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ThURSDAY AM UPDATE: Both Viacom and Time Warner Cable took their revenue battle to the brink. Less than an hour before TWC's 13.3 million subscribers were going to lose 19 Viacom channels at 12:01 AM today, the two Big Media companies came to an agreement. Here was their joint statement:
TIME WARNER CABLE, VIACOM REACH AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE
Networks Will Continue to Be Available On All Time Warner Cable SystemsNew York, NY - Jan. 1, 2009 — Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) and Viacom (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) jointly announced this morning that they have reached an agreement in principle to renew carriage for Viacom’s MTV Networks. The companies expect to finalize the details of the agreement over the next several days.
Glenn Britt, President and CEO of Time Warner Cable said, "We are pleased that our customers will continue to be able to watch the programming they enjoy on MTV Networks. We are sorry they had to endure a day of public disagreement as we worked through this negotiation."
Philippe Dauman, President and CEO of Viacom said, "We’ve been partners with Time Warner Cable for a long time, and we’re happy to be renewing that partnership for the benefit of their customers and our loyal viewers. It’s gratifying that we could reach an agreement that benefits not only our audiences but that is also in the best interest of both of our companies."
WEDNESDAY NOON: 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." Insiders say Viacom President/CEO Philippe Dauman stayed in his office most of today waiting to hear from his TWC counterpart Glenn Britt, but the situation remains stalled. This is turning out to be Big Media brinkmanship at its most brutal with 13.3 million cable subscribers caught in the middle.
WEDNESDAY 11:30 AM: Viacom has now answered the bashing by TWC's Britt:
Time Warner Cable’s continued rhetoric and posturing is disappointing and unproductive. We have made it clear that we welcome a credible and meaningful discussion that respects our viewers and the value our programming brings to Time Warner Cable. We remain ready and willing to engage. It’s time for serious talk – before the viewers become the victims.
WEDNESDAY 10 AM: Now it's all about the PR war between these two Big Media giants. To counter Viacom's 12-hour media blitz blasting his company, Glenn Britt, President/CEO of Time Warner Cable just issued this statement about Viacom’s "threats" to pull MTV Networks from TWC customers:
Christmas is over, but Viacom is still playing Scrooge, threatening to pull its MTV Networks off of Time Warner Cable at midnight tonight unless we ask our customers to pay exorbitant price increases.
Viacom claims their demands equate to “pennies,” but that is misleading and insulting to our customers, from whom Viacom is trying to extort another $39 million annually – on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars our customers already pay to Viacom each year. That doesn’t sound like pennies to us. Demanding that our customers pay so much more for these few networks would be unreasonable in any economy, but it is particularly outrageous given the current economic conditions.
We sympathize with the fact that Viacom’s advertising business is suffering and that their networks’ ratings have largely been declining. However, we can’t abide their attempt to make up their lost revenue on the backs of Time Warner Cable customers. We’ve negotiated in good faith and made several concessions to help reach a fair and reasonable deal. We’ve asked for an extension of the current contract while we continue to negotiate. But Viacom doesn’t appear to be interested in what’s fair and reasonable for American consumers – they’re only interested in propping up their sagging bottom line, and they are poised to pull their networks from Time Warner Cable customers tonight.
Huge price increases like what Viacom is demanding threaten the ultimate value of cable TV. Time Warner Cable is a retail distributor of products we purchase wholesale. Wholesale programming costs are rising dramatically every year, and, like all multichannel distributors, we have to pass on at least a portion of the increases to our customers. Viacom’s MTV Networks are just a few of the hundreds of channels we carry. If every channel demanded huge, double-digit increases like what Viacom is trying to force our customers to pay, it would be impossible to keep the price of cable reasonable for our customers.
Time Warner Cable has reached hundreds of distribution agreements with other networks. In fact, we currently have deals with every other cable programmer. The negotiations aren’t always easy, but we work hard to reach agreements that are fair to our customers and to both businesses.
We hope Viacom won’t pull the MTV Networks from Time Warner Cable customers, and we’ll negotiate up to the last possible minute and beyond. But ultimately, it is Viacom’s decision. We implore them to join with us to reach a fair resolution or grant an extension, and we hope they won’t carry through with their threat to take their networks away from our customers tonight.
WEDNESDAY 7 AM: It appears Time Warner Cable customer service was unprepared for the onslaught of complaints from subscribers flooding into call centers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many reps were unaware of the dispute with Viacom, which began running news crawls below its programming that 19 channels would go dark on the cable system operation at 12:01 AM on January 1st. Viacom also placed full-page advertisements in some major market newspapers today featuring protests by its media characters, including Dora the Explorer who is shown crying because she is being taken away from her fans, or SpongeBob freaking out. Viacom is even telling viewers they can get Dora or SpongeBob back by signing onto Time Warner Cable's competitors DirecTV or Verizon. Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable is prepared to refund customers for the lost programming if a deal can't be reached by New Year's, though the amount hasn’t been determined yet. (story continued after video...)
TUESDAY: What an awful way to ring in 2009. It turns out that Viacom claims it has been trying to negotiate a "fair" renewal of its prized cable channels for months and months, but reputedly Time Warner Cable has been unresponsive and "unreasonable" so talks have stalled. The nation's 2nd largest cable system operator, in turn, claims Viacom is asking for "exorbitant" increases in carriage fees which would have to be passed along to the customer. So now this fight between the two Big Media giants will hurt cable viewers. At 12:01 AM on January 1st, just after the ball drops in Time Square, Time Warner Cable's 13.3 million subscribers will lose 19 Viacom channels -- Comedy Central; CMT: Pure Country; Logo; Palladia; MTV; MTV 2; MTV Hits; MTV Jams; MTV Tr3s; Nickelodeon; Noggin; Nick 2; Nicktoons; Spike; The N; TV Land; Vh1; Vh1 Classic; Vh1 Soul. The howling starts here, especially by parents home for the holidays with children who won't have access to their favorite shows like SpongeBob Squarepants and Dora The Explorer, and tweens/teens wanting to see new episodes of those new unreality Reality TV series The City and Bromance, and twentysomethings and older who get their news from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report.
This affects all U.S. Time Warner cable subscribers including those in New York and Los Angeles. Alex Dudley, a vice president at Time Warner Cable, the nation's second-largest cable operator, is telling reporters that the dispute with Viacom "is that they have asked for an exorbitant increase in their carriage fees and their network ratings are sagging." However, Nickelodeon is 2008’s No. 1 basic cable network, drawing the largest audience in its history. MTV, on the other hand, has seen ratings slide. Time Warner Cable claims it's "trying to hold the line on fees for our customer" -- but it's really worried that if Viacom gets its raises, then every cable programmer will want them. TWC claims Viacom has asked for fee increases of between 22% and 36% per channel, but Sumner Redstone's company maintains the increases would cost less than $.25 a month for the package of channels per subscriber who spend a fifth of total TV time watching Viacom shows but its fees make up less than 2.5% of the Time Warner cable bill. (Sports channels are paid the biggest cable premium). But Time Warner Cable also is complaining that Viacom's popular shows are rerun on Web sites where Viacom collects advertising revenue that it does not share with Time Warner. On the other hand, Viacom has staked much of its revenue-growth prospects on squeezing higher carriage rates out of its cable and satellite affiliates despite an ad slowdown and weaker ratings.
Such negotiation battles between cable networks and cable system operators have happened before and lasted merely hours. In 2004, for example, Viacom's cable channels disappeared from EchoStar's Dish Network for two days while both sides fought over the terms of a new contract. And Time Warner blocked ABC from its cable systems in New York during a breakdown in contract negotiations with parent company Disney. So this one will either end fast or go on forever. It probably will depend on how many subscribers start flooding Time Warner Cable with obscene calls or, worse, switch to satellite. Viacom has already started a hardball campaign to "Call Time Warner Cable and say 'NO' " starring The Hills and South Park.
This is Viacom's just issued statement:
This move by Time Warner Cable to force such channels as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV off the air is another example of a cable company overreaching for profit at the expense of its viewers.
The renewal we are seeking is reasonable and modest relative to the profits TWC enjoys from our networks. We have asked for an increase of less than 25 cents per month, per subscriber, which adds up to less than a penny per day for all 19 of MTV Networks’ channels. We make this request because TWC has so greatly undervalued our channels for so long. Americans spend more than 20% of their TV viewing time watching our networks, yet our fees amount to less than 2.5% of what Time Warner generates from their average customer.
Throughout the country, we have negotiated equitable license agreement renewals, or are in the final stages of renewals, with virtually every cable and satellite carrier. Nevertheless, Time Warner Cable has dismissed our efforts at a fair compromise and has effectively chosen to deny its customers some of the most popular TV shows on the air.
As a result, we are sorry to say that for Time Warner Cable customers our networks will go dark as of 12:01 on January 1st, denying Time Warner customers shows like Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, and The Hills.
