Tales of the Lady Geek
The Lady Geek's Topic of the Day: Viacom and Direct TV
Greetings dear readers, I hope your summer so far is as enjoyable as mine has been. As of this writing, I have just returned from a wonderfully relaxing stint exploring summer in Philadelphia with my family. We took a historical walk through Center City, acted like tourists as we followed the paths our forefathers took on the path of revolution, strolled along the riverfront, stopping to listen to the free performances. Yes, it was relaxing and beautiful and hot and full of Philadelphia's renowned history, food and art. You know, being a Philadelphian born just shy of Independence day tends to give on a unique attitude about the meaning of justice, honor and equality for all.
That being said, let me be the first to say I do not like being bullied, especially by big corporations which leads me to today's topic...
Here's the deal. When a cable or Satellite Television provider wants to open shop, they negotiate and purchase the rights to show various channels over a period of time. Direct TV's seven year contract with Viacom was up and in a renegotiation period when suddenly seventeen of their channel offerings went blank and the above image went up in place of the content we were expecting to see.
On July 11th at 12:40am all of the channels that Direct TV provides from Viacom were pulled from the Direct TV lineup. In a statement, Direct TV said, "Direct TV customers were left without Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and fourteen other channels today, after Viacom dropped its networks from Direct TV...Direct TV executives reached out to Viacom both yesterday and today with a new proposal and request to keep the channels on while we continued to negotiate, but never heard back, so Direct TV had to comply with their demand to take the channels down or face legal action."
Direct TV also says that Viacom wants customers "to pay over 30% more to keep the same channels you are already receiving", which they say equates to more than a billion dollars. Viacom, meanwhile says that those numbers are misleading.
According to Viacom, "Direct TV is throwing around some big numbers that are misleading. Here's the truth: Viacom is asking Direct TV for an increase of a couple of pennies per day per subscriber. That's far less than Direct TV pays other programmers with fewer viewers than Viacom. Viacom has always been open to negotiating and hopes to get a deal done."
So basically, what we, the consumers, are left dealing with are two sides bickering over our money. One side says, "Hey, yeah, we know we've been paying you the same rate for the last seven years and we're okay with not going higher, because if we do, the customer's will be paying for it, and we love our customers too much to ask for more money from them." The other side says, "Well, okay, but we need more money to keep putting out those original shows and cool things your viewers want to watch and if you really love your customers, you wouldn't even have to put that extra padding to their bills, right? So, um, until you give us more money, we're taking our shows away from your customers."
Okay, we can deal with this, two corporate giants in business suits with their workers going back and forth over a business contract is grown up stuff, sane and logical, right? We just have to sit back and wait a bit until they come to a reasonable and, hopefully not too scandalously high agreement and then it'll be over. Whew. What a relief!
I mean, it's not like either side is resorting to childish tactics and name calling or political-type mud slinging or - oh never mind...
Just before the blackouts, both Direct TV and Viacom took their dispute online, using social media to rally support and inform followers. Direct TV put up a page describing what was happening with the dispute with a video of the CEO, Michael White, explaining their position. Viacom decided to play Na-ner-na-ner-boo-boo by releasing the same video statement with a VH1 pop-up video theme. That's right, dear readers, as we listen to Mr. White's attempt to explain and calm the consumers down, we have to deal with snarky little comments.
It gets worse, dear readers. One of the things I like about how Direct TV is handling this unpleasant situation, is that when you log into your Direct TV account they are very helpful about where to find the shows you're looking for online or to offer you alternatives that might fit into your niche.
Viacom, in a seeming fit of temper at the audacity of Direct TVs helpfulness, seems to have decided that if they can't break Direct TV's resolve and get more money, they're going to just screw with customers from all providers. So they pulled the free streams they already offered online of two of its most popular shows: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. This consumer is currently wondering what kind of strategic thinking this demonstration is supposed to be. Has it gone from a simple negotiation process to a hostage situation? I mean what's next?
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| No, this isn't an '80's flashback... |
In the middle of all this back and forth between big business', what are we, the consumer trapped in a loveless two year relationship with our Satellite provider to do? Well, let me tell you something my mother told me, 'Better the devil you know than the one you don't." So far, I admire how Direct TV is handling this childish display. They have a fact page that not only provides options to finding your favorite Viacom shows, it shows you alternatives that they do offer in the same genre as well as other channels they're providing for free.
The bottom line to us all is that I don't believe in giving into tantrums and I sure don't believe in giving into bullies. Unfortunately, I have no choice over when or if my littlest kids get to see another episode of "Yo Gabba Gabba!" blasting from my television, but I do have a nice Netflix account that provides the content that they like. That is, until Viacom decides to pull their children's online lineups off the Internet market. In the meantime, other channels, like MTV offer episodes of their customer's favorite shows, if I have a sudden desire to watch "Teen Mom" or the like, I'm happy to surf on over to their sites and I suggest my fellow Direct TV subscribers do the same.
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