New Year's Surprise For TWC Customers: No More Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon...
Update: A deal has been reached. Crisis averted. Viacom is demanding that Time Warner Cable pay more for the right to broadcast its networks, but TWC has refused. Tonight at midnight, 13.3 million subscribers in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Cleveland will feel the effects of the stalemate first hand when Viacom makes good on its threat to pull all of its networks from TWC. Translation: no more "The Daily Show," "Dora the Explorer," "The Colbert Report," "The Hills," etc. But hey, there's always Hulu and BitTorrent, right?
Rather than doing any actual negotiating, the two companies seem to have been hoping the threat of an angry, alienated customer base would resolve the issue. It hasn't.
Time Warner Cable finally blinked last night, but it didn't help:
Viacom has rejected Time Warner Cable's request for a 15- to 30-day extension on the 12:01 AM January 1st deadline when the cable programmer pulls its 19 channels off the 2nd largest cable system operator. I'm told Viacom and TWC had no contact throughout yesterday until news of the Big Media battle broke. Suddenly, at 8 PM, TWC came to Viacom with an increase offer and the extension request. But Viacom rejected both out of hand. "It was bogus. The low-ball offer was clearly an excuse to ask for an extension and then use that in their press acrtivity today," a Viacom source claimed to me. "After we've been trying to meet with them for several weeks, we won't consider an extension unless they're prepared to really negotiate and come across with a reasonable offer."
So who's to blame? Bloggers at the LA Times choose sides, but we were serious about that Hulu/BitTorrent comment—it's possible that in this economy neither side will come out ahead by shutting the doors on its customers. Notice how both bloggers draw the same "maybe I'll just find another way" conclusion:
Time Warner's dangerous gamble [is] that people can learn to live without what it's selling. I already have, to some extent. When Time Warner pulled Turner Classic Movies from its basic cable lineup—in Hollywood, no less!—and substituted the Golf Channel, I didn't bite and upgrade to premium. I've ended up buying a lot of the black and white classic films I love, and can now watch them on my schedule, not Time Warner's.
[Viacom is making] the wrong demand at the wrong time. And the big loser here could be Viacom, which needs Time Warner more than Time Warner needs Nickelodeon, MTV, BET and the host of other Viacom cable networks.You could argue that recessions are good for cable operators—people spend less on entertainment away from home, raising the value of packaged home-entertainment bundles such as cable and satellite. But as the jobless rate climbs, it's hard to imagine Time Warner extracting sizable rate increases from their subscribers in 2009. More important, as Patt notes, Viacom puts its shows online, free of charge. So while it's asking Time Warner for more money for its channels, it's flooding the market with a cheaper version of the same product.
"Blackout looms in Time Warner, Viacom standoff" [Reuters]
"Unhappy New Year!" [Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily]
(Photo: Getty)
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Comments:
If Time Warner really pushes people to receive the content from Viacom's various websites, I'm sure they will remove it, put a bandwidth limit, add advertising, or something to make it less savory to use than simply turning on your TV, putting the pressure back on Time Warner.
Now I'm thinking about calling TWC and trying to cancel based on this info...let's see what they can offer me to stay!
One of the local TV stations here in Corpus Christi (KIII TV3) is about to get yanked by TWC as well over contract disputes as well. The station in question got yanked twice in a handful of years before.
And what are we losing?
BET
MTV, MTV2
CMT
Comedy Central
Nickelodeon
Spike TV
The N
TV Land
VH1
So... exactly what "programming" are TWC subscribers losing? All I see there is advertising masquerading as entertainment.
We're getting shafted in NC too. I hope when I go back to school in Dayton we still have Comedy Central, otherwise there will be revolts...
meh, its like watching a fistfight on the titanic
Am I the only one who sees this and goes.
"New York (k), LA, (k), Dallas (k), and Cleveland (?)"
WOOHOO! No more garbage MTV (where's the music) or Nick (where's the decent cartoons)!
@jodles: Chances are they'll offer you nothing. As part of signing up for the service, you agreed that TWC can alter the channel listing at any time. If you signed up for one of those oh so great Price Lock Guarantees, you'll see that it says it in the contract you agreed to. In the past when I've seen this happen, TWC is more willing to let customers go than budge on a promotion. Instead of trying to wheel and deal your cable lower, try seeing if they'll offer some sort of deal on a faster speed of internet.