Ultimately, however, if Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV and the rest of our programming is discontinued – over less than a penny per day - we believe viewers will see this behavior by their cable company as outrageous.
Time Warner Cable subscribers who are being handed a January 1st $3 monthly increase in Raleigh, Orange County, Los Angeles, and New York City are simultaneously facing the removal of beloved shows across 19 channels.
We find it a shame that Time Warner Cable remains unreasonable at this time. We hope its leadership will have a change of heart and will seek to negotiate a fair renewal agreement.
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Now that’s what I call a Christmas present. I can’t think of a better gift for America’s families than to yank MTV and Comedy Central out of everyone’s home. MTV has degenerated into exploitive reality television and bears little resemblance to its original brilliance. Comedy Central is populated by personalities that are loud, filthy, obnoxious and generally void of talent …much like the rest of television. All I can say is, “Hooray!”
is viacom sending out a strike authorization vote?
Balls to Time Warner! No more Colbert Report. Oh well, maybe I should go read a book instead.
Oh, just GIVE ME A REASON TO DROP YOU, TIME WARNER.
oh great. We won’t possibly get to see Watchmen until 2010 and now we might lose our TV channels, too?!
I’m switching to DirecTV if they can’t resolve this quickly.
I’m in New York, but not a Time Warner subscriber. However, I know several people who are. I’m looking forward to seeing how this all plays out… surely Time Warner will give in…
Sure, viewers will howl to Time Warner. But who can hold out longer?
Time Warner, with the many alternate channels still running.
Or Viacom, with a substantial chuck of its audience disappearing. How long before advertisers bail on Viacom programing?
You know, this could be a whole new business model for cable companies. Think of the money they’ll save if they charge people the same amount, but drive away all the major channels!
Or they could be shooting themselves in the foot at a time when a lot of people will be canceling their cable to save money.
I get the feeling that this decision was made by the same guy who told the Warners legal department to not worry about that “Fox-Watchmen nonsense.”
WOW THAT REALLY SUCKS!!!!
They won’t “bargin in good faith” ………………….. Shoes on the other foot now. Viacom will be the looser. The stock can’t take the hit. They need to take in more cash so they can continue too “NOT” pay the animators residuals.
I believe this is the first, and perhaps will be the ONLY time that I am (gulp) “happy” to have Verizon service…
I was freaking out about this until my enlightened 8 year old just reminded me that you can watch a lot of the shows mentioned above online and “whenever you want to”. Out of the mouth of babes…
On a serious note though, if I were a Time Warner customer, I would be raising hell at 12:01 and until I got my channels back. Then, I would ask for a prorated refund for the time period I didn’t get my channels that I was promised.
I want my MTV!
I already sent my complaint email to Time Warner (and Viacom) and I will start calling TW tomorrow. How insane! And I guarantee if they take away 19 channels my bill will not go down. But I watch Comedy Central every day (love “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show”) and do not want to watch shows on my small computer screen. So let the complaints begin.
Mark this moment. It’s the first time I have been glad to be a Comcast customer.
Time Warner Cable blows…I dumped their ass years ago for AT&T Uverse. Directv and/or Dish are all much better options.
So long Time Warner. Hello satellite or FIOS.
I am a Time Warner Cable customer and I am on their side with this one. I am sick of all these stations demanding more money that is placed on the customer. In Ohio the Big Ten Network did this at a threat we would lose the OSU games. Then it was the WWHO and PAX channels. Now this? I’m sorry but I hope Time Warner Cable doesn’t give in and Viacom loses out or stops asking for more money. Stop making the customer foot the bill because these companies want extra BILLIONS of dollars from us. Viacom probably already makes BILLIONS as it is. What they want an extra company paid vacations and company paid vacation homes to add to their already exhuberant lifestyle. Find your money elsewhere and not us. We already have to bill out the banks and autodealers because they can’t manage their money and want more of it. We already pay ridiculous amounts for gas prices because the oil companies are greedy. Until there is a stop to it the selfish rich will continue to get richer while the poor continue to pay for it all. I am tired of having my 9 to 5 40-hour a week job pay for everybody elses expenses. What about my own thankyouverymuch! Enough already!!!!!!!!
Bring on the heat! If individual consumers want access, bring down the monopolies in those cities. In Orlando Fox Sports Net is not carried by Brighthouse Cable–consumers have no recourse. We now have ATT rolling out new services in portions of Orlando–there should be 5 or 6 companies coming in. I am sure NYC is wired enough to support that! What say you Mr. Mayor Bloomberg (and owner of a highly respected and run CONTENT PROVIDER)?
Time Warner is an absolute RIP OFF! Every year there are increases without the increase in programming and customer support. My advice is spelled, “Satellite”, you know, “The Dish?” I remember all of the PR T-W aired here in Texas but I knew better (I’m from PA) than to believe the horror stories just to continue getting mounds of $ from us every year. I SWITCHED and I’ve never been more satisfied w/ channels, pkgs and price!!
Time Warner will be shocked at how quickly people like me will dump their service.
It’s really hard to take the side of one of these media giants over the other… either way… consumers loose.
Cable subscriptions will never be in the consumers favor until subscribers have the ability to pay individually to see the cable stations they want, so that they can pay for what they want, and not what the media giants want them to see.
Will we look back at this as the shot that started the downfall of cable distributors? Time Warner makes an interesting point that they don’t get revenue from what comedy central posts online. And while i’d rather have the Daily Show on my tivo, I could make do watching on the laptop. Not too long from now TV’s will have an internet connection (not needing appletv, etc) and what will be the point of ordering cable and when you can watch it online through your tv?
Time Warner’s only future may be to focus on being an ISP as that will soon include television broadcasts.
Didn’t Time Warner Cable remove the NFL Network for similar reasons. We in LA have zero options for cable supplier and TWC’s arrogance caused me to drop them a couple months ago. Recently they shuttered all public channels and studios save one, how much did profits rise with that action? No competition, no avenues of redress and this is supposedly capitalist economy. I choose to go dark. My money stays with me till they collapse. Goodbye NBA commercials, goodbye car commercials, goodbye to all those that now so desperately need me to by their products. I will not be treated like a Russian.
Personally I love watching corporations cannibalize each other.
I have TW here in NYC and I couldn’t care less if i have only 180 channels instead of 200. So many channels and so little good product.
The ratings for Viacom’s shows are down and they want customers to pay more for them anyway, despite the worst economy since the 1930’s. Don’t blame Time Warner in this case folks…this is greed from Viacom.
A la carte programming. The answer.
Would make these petty fights (to the viewers) and greedy wars (between the congloms) a thing of the past.
I don’t need 50 other channels to go with the 5 or 6 I actually get value out of.
Hah, they’re going to hemorrhage a tenth of their customers on Jan 2. I predict they give in to Viacom on the 3rd and have to lure their customers back with freebies.
SCREW TIME WARNER!!! THRY HAVE GIVEN NEW YORK DICK FOR DECADES. I HOPE THEY CRATER WITH NO BAILOUT! PLEASE CABLEVISION OR COMCAST COME TO NYC, PLEASE WE BEG YOU!!!
this solidifies it for me:
I’M CANCELING MY TIME-WARMER CABLE, AND REPLACING IT WITH THE DISH.
i’ve wanted to do this for a long time now.
Goodbye Time Warner, ya dumb greedy f*ckos.
I was needing an excuse to switch.
RE:AaronSch
are you not aware that there are such features that allow you to block such channels that you wish not to view?
How nice it must be to live in your holier than thou small minded world. It’s people like you that give people like you a bad name.
Oh how nice it will be when you and yours realize that not everyone else should live a life YOU think everyone else should. The term Fascist comes to mind when someone like you decides to give your opinion.
I would dump TWC but since I have no clear line of site, I am stuck with lousy programming, bad service and poor reception…I have only one choice…no TV.
I do not watch the channels they are dropping so I won’t miss them, but where does it stop?
More increases for less, way to go TWC…you get yours while we as consumers get ours right in the “END”.
To heck with ‘em all! We got a Wii for Christmas — who needs any of their crappy channels?
I put up with Time Warner’s continued battle with the NFL but with the added loss of these channels it is just too much. They used the same excuse then regarding holding down costs. They are just too willing to let their product to me suffer to ensure their profit margins remain unaffected. DirectTV and NFL Sunday Ticket here I come. I’m now looking forward to the season next year.
Perhaps NOW we can start offering ala carte service on cable. If Viacom raises its price, and the market accepts it, then Time Warner wins. If the public says no, then Time Warner and Viacom lose!
The terrorists ARE winning! OMG Bush was right!
Cable lost me a long time ago. And so, I raised my 2 kids without TV. Now, they are both A students with scholarships at major colleges.
Think you can’t live without TV? At first it is hard. Then, it is not. Ultimately it becomes, allowing it back into your life is unimaginable.
