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Viacom and DirecTV Reach New Agreement
An anonymous reader writes "About 10 days after Viacom pulled 26 channels from DirecTV over a contract dispute, the two companies have finally come to an agreement that should have DirecTV fans in need of their MTV rejoicing. While precise details of the newly agreed upon contract weren't made public, Bloomberg is reporting that the new contract is for 7 years with Viacom set to receive more than $600 million a year from DirecTV. That represents a 20% payment increase from the previous contract and is slightly below the 30% increase, or $1 billion, Viacom was initially pushing for."
The disturbing part of this dispute, to me, was how Viacom pulled its shows from the internet in addition to DirecTV. Advertising your side of the story is one thing, but going out of your way to directly frustrate viewers who are interested in your shows seems like bad business.
1. don't you have enough channels already in the US that 26 (potentially mediocre) channels get pulled. 2. has anyone seen the cost of an average bill in the US? my parent are paying something nuts, like 180USD/mo, for a bundled cable package, in rural Maine.
Don't miss it at all. More money in my pocket and time to spend on relationships that are important to me.
How many people are still paying for TV services?
And the public library is still free.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Based on my own experiences and recording history, Viacom is just so full of themselves. These past few days have given me a nice look at how Viacom fits into my entire my entire DTV subscription. Nothing that was blacked out by this shenanigan was any great loss.
I could completely block Viacom channels permanently and barely notice it.
So when the inevitable price increase comes, I will know who to thank and be certain that no Viacom channels are worth keeping a cable subscription over.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
And we will still have to suffer through commercials. It would be nice if they, at least, shortened the commercial duration.
I hate that people are using 26 as the number. This number is including BOTH the standard definition and high definition version of the same @#$@# channel.
DirecTV has 20M customers. $600M/year is $30/year/subscriber or $2.50 per subscriber per month.
I like the Daily Show but doesn't $2.50/customer seem a bit high given they also have commercials?
No wonder "basic cable" is now so expensive.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
"The disturbing part of this dispute, to me, was how Viacom pulled its shows from the internet in addition to DirecTV. Advertising your side of the story is one thing, but going out of your way to directly frustrate viewers who are interested in your shows seems like bad business."
This was one of DirecTVs key complaints. Why should DirecTV pay for content that Viacom was giving away for free on the internet? Not really an incentive to "pay" for that same content.
500 + 20% = 600
500 + 30% != 1000
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
So $600 million a year w/ 20 million subscribers comes out to an additional $30 a year per subscriber which means we should expect to see at least a $2.50 price hike.
Somehow I doubt we'll only see a $2.50 increase though.
I see so many comments here about "I went full media center" or "TV, who watches TV???". My main source of viewing material is League of Legends streams, but I still pay for DirecTV. Why? I have 3 children. NickJR is an amazing channel for kids under 7. It's one of two channels I let them watch without me being over their shoulders.
And, yes, I have NetFlix. But, it works on one TV (the one with the PS3 on it which coincidentally is the same one with the HDMI to the PC). I have three televisions. My kids can easily watch NickJR in the playroom or bedrooms. That by itself makes me glad to pay the $70 a month that also lets me watch HD football and the occasional trash TV when I don't have anything else going on.
TLDR; I'm more than willing to pay the $70 because it adds value to my household. I don't understand all the hate around here - don't use the service if you don't like it.
I think a 20% is more than "slightly below" the 30% increase Viacom wanted. I'm no DirectTV fan, but a 30% price increase is rather steep.
As for as my mandatory "I don't pay for cable/satellite" post, I haven't paid since 2007 or so. I have TivoHD to record HD OTA and Netflix. I have more than enough to watch, and Netflix eventually gets many of my favorite programs that I used to watch on cable for $65+ per month. I'm not one of those people that has to see something the moment it comes out. Once you can relax about that, you can save a lot of time (no commercials) and money.
I don't because I don't think TV is a substitute for quality time with my kids. I talk them for a walk on the river (200m from the door) or to the park instead (25m from the door). Also, I'd like to see your 70USD/bill ... is that with all taxes and no discounts?