@Dooley: Wouldn't it just be fascinating to see them block Optima Online movies to really piss off TWC?
I have an idea. Viacom can go ahead and charge more for Comedy Central, and Time Warner can drop the rest of the channels...I'll watch VH1 on occasion, but that's it.
(Hint to both companies: I don't mind paying to watch the channels I want to watch...it's when you bump my rates up to get things like the Golf Channel and ABC Family, that's when you piss me off.)
I had read an piece on this early in the day, so thought I should turn on my TV and see what was what, looks like on my TW, and apparently BrightHouse, cable, there is now a crawl on the bottom of the screen of every channel affected. Stating that as of midnight this channel and something like 16 others, will be gone, and gives a phone number for people to call and DEMAND, that this not happen.
Looks like TW is hoping that they can get public opinion on their side by appealing to the customer base, not sure if it will work, but we shall see.
I don't watch to much live TV any more, so I am on the verge of canceling all together and moving to streaming methods, looks like the new year may push me one way or the other.
@Dakota Courtois: The music is on Fuse (although, less and less every year -- sorta like MTV but 15 years behind) and as far as cartoons: Adult Swim on Cartoon Network is probably your best bet. Unless you like the cartoons on IFC.
Viacom can shove it. Half these channels are crap and they want me to pay more for it?
TimeWarner Cable=Capulets
Viacom=Montagues
and in the words of Captain Escalus Prince... "ALL ARE PUNISH-ED"
no one wins.. hooray!
Here in Austin, this is the third time in the last 2 years that TWC has denied, or shut off programming in a contract dispute. I am ashamed to say how much cable bill has risen inthe same time frame. I missed the NFL network, but I got over it. I missed my local NBC affiliate, Hulu, and NFL.com to the rescue. I will miss some comedy central shows, but I can get most of them online as well. The only thing Cable has going for it is it's technical reliabilty versus dish or At&T. Soon that will not be enough for them to sustain their bad business model.
My daughter is going to be super pissed off. A lot of the channels I don't care about as MTV/VH1 suck monkey balls anyways but to lose Comedy Central sucks big time. Losing the cartoon shows also sucks.
The weird thing to me is that TWC has said publicly that they will not only encourage people to find alternative sources for the programming (i.e. go online and get it for free) but they will actually be publishing instructions on where and how to find it. Are they looking to get out of the cable TV market entirely?
Think their reasoning behind that is ppl will still have to pay for their broadband connection.
@magic8ball: They're working on tiered service levels so you'll need to pay $200/month to download TV, and almost all of that will be profit for TWC since they won't pay the networks anything. Provide less sevice, increase profits.
I woke up this morning to watch cartoons with my daughter on Noggin and realized that they will be pulling the station tonight. If this does happen, I am canceling my services. It breaks down to $0.23 per customer increase. F*** them both for being greedy. I will just download more movies and shows.
@EricLecarde:
I'm pretty sure he meant something more along the lines of "How low will they go if they think I will cancel because of this change.", not "This is wrong so they owe me money.".
The more providers charge the cable companies, the more we will pay for cable. Of course they pass this on to us. I think the cable companies are providing a service to the providers by distributing the programs for them. There are many more commercials on these channels than even normal network TV. These commercials are our fair share of the cost. Sounds like they want us to pay twice for the same crap.
If they want the cable companies to pay for the channels allow them to have the choice on the channels and pay the cost. That way we can make the decision. My guess is if that were so, they would't be asking for any more than they already get from those many, many commercials.
This will be the only time I ever stick up for cable companies!
@Dakota Courtois: Is the Nicktoons network available online? They are starting a new X-Men cartoon on there at the end of January and I would like to watch it as I don't have pay TV.
Seriously anyone with an XBox 360/PC/Netflix can watch almost any show they want either on the 360 or online. The only exceptions are 75-90% of live sports, WWE (TNA is on the XBox,) all HBO/most Showtime original series, and Discovery Channel/HGTV/Food/Travel Network type stuff.
@magic8ball: They already did this in Austin, TX. Just recently the local NBC affiliate and TWC had a row that didn't reach a resolution (ultimately someone capitulated, I'm not sure who).