Viacom and Time Warner are two sides of the same shit-covered coin. TW refuses to carry NFL Network and NBA Network here in LA and we the customers get screwed. And Sumner Redstone is an insane crazy old loon that needs to be taken out to pasture like any old stupid, saliva-spitting plow horse. But the real question is, how long will shareholders of both companies allow this lunacy to continue? Thank God I sold my shares in “Via-gone” years ago. Hello, DirectTV!
I watch The Daily Show & Colbert online anyway. As long as I have hulu who cares.
Thank God that I have Cox. I would kill myself without Comedy Central and Spike.
This from the Viacom press release:
Throughout the country, we have negotiated equitable license agreement renewals, or are in the final stages of renewals, with virtually every cable and satellite carrier. Nevertheless, Time Warner Cable has dismissed our efforts at a fair compromise…
Eerily similar to the AMPTP press release regarding the current SAG standoff (or any union standoff, actually):
The last year has surely been a challenging one, but after long sessions of hard bargaining, all of the Guilds and Unions in our industry, except one, have reached new labor agreements.
I’ve been looking for an excuse to drop Time Warner and get AT&T Uverse or some other FIOS. TWC is truly the WORST. Absolutely. The HD package blows, and now that Dexter is off the air for the season I have no reason to keep watching the free Showtime they’ve been giving me for years because of the terrible service.
So I have to continue to watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report on hulu because when I try to set a season pass for them on TWC, my DVR records 10 runs per day? Or reruns/originals of South Park I can just watch on southparkstudios.com? Or reruns of Futurama I can just load a DVD into my player and watch?
As long as I get a new service before January 16 so I can watch BSG’s final season…
I will dump TWC if this is not resolved very quickly; however, I have had satellite before and despised it. If it rained 500 miles from my home, I lost service. I kept track and in the month of July 2005, I only had 4 days without an interruption in service.
But I will not hesitate to drop them if they don’t get my Daily Show and Colbert back.
Well, put it this way:
Time Warner owns the majority of voting shares in Time Warner Cable, i.e. it is owned by Time Warner.
Hmm. What a SHOCK that Viacom and Time Warner are trying to screw each other. What a shock that having a handful of giant media companies controlling everything is always a losing proposition. What a shock that deregulation once again screws the customer.
Newsflash: YOU the customer will lose in this battle. Time Warner Cable will give in to the cries of customers and pass along Viacom’s exhoribant rate increases to your monthly bill. And the next time Time Warner has a chance to sock it to Viacom, they’ll say “here’s mud in your eye.”
The end.
Thank God I switched to AT&T!
Whew!
I have Time Warner. Since MTV doesn’t actually show music videos any more, there’s no reason to watch MTV. I listen to Time Warner’s digital music channels instead. As for Comedy Central, you can catch stuff on the internet — this will give me more time to do things around the house (while listening to music) or reading a book or watching something else.
I’m not going to miss any of the Viacom channels. I agree with other posters that this nickel-and-dime s**t has to stop.
This is why I have Direct TV!!! Cable sucks, only their VOD is cool.
And THIS is why I switched to DiercTV last year. Congress needs to get back into regulating cable.
“Mark this moment. It’s the first time I have been glad to be a Comcast customer.”
Well, Comcast is always more than happy to pass down increased fees to their subscribers.
And then a service fee for doing it.
CBS/Viacom posted something like $8 billion in losses for one quarter. Everybody’s hard times are showing up everywhere.
I dumped Time Warner two years ago because ATT Uverse carries NFL Network standard. Hubbies a football fanatic. Time Warner wants to charge extra for NFL, NFL Network refuses. As much as I dislike ATT, I get more channels, broadband is just as good and I pay less. And now you only need one DVR to record as you can watch anything recorded on any box in the house.
Well, considering nobody watches MTV, I don’t think it will make much of a difference!
If I get no Daily Show, I leave Time Warner.
I won’t miss Viacom, but I am on Dish Network and they have gotten involved in a deadlock with Fisher Broadcasting, so we have lost all of ABC – which means no Nightline, no Good Morning America, no Charlie Gibson, no George Stephanopolous, etc. I hate, as a customer, being held hostage by long term contracts, and then deprived of the programming I signed up for. Grrrr!
This and their dispute with NFL Network are making me wish TV was offered on an a-la-carte system. That way I could choose to have Comedy Central, ESPN, HBO and trim away the garbage I don’t watch like Fox News.
On the plus side, I think we all benefit by losing MTV.
Big companies still haven’t gotten it yet. We are in a recession, heading for a depression. Do they not understand that people are going to have to go back to antennas on their roofs. When people are afraid of losing their jobs and not being able to put food on the table, they are not going to pay for cable or satellite.
Folks, you can watch all this stuff online for free. I’ve already decided, before this news, to drop down to basic cable and watch everything I want online. Screw ‘em…
Ok..so I pay for TW Cable IN ADVANCE every month and they can pull channels? On the only service the city of Los Angeles allows in my area? Hang on, let me grab my ankles…..
I hope TW tells Viacom to pound sand. Colbert and Jon Stewart are the only shows I care about…well…and Reno 911. But I am willing to give them up. The whole cable model needs to be changed. I’m sick of having to surf through 50 shopping/spanish/religious channels to see the 4 channels that I watch.
Crap. That means we’re going to see those annoying crawl messages saying “Call TW and tell them…blah, blah…” on Comedy Central. Wake me when it’s over.
I am delighted it all boils down to the almighty buck as soon entrepreneurs will step in and use cable systems much in the same way the telephone companies were made to give over their systems to the MCI and Verizons,etc. Cable desperately needs competition as Americans have been gouged long enough.
Paying $52.00 per month for basic cable and then another $5.00 for HD that is given away by some national channels and then $15.50 for HBO and then another $7.00 as an intro price for Showtime? That’s 80 buck with premiums and $57.00 without. Keep it all.
Americans took down oil from $150 a barrel to less than $40 in 4 months. Watch us do the same with cable prices. The time of the Madoff type Cable Systems is over.
Viacom took MTV, a once proud icon and turned it into a cesspool. MTV is a prime example of what Corporate America thinks is good for you. Those people have no taste, no class, no talent.
No big loss for Time Warner that I can see.
Except for the Daily Show not so much of a loss and you can get that next day on the web. I say good riddance.
So glad i have direct TV, hope this buries time warner!
You think this is bad! Try figuring out how to access the local ABC affiliate in the Pacific Northwest to get local news and prime-time programming ( http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/brierdudley/2008/12/18/dish_network_in_contract_spat.html ).
They can’t do this to me — Rock of Love Tour Bus premieres on Sunday! What am I going to do without my Celebreality trash? Thank god VH1 broadcasts full episodes on their website.
Suck it up, Time-Warner: just like we accept those little nickel-and-dime surcharges that keep sneaking into our bills.
Much as I love NY1 and “that little time-temperature thingie in the corner”, you drop Comedy Central and the Nickelodeon channels, I’m gone.
I live in LA and TWC sucks big time, the amount they charge for the little they offer is ridiculous. I dropped them long ago…..so I think I will go up to the roof and kiss my DirectTV dish.
Well, That sucks! those are the only channels i actually watch on tv!! the channels that are going to be left all suck! i just got a new flat screen tv for christmas… guess i can take that back to the store. i wont need it now!
I have Direct TV – so I am NOT affected by this dispute. However, I can not see that it will be any kind of great loss. With the possible exception of Gunsmoke, Leave it to Beaver, Andy Griffith and Bonanza on TV Land plus an occasional Dora or Little Bear episode on Noggin – not a single one of these channels has EVER delivered ANY of the programming promised in the advertising brochures put out by TV Guide to lure you into paying extra to have the ‘family pack’ of programs. When I first started watching TV Land, TV Land was running a commercial which claimed that ‘Beaver and Andy will always have a home so long as there is a TV Land!’ Now you can barely find either show in the line-up. Seems like all of the good shows get moved every couple of days. We have rarely, if ever, watched any of the other channels. Small loss – not worth crying about!
A pox on both their houses. Time Warner delivers a technically inferior service here in Los Angeles with numerous interruptions and drop outs. They seem to take their business model from the post office: raise the rates for poor service and less of it. A pox on them.
Viacom is quickly proving to be one of the most bumbling companies around. I know Nikki is giving up on reporting on Redstone’s debt negotiations but riddle me this: at a time when Viacom needs to show the best possible balance sheet and income statement, why is it going out of its way to alienate its largest cable customer? Somebody has a screw loose there.
My wife told me about this and I was worried, but when I saw the line-up of channels, I, too, was thinking “No great loss here.” I can watch Colbert and Stewart on my laptop whenever I want. MTV and the other trash can go broke. Nickelodeon has good stuff, but my kids are grown. I say, let the free market decide — cable should go a la carte. I would love to pay for only the channels I watch. History, Discovery, PBS, CSPAN, MSNBC, CNN, Science Channel, NatGeo, FoodNetwork, TLC, HGTV, A&E, Ovation, AnimalPlanet (for dog shows), TCM — maybe Spike for CSI reruns. Dump the religious garbage and sports. Can ya tell I’m the 50-65 demographic?