"The disturbing part of this dispute, to me, was how Viacom pulled its shows from the internet in addition to DirecTV. Advertising your side of the story is one thing, but going out of your way to directly frustrate viewers who are interested in your shows seems like bad business."
Well... Duh.
Viacom was arrogantly betting that DirecTV customers would be so distressed and upset with DirecTV that they would force DirecTV to surrender to Viacom's demands. These kinds of Brilliant Plans(tm) invariably fail, which is no less than the Arrogant Wankers deserve.
If anything, these Arrogant Wankers deserve considerably more humiliation, if but to remind them that no, they cannot manipulate the people into doing their bidding.
Redstone et al. at Viacom got exposed to a big hot reality beam during the last two weeks.
The chronology of events is astonishing to me. Viacom pulls their content from DirecTV. DirecTV actually argues that their subscribers can get their Daily Show fix from the Internet thereby introducing millions of dearly paying subscribers to a delivery platform they had previously slouched away from. Viacom reacts to this by briefly pulling their content off the Internet, punishing millions of people that have never subscribed to DirecTV. Under pressure by their streaming advertisers and outraged Internet audience Viacom relents and puts the content back up!
DirecTV should have held out longer. Viacom blinked when they discovered they couldn't abuse their audience with impunity. That's when you're supposed go for the jugular.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
That represents a 20% payment increase
That represents a 20% payment increase
rinse repeat
eventually no one can afford cable
haha win win
Instead of mixing channels from different providers into packages they should just resell the packages as they come from the providers, like they already do with premium channels.
Instead of selling "basic package" with ESPN from Disney and Comedy from Viacom, give the customer the option to pick Time Warner's basic package, Viacom's Basic Package, Disney's basic package, etc.
This way, when a provider wants more money, the cable provider informs its customers and give them the choice of dropping that package if they don't want to pay for the increase.
And *why* is that woe to us? Because you people, and sixty-two million other Americans, are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books! Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube! This tube is the Gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers... This tube is the most awesome God-damned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA - the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome God-damned propoganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?
So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth.
But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell. We'll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer, or that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker's house, and no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he's going to win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in *illusions*, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even *think* like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! *WE* are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I'm speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF...
Drill baby drill - on Mars
At least one of those numbers cannot be correct.
If $600M is a 20% increase, then the original cost was $500M, meaning $1B would be a 100% increase.
Legal or not, there are more and more ad free distribution channels popping up each day.
But do they include live sports? ESPN is the one channel keeping one of my relatives (call him MG) on Xfinity TV. Cable is still cheaper than season tickets to watch your favorite professional or collegiate sports teams, and WatchESPN.com requires signing in to a participating pay TV provider. And do they include live progressive-slanted political talk shows? MSNBC is the one channel keeping another of my relatives (call her Becky) on Xfinity TV.
I would sooner be playing video games with my children
Would that involve a LAN with one gaming PC for you and one gaming PC for one of your children?
Satellite doesn't have the bandwidth to do cable-style video on demand. Satellite Internet, for example, is capped at single-digit GB per month on a typical plan. So instead, satellite pay-TV providers assume that customers will have DSL, cable, or fiber Internet access and make deals with the networks and Internet VOD providers to provide VOD programming to subscribers.
Now that most PCs have HDMI out (or at least DVI out, which connects to HDMI in), what advantage does one gaming console and a large TV give you over one PC and a large TV? One disadvantage is that it's a lot harder for smaller developers to develop for a console, as shown in a recent Slashdot story.
I thought that Viacom wanted an increase of $1B over five years, not $1B/year. This would make the $600M per year $3B over five years, not $1B. I'm guessing the $600M is over five years, not every year, making the increase $120M/year for five years, totaling the $600M.
You might want to check the numbers reported and update the article to match.
The advantage of a gaming console is that you can sit with your kids in the same room and laugh and play games.
I agree that that's one advantage of a console over a PC running a game designed for a mouse and keyboard. But why can't one plug a couple USB gamepads into a PC and do the same, other than publisher greed that has lately been spreading to the consoles anyway?