If you turned to the former NBC station during the time it was off the air you'd experience a looped video (presumably made by TWC staff) describing how you could hook a laptop up to a TV and watch Hulu content on your TV.
There was recently an announcement here in Toledo that TWC customers may be losing WTOL (CBS Station owned by Raycom Media). Is this related?
@DaleKaleD: You should reread that crawl. It isn't TWC or Brighthouse putting that crawl up on the screen, it's Viacom. I know 'cause I've got Uverse and the crawl is on there too. Viacom wants cable customers to put pressure on TWC and Brighthouse to capitulate to Viacom's demands.
Time Warner Cable : Viacom :: UAW : GM
@DaleKaleD: TWC's number is helpfully being shown on the crawls.
Viacom's number is 212-258-6000.
Call them both and unleash hell on the phone jockeys! (Who of course have no control over the situation...)
@LogicalOne: Yeah, I noticed it on my TV and I have Comcast, so it's coming from Viacom. It's annoying the crap out of me, since I have no horse in the race and don't care.
@jodles: I'm interested as well - Let me know if you do this. I've been considering it, especially since my bill went up about $10 to $105 now for just DVR + HBO and cable internet.
@twotondawg: They're talking about Northeastern Ohio most likely. I live in Erie, Pennsylvania and that's the coverage area we're lumped into. We'll end up losing those channels as well.
I think that Viacom is doing the same thing to Bright House, too.
@Meiran: Ditto. I tried to watch a few Viacom channels today and gave up due to the annoying crawl everywhere. Their advertisers can't be very pleased at the drop off in viewers due to that. "YOU MUST BE AT LEAST 18 YEARS OF AGE TO CALL!" Who gives a crap how old the caller is?
To hell with them both.... Go out and play people!
Meh I don't watch any of their channels so I really don't care if they do pull their crap off the air.
However, I know a lot of people will be angry when they lose their babysitter (Cartoon Network).
My husband just told me that instead of watching the ball drop on tv, he wants to watch Cartoon Network to see if it goes out.
@Swervo: Seriously! In my town, basic cable is $14 and includes 30 channels. "Expanded" analog cable is $50 and adds another 40.. but I only really watch three or four of the expanded channels. I'd be more than happy with basic cable plus maybe ten channels (Comedy, Food, Sci-Fi, FX, TCM, TNT, the ESPNs, off the top of my head).
I don't need Speedvision or Golf channel, you morons. Why am I paying $50 for Sixty channels i don't watch? Well, I'm not, for long. I'm switching to satellite this month-- where I can get 100 channels for $40, including DVR service.
@bigduke: Consider dish. Austin is far south enough that you'll have no trouble aiming a dish, and you'll be amazed how much cheaper service is for the same number of channels (or how much more programming you get for the same price). (Dish Network in SD on two TVs, including DVR service- $50 a month for 200 channels!)
Since I dropped digital cable and upgraded to "Turbo" speed internet, I have not missed any of the other channels. Let them drop the channels - it will not bother me one bit.
Screw them both!
As an Austin TW subscriber, this is it, I'm done. As soon as I can get AT&T out to install Dry Loop DSL, I'm dropping TW cable and internet and just using my computer to watch what I want, when I want. My TW bill is now at $120 for internet and cable with DVR. That's the lowest I could get them to go. It's just not worth it anymore. There isn't anything worth watching on TV anymore. I'll get content from iTunes and watch it on the iPod I have hooked up to my TV and maybe, just maybe, I'll get that Netflix player thing. Other than that, who needs this?
@jwm1314:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sorry had to laugh. No Comedy Central for you. I first head of this on the dayton daily news. I'm glad I got uverse. SOOOOOO much better. I laughed at TWC customers when they didn't have NBC. Hell I hated TWC for not having NBC in HD when I did have it.
But it'll be over by then. Soo WSU or UD?
Viacom's wants to triple the fee it charges TWC/Bright House to broadcast it's MTV and Nickelodeon suite of channels, a cost that would be passed on to consumers. This won't affect Cartoon Network 'cause that's not a Viacom channel (it's TWCs channel)...
I predict a huge surge in DirectTV stock.