Please people stop writing loose, sounds like goose, when you mean lose, you are driving me frigging crazy.Anyway Time Warner sux it always has and Sumner Redstone, head of Viacom, how pretentious is that name, is a gold plated nitwit.
I don’t watch MTV anyway, so I don’t care at all. Good riddance to that crap show called the “The Hills.” Nothing but a bunch spoiled, white bitches famous for being nothing.
If Time Warner loses The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, we will lose Time Warner.
THIS IS BS
Viacom’s a bunch of bastards anyway. I hope TWC doesn’t give in.
*isn’t in a TWC area*
well all i got to say WTF why cant the cheapskates at time warner just pay up i mean dang its not like they will goo into debt
From an insiders perspective I work at a certain cable company and unfortunately most people want to blame Time Warner Cable because they are the direct interaction with the public. But what you don’t see is that this is an MSO that is trying to keep rates ffrom increasing in the subscriber. Not only that but the FCC vastly more involved in the cable industry than regulating (look up OCAP and “must carry rules” that are vastly unfair) direct satalite distributers or telcos. Cable Co. have “must carries” and local franchise fees above and beyond having to bend over backwards (I know because I am one of the ones doing the bending) to keep local channels happy. Cable Co. also have to build equally in the areas not just the higher revenue areas like the telcos are getting away with. The Cable Co that I work for prides ourselves on our local involvement that we get no revenue from because we live here too. We give away free service calls. Just like when diesel prices drove up the price of groceries, this will drive up the price for the customer. This is no prblem for sat (except for Dish Network that dumped CBS for this same reason) or telco to take up because they dont have to pay these FCC fees! If you want to pay higher cable prices than pressure the MSO’s to settle. If you want to make this a fair enterprise than blame the networks. Either way you lose and I am at work at 12:00 on New Years shutting these channels off.
Bull**it if you shut those channels down shut all my stuff down. With those channels gone it should drop our bill 50.00 a month!
Seriously, this crap again? They did this with the CW…19 channels, give me a FREAKING break
My poor son will have nothing to watch now…until we dump TW’s stupid crap and get a dish or satellite, if I can talk my hubby into it of course.
Viacom might end up thinking twice about this. The only major loss in my opinion is Comedy Central. That can be easily replaced with the wonderful Hulu.com. Too bad all Cable operators weren’t forcing down time on these channels. It would maybe force Viacom to spend more time on CBS. It would be interesting to see if they could come up with an original plot for a show instead of another retread of the same crime procedural to feed to the masses.
WHAT THE FUC* I can’t believe this is happening how much extra do i need to pay to clear this. Time Warner should stop crying and get rid of channels that serve no purpose, like lifetime, Zee tv, cspan, and other filler channels to make up the losses, honestly who the FUC* can survive without their daily needs, like the daily show and spongebob, what are we going to do with 5 different womens channels and no channels geared towards men. Time Warner is going to be the cause of thousands of new gays, and how will the world be able to sustain itself if every guy is is wasting their sperm in another dudes lower digestive tract. either there will only be amish people who don’t have tvs ruling the world, or the world will be made of all females.
Time Warner BETTER GET THIS FIXED, BECAUSE THEY HAVE ALREADY SCREWED US!!!!
Taking away ESPN Classic (used to be on channel 32) and now put it on only Digital. They have been taking away more then giving.
And losing 18 HUGE channels is not a good way to get the year started
FUCK TIME WARNER and their fuckin bullshit….just sign on for the extra 25 fucking cents
FYI, Viacom is running a crawl line along the bottom of their networks right now; however, the number to call has so-called ‘technical difficulties’ so it’s inoperational. Any other ideas for getting a hold of them?
Just wanted to point out that the “watch anytime online” option isn’t there for us deaf viewers… because very very very LITTLE online content has the captioning carried over and enabled.
So when those channels disappear from my cable in 2 days… I’m shut out as that’s my only way to get the shows with captioning.
!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF !!!!!!!!! DO EITHER OF THESE SON OF A BICHES HAVE ANYTHING TO DO BUT FEED THE ON GOING ECONOMIC PROBLEM OF CORPRATE GREED. DO EITHER OF THEM NOT GET ENOUGH MONEY FOR THE TIGHT WAD BOARD MEMBERS TO GET THEIR VACATION TIMESHARE IN BERMUDA (I WOULD LIKE ONE THERE) GET THE F OVER YOURSELFS AND TRY TO REMEMBER THE MILLIONS OR CenturianS, BillionS, Oligarchs, OR TrillionS OF PEOPLE THAT PUT THAT MONEY IN YOUR POCKETS…SUCH A WASTE
just wait till families such as mine have to try to tell their kids where dora,spongebob,wubbzy etc went to!
This is F*cking bullsh*t. Im switching to At&t. i wonder how much customers twc is going to lose. this fucking sucks!!!
i dislike timewarner cable and love hulu… no loss on my end
this does not effect cablevision users rite? cuz i hve cablevision nd they had the alert message on my tv…if ne1 cud reassure me..it wud b greatly appreciated..thnx
I have to say I agree with what many have been saying above; with the crap unpredictable wireless internet service, and ever increasing prices, I have been looking for an excuse to can TWC for 4 years. Goodbye time warner it’s been (un)fun . Oh but I don’t put this all on them, Viacom make billions on ad revenues from the internet, and with the dwindling economy and millions getting laid off across the country, they choose NOW to force rate hikes on cable companies and customers alike, screw you Viacom.
I was thinking about switching to TWC, but channels like MTV and VH1 are the main reasons I have cable. Guess I’m going to stick with my DirecTV then…
Now that Time Warner sees revenue going to Viacom via the Internet (which is where everything will be soon), maybe Time Warner will start to be a SAG ally?
First of all I can’t understand why time warner…and other people too…are talking about the .25 cents a month getting passed on to the customer I pay 160 dollars a month for my cable through them and the internet barely every works and the cable goes out all the time…usually when there isn’t a cloud in the sky and then they have the audacity to jack the bill up about 5 dollars a year without any warning until you get the bill that’s more than it should be, so since they are obviously raking in the bucks by charging people for sucky service and they obviously have little cost because they don’t keep up with the equipment and no one is ever working at the office TIME WARNER should pay the extra quarter a month out of what they already overcharge their current customers.
These two companies both suck. Frankly, Viacom spews garbage out daily, so they won’t be missed. However, Time-Warner Cable is terrible. They are greedy jerks and I guess it’s time for the Dish.
Bye, bye TWCable!
This is bs. My kids are the ones losing the shows they watch. My kids love noggin and they really like watching Dora and diego. This better get resolved or I will be switching to satellite. I am so irate right now
If TWC allows this to happen and allow Theese channels to dissapear from the current line up then they will have proven they are no longer a “valid” means of recieving my TV entertainment!
wow i thought it was a joke i was watchin wildboys and was like yeah right but then i checked some other channels and was surprised I CANNOT WAIT TO DROP TIME WARNER they suck so much the boxes they send dont work the remotes dont work after a while and now they are dropping 19 of there best channels all the other channels are crap compared to these bonnie i live in ohio to i feel you time warner you suck att here i come
i am so ticked. seriously now.
I think this really sucks…It’s not right to take away the channels that we watch everyday just because grown people in these companies wanna act like babies…why do we have to suffer for it yet still pay high cable prices? This is pathetic… Hope Bright House and Time Warner is happy because they are loosing money over a money issues. I’m calling Direct TV tomorrow to switch!
DirecTV, here I come! I’ve been avoiding switching due to the fact I’d probably pay more for DirecTV and AT&T phone/internet services than I would be for the Time Warner 3 in 1 (cable, phone & internet) package, but this really does it for me. It was bad enough when they denied me my NFL Network, but this crosses the line. I don’t watch MUCH TV, but in my household..the channels they’re getting rid of are the most frequently watched. This is just ridiculous.
What will my kids watch? They love Nickelodeon and Spongebob and iCarly as well as Dora and Diego. What am I supposed to tell them when they sit down to watch those shows in the morning? hm? This is completely unfair.
Another reason for me to hate TWC. I (for one) will not keep paying the same bill price for less channels…even though I only watch some of the channels that may be deleted.
There are several other services in my area and maybe this is the kick in the a** that I need to finally look into them.
If this continues without resolution, I will be switching my cable and high speed internet service to another company.
Although TWC will only be losing my $100 a month…I’m sure another service will be more than happy to take my money!!!
To the person who said, ‘Nobody watches MTV’, can’t speak for everyone when you say ‘nobody’ because I do. And I’m a somebody.
I’ve been wanting to switch over to verizon’s fiberoptic system which cost more but is better,and now I have to, Thanks!
