Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Viacom vs DirecTV -- 30 %?

I (don't) want my MTV!

Viacom, owner of MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, SpikeTV, etc. want a 30 % increase from DirecTV and their customers.  That's outrageous.  Mostly, they produce a lot of rubbish and they want the customers to pay for that.  The Nick channels are probably the only decent channels at this point, so they could charge a 3 % rate hike for those and the rest of their rubbish could fall off the channel guide.

There was a time when I would have wanted MTV et al. but it isn't the 1980s and I think they haven't noticed that I can use my phone to watch music videos and find content that's just as good as theirs elsewhere.  They ran some huge rate increase advertising back in the 1980s and probably, the 1990s as well.  This time, I don't think it should be effective.

Viacom, you're a dinosaur.  It's time for you to become a fossil.

They settled on 20%, different parameters for the EpiX premium channel, and some options for streaming anywhere.  Things are supposedly back to normal, but a lot of people are probably still angry.  If the price goes up in January/February, more will be angry, even if it's only $1.50 each month since it will be the second year in a row.  That will make it feel like I'm back with Time-Warner or BrightHouse Cable.

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