air tonight!" The ad urges viewers to call Time Warner Cable and demand that their favorite shows remain on the air.

Imagine the poor child that sees this add.

 

[the protaginist]

but...I want the Daily Show on the air! How else will I learn about whats going on in the world?

 

[xitel]

but...I want the Daily Show on the air! How else will I learn about whats going on in the world?

Watch it on the internet?

 

[t_rexaur]

This reminds me of something similar that happened in the UK. Basically BSkyB, owned by ye olde media tyrant Rupert Murdoch, wanted more money from rival company Virgin Media to show some of their channels. Virgin refused. They both started an advertising campaign to get people on their side.

In the end virgin lost the channels, but got them back recently. However we didn't lose much, all the sky channels showed anyway were endless reruns of stargate, star trek, simpsons, futurama and Malcom in the middle.

 

[Greyhawk]

Only Time-Warner Cable. I hate that company so much. Their service stinks, they shove ads down their customers throats for their crappy bundles and now this.

Time-Warner Cable sucks. Someone convince my stupid mother to get a sattelite dish, please.

The irony of this, is that Time-Warner Cable is ALWAYS raising their rates. But I guess it's only ok when they do it. They do have a cable monopoly, after all.

You realize that every thing you just said applies to every cable company.

 

[TheBluesader]

Hmm. Giant media conglomerates with practical but not official monopolies are ignoring customer service so they can fight about who gets to buy a new jet.

Not really news, is it? I just find it funny that this sort of thing was the whole reason monopolies were supposed to be illegal in the first place. You know, like how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held all the mortgages, and then when the housing market went bad, they went belly-up and pulled the rest of the economy down with them?

Good to know we've aggressively forgotten lessons learned more than a hundred years ago for no better reason than rich guys want to buy new jets. Ah, progress.

 

[Aura Guardian]

So no more Spongebob? Sweet. I don't watch TV anymore but no Spongebob is good news to me

 

[Erana]

Never watch 'em anyway.

I just wish Disney would do this, though... Its poisioning our children!

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

I love the philosophy, "We have two options to recover from poor ratings... work on better programming, or force the people who aren't watching the crappy programs to begin with to pay more for them?"

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I better not lose Comedy Central, it's all I bloody watch anymore. Comedy Central, Food Network, History Channel, Discovery Channel.

I have 128 channels. I watch 4. Oh and my parents watch the news.

 

[Azeban]

I despise cable/satellite companies. Why do I have to buy these huge blocks of channels? I have 70 channels and only watch Discovery Channel(Mythbusters), History Channel, and Fox (House)