Having been on both sides of the fence (TWC Technician and customer), I choose to stand with TWC. Viacom is the vampire here. Will I miss those channels? Probably not. I watch them occasionaly, but I’m far from addicted. Suck it up Viacom. None of my family have watched MTV and its subchannels for over 10 years. Peace. Out.
My vice is VH1 reality shows and of course I love John Stewart & Stephen Colbert….I feel the withdrawals already. Oye Vey!!! Thank God for the internet for my internet viewing.
Time warner has already mailed Columbia SC residents a notice of a $10 Incease per month for cable services without reason. Now this? More money, less channels an always poor service. The decision is NOT hard for me.
i will be real mad if this does happen if it does i will stop being a TWC customer and i will switch to something else TWC will loose alotof money if they cut off those channels and it will be on new years which really sucks ass i hope TWC will pay viacom the money
If it wasn’t for the 2-year service contract with Satellite companies, I would have dumped Time-Warner a long long time ago.
Viacom is being to greedy here… TWC better hold their ground.
I have TWC and am going to ask tomorrow when I go in to pay my bill what is going on. I personally don’t mind being charged an extra $.25 by TWC to carry 8+ channels we watch in this house. My kids will go crasy without Noggin and Nick in thier playroom. Of the 18 channels that we will loose here 8 of them we actually watch on a regular basis. They both just need to get thier heads out of thier asses and fix it. I have had satalite tv here and switched back to TWC casue we got crappy service..saerching for channel..every time it rained. What we need here another cable tv option. We are only offered TWC in my city. So if I get crap for satalite and crap for cable what I’m left with is no tv at all. And in this house that would not fly.
I cant believe this. My 3 year old son looks forward to watching noggin before dinner time…and hubby enjoys his spiketv. This is so stupid. I would drop timewarner, but then theres that lovely early termination fee–(just upgraded service.)freaking greedyness on both parts.
Time Warner in NYC is gre
Viacom should not pull the channels it should hang
there and produce better programs.
Time warner is not to blame here. Viacom ratings are down
because their programs stink. How many reality shows does MTV need
Where are the music videos?
U TUBE is awesome. I TUNES is awesome
I watch the movies channels anyway. Viacom just laid off 1000 people this year. Once the pioneers of cable are now corporate sell outs that lost their edge. Not looking for alternatives to make it work. How can you let FOX beat ya? VIACOM should be ashamed.
Cut some of those real bad shows you air. Stick to the basics give the people what they want not what your market research teams tell ya.
VIACOM is so out of touch.
MTV music awards has really gone downhill. Clear channel stinks too.
How dumb do you think your viewers are? You will not be missed Just dissed. Greed Greed. I would rather read, watch a movie and the news.
Shame on you VIACOM Greedy wimps!!
Looks like you will going down in 2009 out of biz 2010
See ya
I dumped TWC over a year ago because the sound quality was always very poor, sound like low bit rate mp3s.
And the channels I watched the most would often freeze or drop out. Hated it. Direct TV is overall much better though I have to reset my receiver way too often.
I’m glad I switched but I wouldn’t care too much because I don’t watch any Viacom programming, though my girlfriend does, often to my dismay. Comedy Channel would be the only one I’d miss, though I can’t stand Daily Show or John Stewart.
i can just imagine how many people will drop time warner cable.
you are missing the big picture here. yes it’s about money, but more so its about content and brand. whats going to happen when content and brand are regulated by the companies that run the internet. it wouldn’t be too hard to block all of tw ip’s for viacom sites would it.
mtv doesn’t play a whole music video, vh1 has too many reruns, and spongebob is annoying. my child likes disney and cartoon network. I don’t see the need for fee increase if the shows lack. I think time warner is right this time. If viacom leaves we might get better channels. If we got new channels it is good for tw, the customer, and not viacom. boo viacom YOU SUCK!!!!!!
To hell with Viacom.
Their programming is pure shite with the possible exception of VH-1 Classic, which was much better 5 years ago. I can’t believe anyone even watches MTV or Crap central anymore.
TW cable also blows, but I’m with them on this one.
I just looked into getting directTV due to this crap. I’m going to try and use losing the channels to my advantage and break out of contract so I can get directTV because I’ll be saving $25/month for 3 months and $15/month for 9 after that, then probably break even with what I’m paying now with TWC, which is a whole year from now.
Time warner is so screwed if they actually cancel the channels!
i can sum this up real quick:
1. TV costs to fuckin much to have ANY programming TAKEN AWAY regardless of your opinions of the actual content (some of us don’t think spongebob is warping our kids’ minds)
2. I don’t give a fuck who owes who, all I know is that i’m not going to enjoy pixelated transmissions of the programs i will still be charged to NOT watch. Online versions are going to blow when you plug that svideo cable into your 36″ tv.
3. For losing an entire tier of broadcasting, I as a time warner customer am not going to recieve a lower monthly rate..and that, my friends, is bullshit.
For all of you out there who say “who cares” – dont bother to post because you are wasting 1s and 0s (you’re so ultra cool cause you think everything’s lame). My wife likes VH1. I like Comedy Central and nick at nite. My kid likes noggin and nickelodeon (which i watched as a kid myself). There, I said it.
I will never watch TV again if this happens permanently.
I can’t even find words for how much of a mistake this situation is, how I’ve seen it happen over and over so many times between channel companies and greedy cable stations who whine and bitch about “passing on the cost to customers.” Please. That is such a sham.
And on another note, for those of you who claim that American TV would be better without Viacom’s channels…think about it quantity-wise for a second. 19 channels. 19. Out of the 70-80 or so that normal cable outlets carry…statistically, about a fourth of your channels will be cut without you having to pay a cent less.
And all because THEIR asses don’t take the time to make a simple agreement.
twc has message on my local # that they are trying to retain programming and reach an agreement. Thanks viacom?
I think this is ridiculous. For the parents that have the childrens channels like Noggin, and NICK, this really SUCKS. TWC already took away the PBS network channel and now these. The Disney Channel doesnt show cartoons for long periods and the Cartoon Network doesnt show cartoons that are for younger children. I too will be changing my service. TWC is going to lose lots of customers.
I am FUCKING PISSED OFF because of this shit! I will NOT FUCKING go without SpongeBob and The Colbert Report. I wrote down the number from the fukcing marquee thing on my T.V. and tomorrow, I’m gonna give it to everyone and have them call it like hell.
Let me tell you, if this shit happens and doesn’t get fixed within a few days, then I say, “Fuck cable. They’ve been good to me up until this point, but if Bright House is taking away some of my favorite shows, then I’d might as well switch to some shitty satellite provider.” I mean, better have terrible reception for my favorite shows than none at all.
If they take away my 2 year old son’s favorite channel Noggin, then I am done with Time Warner. He has learned so many new words and phrases from this channel.
I just reported Time Warner to the BBB a month ago for taking over 6 weeks, in spite of my calling and badgering them everyday, to refund me an overpayment on my account. Only after the BBB contacted them did they decide to do anything. I bundle their service, I work from home so I enjoy their high speed internet, but I wish they would take away my 4 year old, 3 year old and 18 month olds Noggin and Nickelodeon. At & T hasn’t expanded to where I live yet, but I will definitely switch my service if I lose these channels. Like others have said, we won’t see a decrease in our price. Personally I think both sides are being greedy…we shouldn’t have to be caught in the middle of it though.
I happen to think this is awful.
My children love Nickalodean, and all its programs.
Yes MTV is trash.
Yes Comedy Central is trash.
But VH1, Nickoldean, and the others aren’t that bad.
I also enjoy watching Nick@Nite.
I say call, and end this.
This is very easy. Unfortunately, the public never react decisively and therefore nothing ever changes…
This is the fault of the leadership at both Viacom AND Time Warner for letting it get this far. As I write this, we are hours from the new year. To still be negotiating this now is a management failure, and both companies must be punished for their inaction by its customers.
Time Warner customers should not stand for 1) the excessive and constant rate hikes and 2) poor and interrupted service like this pending one.
Unless you, the TWC clients, take your business elsewhere, this will not end. When Charter Communications started on this same ridiculous path year over year, I took my business elsewhere and advised everyone I knew to do the same.
Come on people! Exercise the power that you ACTUALLY have to drive change within these greedy companies!
lmao, screw /watching/ the shows, I’m worried about the people who MAKE the shows. Whats gonna happen to these people who are on the lower part of all this, making the shows on these networks? Are they gonna lose their jobs? Fuck, come on man…
SIGH.
i do not want to lose these channels my little girl oves to watch noggin if we lose it she will not have any thing to watch
Glad that here in Houston Comcast bought out time warner!
i think it sticks too my daughter loves to watch dora and she watches noggin too i hope we get to keep our channels
If you agree with one side or the other, you are doing exactly the opposite of what you should be doing. Executives are both of these companies make millions. They are paid to keep the lights on. When they can’t keep SOME of the lights on, they have failed, and there needs to be consequences from their client base.
