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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.
I've never understood cable though, if I'm paying for cable and the cable company is paying other companies for their content, shouldn't it be ad free?
Why? Why would the cable company forego the ad revenue? Just cause ads bother you?
It's not like people cancel or refuse to subscribe due to the commercials.
Nick is not great for kids. Nick is great for lazy parents.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
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!
It's not like people cancel or refuse to subscribe due to the commercials.
Oh YES they do. That is a reason why people are "cutting the cord" more and more each year, although the primary ones are cost and ease of use. Don't think it was coincidence that they shut off the Internet distribution channels at the same time either. It was paramount that during this dispute that people paying for cable did not get any kind of inkling of what a world without Cable TV could be like.
I was an "early adopter" of Cable TV free lifestyle. It's a lot easier now than it was nearly 10 years ago too. Legal or not, there are more and more ad free distribution channels popping up each day.
Once people experience ad free programming it becomes very addictive. You start to realize the incredible mind numbing bullshit you have to wade through just to get some programming. The times I have been over at friends houses watching TV with them, just channel surfing, was painful. It is close to 50% commercials now, and something like 80% of every channel you are flipping to is currently playing a commercial. I think they got smart and synced up their commercials so that you will be watching a commercial no matter what if you are surfing.
People only put up with advertisements because they are complacent and/or don't know about a solution to not have them. It is not surprising that once a solution becomes available that people jump.
Disturbing and bad business to pull their shows from the Internet? Any other action would have been like suicide for Viacom. As it stands right now, I guarantee you that non-trivial percentage of Viacom subscribers through DirectTV now have the knowledge and impetus to cut the cord for good.