This is BOTH company’s fault. We as the viewing public need to expect higher standards. Once we do, you will see program quality increase and service improve.
Just for the record, I used to have Time Warner and seriously think they suck donkey balls.
Now, that I got that out of my system,
, Time Warner does this so much it’s not funny. TV stations want more money, they drop them. Happened in Austin. Google search “time warner drops channel” and you will find MANY times they did this over the years. Along with crap for customer service, high high rates, and poor quality.
After I got moved 100 miles for work, suddenlink was the cable provider here, and I thought it was funny how the regular price on the package I pay is 95.00 for hi speed, damn near every channel, and digi phone, and TWC charged me 165. Oh and the rate increased with time warner yearly.
And with my internet and phone going out for days at a time, and time warner would NEVER credit me or try and fix the problem, if I still had them, I’d gladly get a dish. Actually, if I ever moved back into a TWC area, I’d get a dish rather than give them another nickel.
I will say this though. Never had a problem with a time warner service tech. They always did a good job and were really nice.
I do feel sorry for time warner customers that stay with them. After all these people around the nation switch to a dish, they’ll raise your rates to make up for lost income.
If the stock market wasn’t full of crooks, this would be a great time to purchase stock in Dish and Direct. See ya Time Warner, Hello Dish! You take away Spike and the UFC, I’m gone. Hope this is the death blow to your company.
No Colbert? No Daily Show? That’s blasphemy. They are two of the few shows I watch on TV anymore. I’m with Brighthouse, so this will affect me, and I’m not a happy camper right now.
btw that number scrolling across the bottom does not work. I called TWC and they lied and said, ‘oh we aren’t in dispute with Viacom and you won’t lose your channels.’ I’m sure they passed this explanation out on index cards to all the customer care reps and told them to read it exactly like it says. This was sneaky as hell and TWC knows it. I’d hate to be workin New Years Day there…I’ll keep their number on speed dial.
I am sick of people saying watch it online! I did not buy a 65in tv to watch my shows on a computer screen!!! I sit at a computer all day at work, I do not want to come home and not be able to sit on my couch and watch my shows. Even if you dont like the stations you are losing its still 19 channels that you will will still be paying for! its not like you will get a pay cut in your bill! My child loves watching dora and blues clues and now wont get to watch these shows. I will switch to dish! even though I hate it, it will at least give me some shows to watch!!!
It’s amusing to see people complaining ON THE INTERNET about losing cable channels.
See the above and below, SAG? And you still want to strike over new media?
People don’t even know how to find it. They would rather comment about how one profit-oriented corporation should be despised and how another profit-oriented corporation should be embraced with love.
Here’s the wake-up call for viewers: Viacom, Time Warner, Dish, Comcast, AT&T, etc. don’t give two sh!ts about any of you. You could die tomorrow and they could care less – as long as your cable bill is paid through monthly automatic debit, of course.
This whole thing is crazy. As an 18 year old college kid, I would say that 90 percent of the shows I watch are from Viacom. I have never had a problem with TWC except now and would hate to have to switch to something else just because of this. But I think TWC has a point. I do not think that the charge would only be 25 cents a month or I believe TWC would have automatically gave in. It must be way more…..Fucking billionars just want more god damn money
Am I missing something here??? All you people complaining that TWC should just “pay” the 25 cents don’t realize that “they” won’t be paying for it…YOU WILL!. What Viacom is doing here is wrong. They are running those messages making it appear as if it’s TWC is wanting to cut off those channels, when in reality it is Viacom who is pulling their programing. Some of you people need to stop being sheep and pull your head’s out of your a**es! I’m hope TWC sticks it out!
DirectTV, here i come.
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If i don’t get my daily George Lopez, nobody wins.
20% of my viewing time is not spent on those channels. TWC, dont give in to those high fees. Save me money. It’s a two way sword. Losing 13 million customers to advertisers will surely reduce Viacoms advertising revenue and they will be crawling back to get there service back on cable.
Goddamn these jerks.
I say we do what W.C. Fields recommended to end a war:
Give Jeff Bewkes and Summer Redstone each a sack of dung – stick them into a boxing ring & then let them fight it out.
The asshole left standing wins & the other has to back down.
Period.
Hey guys, we are going to take all the good channels and leave you with crap because we randomly decided we were going to be extremely cheap. Oh yeah, one more thing, Happy New Year.
AT&T offers a Bundle Service: Here is the information. I just switched. OH YEA, YOU BETTER SELL OFF YOU STOCK IN TIME WARNER-BECAUSE THEY ARE GOING DOWN!!!! TWC Sucks big ones.
Home Phone,
Internet & TV
NEW low price
$99.99
per month
Includes $10/mo. savings on Home Phone service when bundled with Pro DSL & 100% Digital TV
I only watch some of the channels to get my daily does of stupidity and that’s it. Good riddance, I say. None of the channels, save for maybe VH1, are what they used to be.
I think people are forgetting who asked for for more money. Viacom did, not twc or bright house. Who is the greedy party? If your ratings suck and your advertisers are pulling out why should you get paid more? And as a consumer if you were so unhappy with the cable service for so long why was this what made you switch? Satt is available everywhere and you can switch at anytime.
Good luck getting signal if there is a cloud 20 miles away, good luck getting out of your 2 year contract and I hope the extra you pay for ‘local’ channels really helps your budget. I also hope the ‘excellent’ customer service you receive when your customer service agent knows you have to pay 200 bucks to leave is worth the frustration.
You people are the same douchebags who yell at the waitress because the kitchen messed up your food.
And for the parents who are freaking out because your tv babysitter isn’t available anymore get off your fat asses and read a book to your obese children. Go play outside for christsakes and stop relying on noggin to raise your spawn.
The grass isn’t greener at the other corporations and they will slam you with rate increases and crappy service just like cable, the difference is they aren’t regulated by the fcc so you get screwed harder, the difference is that if they piss you off you get to pay them for the pleasure of disconnecting your service.
I am not going to pay the same amount for cable that I pay now while loseing 19 channels. I will go to Direct tv if need be. I am so angry by this. I have children who love Nick. and I like Nick@nite as well as other channels that we will be loseing. Lose them Brighthouse and you also lose us as well.
Harold, they might not give two shits about us as individuals. But when they lose say 10, 15, 20 percent of their customers you better bet they will give two shits then!
Screw them both.
if they could both just go away i would be more than happy.
is there anyway we could get rid of them both?
The answer, Cable is dead, too expensive, poor progromming get rid of the cable Snake and go satelite. If Time Warner did not own Road Runner were I live they’d have been out of my house years ago
Could this affect the Direct and Dish tv digital satellite markets too?
MAn this sucks. I watch Nick @ Nite every freaking Night. And I watch South Park, TNA Impact, and not to metion other things I watch once in a while.
Time Warner cable and Viacom better come up with a plan and fast I have been a TWC member for some time but my daughter’s favorite TV shows will all be gone, and that means so will I. I hope you all come to an agreement and both have a win win solution, because TWC will definitely lose a lot of costumers but Viacom you will also be affected! Come on “YOU CAN DO IT” LOL. I need my shows and so does my daughter!
This isn’t gonna last long. They can’t stand to hold out on each other in these circumstances. I hope they do away with MTV period, its a disgrace. Comedy Central, Spike, and Nickelodeon, part of the small group of channels watched in this household, and that is a no go. If this doesn’t blow over too well I might be switching to DirectTV.
“… I have had satellite before and despised it. If it rained 500 miles from my home, I lost service.”
—————————————————–
So true, if an important show was on I wound up watching it on the battery-op TV more often than not. And that won’t even be an option after January.
I’ll be sorry to lose the Voyager and DS9 reruns, though.
I think that the dish looks great about now. I think this is a scam on both sides and we are going to have to make up for the bull. I don’t need cable TV, I can just get cable Internet. this is so crazy to be doing this what is the cost of t.v. anyhow? It is rediculoius I tell you just crazy my generation had bata and VHS, you can buy seasons of what ever show you want now a days and I will be damned if i have to pay an extra anything for an already high priced service, what is really important in life? People are starving and these people want more money for t.v.? I hope Eminem writes a song about this!!! Peace out greedy jerks I hope you pray before you go to sleep tonight.
I have to say I’m pretty pissed off about this whole situation, and there isn’t much I can do about it.
I’m a fan of Comedy Central and Spike. I could do without MTV or Nick. I can’t lie and say I never watched them but now its mainly Comedy Central, Discovery, Spike, and things along those lines.
Being a college kid, I live on my own. Sad to say I tried to get DirectTV in my apartment but my building blocks the direction the dish needs to face so I can’t get any signal at all.
I’m pretty sure I wont get any sort of prorated amount or refund for loss of service. This all pretty much sucks ass, can’t lie.
I think it’ll all work out okay in the end..? TWC customers will switch if the issue isn’t resolved. And from the looks of it, TWC wasn’t that good to begin with, people were just looking for an excuse to switch and this is it.
Those are major channels, I’m really curious to see what’ll happen!
I am ever so happy I cancelled Time Warner and went to AT&T Uverse. Here in Ohio we have had multiple threats of channels going off TW’s network because they don’t want to neg. pricing. At the end of the day it’s expected that prices are going to increase, it’s called capitalizm people. Time Warner has this perception that they are too big to be bargined with and in turn push networks around. However, the sting of people going to other cable services is going to hurt sooner then later. It’s amazing that those of us who don’t have Time Warner never have to worry about our channels going away, makes one wonder who is the one at fault in these network battles that consistantly name TWC?
I don’t have cable, but I live in Austin and, as mentioned above, the same thing happened with the local NBC affiliate here a few months back. The rhetoric from TW is exactly the same with this constant repetition of how these costs would have to be passed on to the consumer… but if TW was so terrified of raising costs, why do they raise their rates ALL THE TIME? This will hurt them severely- the only reason I want cable is for Comedy Central. Buy stock in AT&T…
so are they getting rid of those channels on the comcast network? all i watch is the n, mtv, and vh1!
We should fight back, utilizing the world’s #1 information distribution medium: THE INTERNET. Myspace bulletins, Facebook groups, MASS emailing, etc. Let EVERYONE know of the TW tyranny! If we all leave for an alternate provider; and no one else signs up, at least WE will be the ones forcing their heads through the noose. Maybe their top execs will realize what they’ve done when there’s nothing to watch in the waiting room at the unemployment office!
this is a scam and setup by both viacom and twc which will result in us, the customer, receiving a higher cable bill each month. Just a way for them both to make more money. Who watches MTV now-a-days anyways? With all that garbage reality crap! The only channels I will miss are nickelodeon, noggin, and comedy central. Just another classic example of American Greed by two large companies trying to raise money in a declining economy.
It’s not about Viacom wanting more money it’s about Time Warner Cable wanting more revenue and not disihing out the cash to the people that provide good programming for them. I had Time Warner in Texas freaking rip off I’m paying less with Dish Network have a lot more HD channels and I still keep road runner their bundle packs are joke. I wish Time Warner would leave and just let Comcast, Dish, Direct Tv, and At&T U-verse being the only competition.
Time Warner is the DEVIL. We all know this. I was trying to watch the Dolphins/Jets game in LA this past Sunday and the picture was mosaic the entire game. The only thing that was clear was the commercials. I called and said they suck, so they gave me a $15 credit. LOSERS. I hate Time Warner.
A
I don’t know if anyone else has seen this but a scroll came up on the TV call 1800 762 3786 to complain to Time Warner Bright House Network 1866 309 3279. I live in Hawaii and this is the only cable company on the island… Monopoly.
This is over $.25…are you serious?! I’m not a TW customer but my mom is and her bill just went up like another $5 without warning. And now they are like cause we don’t want to make our customers pay .25….all i have to say is wow…what hypocrits! Now my baby bro won’t have nothing to watch cause of these morons. This is pitiful.
so long timewarner!!!!! I would love to pay Viacom anything they asked for just to get my dose of MTV…
We are TWC customers and I just called that number and it does not recognize my home phone?? TWC probably is blocking people from calling? We are in Port Hueneme, CA. Anyone else tried to call the number 1800 762 3786?
HMmmmm interesting….
I just seen a big black alert message across my screen tonight, called TWC and the customer rep said they didnt have any information on it and for me to call customer service tomarrow.
I said surely if this is major change you will know about it, because you will be getting tons of calls. She said they had not heard anything and had sent it up to higher ups to find out whats goin on.
This is the first Ive heard of it. So I decided to look it up online….
I will miss Comedy Central; CMT: Pure Country; Nickelodeon; TV Land; Vh1; Vh1 Classic;
I however dont want to pay the same price for 19 channels less.
BOoooooooooooooooo! Fix this immediately, or you yourself will be losing me as customer for all your services…. Tv, Telephone and Internet! I switched other services for less.
Holy shit america without MTV haha yeah right this will be resolved withing the first few minutes after the new year!
Well I’m glad I switched to AT&T uverse but can’t say much for it dad or brother who has time warner. Though everyone gets to view the black ticker at the bottom of all the viacom channels pleading people to call time warner.
I wish you people understood how negotiations worked. Viacom wants to raise their cost by 25-40%.
I think they are both full of crap I have brighthouse here in Tampa and I believe that America has bigger and more important priorities right now then wasting time over something that is contributing the a low economy in the first place. I am a 24 year old Marine Corps Veteran and Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran. Watching tv is keeping the unemployed from leaving the comforts of their homes and seeking employment, its making the population lazy and complacent. Its sad for me to see how much thought and effort go into stupid things like this and I don’t see the same care and support for returning Service Members and Veterans or even the fact that everyone could cancel stupid unimportant cable all together and start a foundation with that money instead that keeps American Families including active reserve and veteran service members from losing their homes to forclosure. Instead of complaining about unneeded priveledges start standing up for much needed living necessities. Semper Fi and God Bless to those that care.
if they dont resolve this im gone
hello dish
i love spike and comedy centrel and most of those channels to pay more for less yeah right im gone if not resolved soon!!!!!!!!
bye TWC all i can say stop be greddy on both sides twc and viacom!!!!!!!!!
were the consumers we deserve better than this !!!!!
Well I guess companies such as Time Warner and Viacom must doubt that all of us regular people haven’t had enough B.S. from corporations such as themselves. So….. Just as we WILL VOTE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS OUT OF OFFICE, AND HUNT DOWN ALL BAD GUYS AND PUT THEM IN JAIL. SO SHALL WE KICK THESE KIND OF COMPANIES TO THE CURB.
I WILL CANCEL THESE SERVICES IMMEDIATELY. I urge all of us to do so.
Cable a-la-carte, or pay by channel SOUNDS nice in theory. However, the theory will crash around you if they ever do it. You have right now a $100 cable bill, you have 100 channels, but only watch 5. Thus you say “Hey, each channel is worth one dollar. Give me a-la-carte you bastards!!” You think your bill will be $5. However, we have to factor in the basic connection, say, 20$ to keep a connection going no matter the channels. And one of those channels you want is a huge drawer, so instead of 1$, it is now 15$. Since not as many people subscribe to one of the other five, it vanishes completely since it cannot draw in as much money. And two of your channels no longer get new shows because there is not enough of a subscription audience to support new shows (since it now is impossible to entice viewers who simply have ‘cable’.
So now you are paying $39 a month for 4 channels.
2 of the channels never show any real groundbreaking shows.
1 channel you loved is gone now.
Of course, this is speculation, but, look at just how the responses on this board are going. So far only two or so people said ‘I watch MTV’, thus if all 100+ commenter have MTV, and suddenly only two of them did, those two would have to shoulder the rest of the 100+ expenses. Or MTV would have to cut back. Or vanish.
Now that said, those who are supporting Time Warner ‘protecting the customers’, do you believe they will prorate the bill for the weeks (or more) that they keep Viacom off their channels? Do you really think you will see your bill decrease by any amount of money over $.25 that might have been tacked on, IF the cable company actually forced their customers to pay the entire cost flat out? (I have my doubts of this, after all, each bill they make money, so, they COULD keep your bill the same, and their earnings would go down slightly.) Let us be honest, Time Warner will bill you the same no matter how long Viacom is off the air. They may even INCREASE prices. After all, if they will pass the direct cost of the contract onto the consumer, that means if this causes 10,000 subscribers to quit, they will have to pass THAT loss onto you, meaning your paying for someone else leaving. Of course, which company in their right mind would pass any increase cost or lost business directly to their customers if they are still making profit?
TIME WARNER CABLE SUCKS! I’ve been paying so much for channels that I don’t watch and they keep increasing the rate for sub par service. HBO on-demand and Video on-demand freezes up, got a new box and it worked for a while but the same problem occurred, stupid crap!
hahahaha I could care less if MTV and VH1 is chopped up and atomized! I haven’t watched anything on those channels for a couple years now, and I honestly can’t remember when I saw an actual MUSIC video.
But Comedy Central (Daily Show, Colbert, select stand-up shows, Spike (UFC, baby!), TV Land, Nickelodeon and Noggin I will miss although one can always get it on the interweb! or wait for the DVD.
Come join me on DirecTV. I switched when I got fed up with Cox and have never regretted it – better picture, more HD, and no ugly fights with content providers. Other than not carrying MyNetworkTV they’re aces.
I just called the number and was told the information being passed down to the customer service reps is the companies are in negotiation and no channels will be dropped.
The rep sounded surprised I was complaining.
I am very disapointed that both companies would let it come to this. My boys are upset at losing Nik, though maybe they will finally get some sun. As a consumer I just want to know if we will be getting a cut in rates out of this. I’ll be damned if I am going to pay the same rate…their internet speed sucks, high speed??? I don’t think so. Brighthouse also has limits on their bandwidth use! What am I paying for? Shit digital phone, crappy internet speed and the box went down after a month? I think we should all just dump TV alltogether and send them all into bankruptcy.
The most interesting thing to me here — beyond even two evil behemoths slugging it out with Average Joe American as the guy caught in the middle — is that these negotiations have been dragging on for “months” and nobody in the press found out about it until the day before the hammer came down. Just another example of how, when a few corporations control what we know, what we know isn’t enough to keep us out of the dark until we reach “Shock Doctrine” time — now, with this suddenl dropped in the laps of 13 million viewers, Viacom is far more likely to get what they want. TW should have leaked this much, much earlier — Big PR mistake.
TWC has lost its damn mind. First they think they can get away with the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced, and now they think they can just stop providing channels and people will stick with them? Only if they’re fools!
If this actually happens, then Dish Network should thank TWC because a whole lot of people will cancel TWC and get the Dish. I’ll be first in line, and everyone I’ve talked to has said the exact same thing.
GOODBYE TIME WARNER!!! Seriously think I am going to live without Nickelodeon or Noggin. Forget you people. Are you crazy. I’m calling Direct TV today.
I would prefer EVERYTHING on Demand. Why am I paying for 24 hours of service but watching maybe three hours daily? Put everything on demand and let the market sort it out. I imagine a number of cult shows like Firefly would have wound up living.
Tonight i turned on my tv, i am a comcast customer, and they are flashing an alert stating that VH1 nickelodeon and 17 other channels will be lost tonight and are flashing a 1800 number to call, same message states that bright home networks as well will lose the same.
Wow, just another example of corporate big-wigs not giving a rootin’ tootin about the people who gave them all their money in the first place. Time Warner Cable thanks for nothing, glad I didn’t take your contract offer. Hey everybody, now they care about a quarter increase, never mind the wait if your cable goes out, or the exorborant fees they charge, kids are now going to suffer because of one quarter. Thank you Time Warner, thank you, the executives that are responsible for such a SNAFU should be put on an iron maiden and fed to the killer whales!!!
I pay $70 a month so my 2-year-old can watch Noggin. If I lose that 30 minutes of peace when Blues Clues is on, I’m dumping TWC and switching to over-the-air transmissions and downloading everything else (legally of course, wink-wink, nudge-nudge).
I hope Time Warner holds strong and Viacom gets nothing more than what they already get.
They are trying to pin this all on Time Warner, and play the victim, yet just as they accuse Time Warner of not thinking of the customer, aren’t they doing the same thing?
I have 3 small children so you would think I would be more upset about it since it would mean losing Nick and Noggin, but there are other good kids programs out there, and we would adjust.
And you wonder why people are switching en masse to DirecTV. DirecTV’s Choice Package with HD for US$40/month offers over 150 channels of programming, plus all your favorite HD channels. Why get robbed by your local cable company with things like the spat between Time Warner Cable and Viacom?
Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike, TV Land, and Vh1! Those are like my favorite channels. Is Time Warner actually trying to lose subscribers?!!! Give in, Time Warner or we’re all gonna switch to Direct TV.
None of the phone numbers are working. They are all mysteriously citing technical difficulties. Orz.
Screw viacom. 90% of those channels are regurgitated crap. The other 10% are just crap. (Seriously, as one previous commenter noted, MTV is a far cry from its glory days and is now just filled with low-budget crappy reality shows. Who needs five MTV networks filled with junk, and four Nickelodeon channels?
I agree wholeheartedly that a-la-carte is the way this industry needs to go. Let the channels that CAN survive on their subscriber base do so, and let the others wallow and die. Maybe then I won’t have to scroll over 300 channels of crap to find my Battlestar Galactica episodes.
You Know,…
That DAMN TWC I’m Sure my family will be changing back to Sattelite or something else…
TWC can shove it up their ass to the fact that they wont show these viacom channels.
Most people watch these channels every night, day, and morning.
So they can suck it!
I just bought the new HP touchsmart which is a tv and a computer. All I do is hook up my cable wire to it. If i cant watch nick on tv I will go online with it for the kids. Time warner wont share revenues with viacom and vice versa they both need to grow up. Go online and watch your shows, or better yet teach your kids to read
Why in hell would they do this? They took a way all of the channels that kids watch on tv. When they don’t have school and are home all day in bad weather what are they supposed to watch? With no Nickelodeon or Noggin. This is crap and people need to leave Time Warner Cable.
Another reason why I hate Time Warner. I live in the suburbs of Cleveland and unfortunately all we get is Time Warner and we cant get satellite at our apartment complex. I wish it could go back to Adelphia or even Cablevision.
give me a break people, it’s 2009. not 1979.
I WANT MY MTV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have Time Warner for my Internet connection and just went on the Comedy Central website. A pop-up appeared telling me that along with TW dropping all the Viacom channels from their cable service, they will also be blocking me from watching Viacom shows online.
Bastids.
What the F*&K Chuck! This is going to go over like a fart in church, when I tell the fam no more of ur fav. shows. Duuuurn Lavuuurn!!
Although I am ashamed to admit I am into some of VH1’s garbage reality, Its Noggin and Nickelodeon that upsets me the worst. Namely Noggin. I have a 2 1/2 year old who is only quiet when she is watching noggin. She learned so much from this network, especially now that she is not in daycare, I thought noggin was heaven sent. I am so very upset..what are they supposed to watched now? Cartoon Network? If this is not resolved by the end of the week, I will be switching to a different provider. Hell, maybe I’ll get one of those damn converter boxes..what is there to even pay for anymore?
This is great! I just got DIRECTV YESTERDAY. Time Warner is horrible, I am glad they are gone from my TV. Too much cost, not enough service. Enough said!
JUST TALKED TO twc. tHEY WERE JUST UPDATED THAT WE WILL LOOSE ALL THE CHANNELS. THAT THEY DO NOT FORSEE ANY AGREEMENTS BEFORE MIDNIGHT.
OFF TO DIRECT TV I GO.
I can’t live without my mtv, thank goodness I can watch it online (:
I’ve hated Time Warner for years. Finally ditched them back in the summer in favor of DirecTV. I couldn’t be happier. When I call DirecTV, I get a person in a reasonable amount of time, which NEVER happened when I called Time Warner. And after 7 years of not getting Bravo in the Raleigh market, I now watch it all the time. (To be fair, Bravo will be available in Raleigh starting tomorrow — at the same time all those other channels go dark. Sort of ironic.) I love the channels DirecTV provides, I pay less each month than I did with TWC, and I get help when I need it. Time Warner will not get my business back. My advice? Send a message to TWC — switch to satellite!
I can’t believe that they would actually take channels like Noggin and Nick Jr off the air over this!!! These are the only decent channels that my children can watch where there is no vulgar language! This is the first time that I am kinda glad that I have Charter! If they pulls this too though, I’ll be switching to Direct Tv! I would just love a reason to get rid of this huge monthly bill! For the amount of money I spend every month, Dora should be performing here in my living room!!!
I would say that, hell, who cares about MTV? But most of our significant others tend to watch these channels. Then you have the kids networks. My son watches Noggin every morning. I have dish right due to my location now, but have always supported digital and had planned on going back when we moved. No anymore. I mean. Its not just 17 plain off channels. They’re all big names. I love having a digital connection, but have always been bummed out by the fact that dish has always had more channels. And most of which I watch when I’m at someone else’s house. Looks like I’m sticking with dish for TV. Verizon for phone and unfortunately TW for internet. I can’t do DSL. Besides. Who wants to pay $20 more for less channels when you can have tons more on dish?
I am switching providers today. Goodbye Time Warner!
we have TW in kansas city, and it has suxxed for SOOOOOOOOO long, anyway – and now they’re DROPPING channels?
i just got my end-of-year bonus check, with which i was planning to hook up the house back online – now, i guess we’ll go with everest.
As long as they don’t get rid of Bravo, HGTV, TVOne and SoapNet I’m fine.
Im a TWC customer, service gets worse, rates go up, channels were dropped with their digital upgrade about a year ago, they also used that upgrade as a way to rearrange channels to take channels away from non digital subscribers. Didnt affect me, I have digital. But its wrong. My husband has wanted satellite for a year, he hates TWC more than I do. Im finally on the boat with him. If they yank my channels or raise my rates, this ship sails. HEY TWC, HOWS THIS FOR FEEDBACK….EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR COMPANY AND SERVICE/CUSTOMER SERVICE STINKS & IS UNRELIABLE.
Who cares? Most of the programming on these channels is crap anyway. Sumner Redstone and his exorbitant carriage fees need to be stopped.
If Viacom can’t win this way (by blocking the channels), they will probably sue – just like they do everyone else.
Stop blaming Time Warner and look to the greed that is Viacom – the NBC of cable networks.
Good Morning all, I understand all the bad things that happens on these channels, but sometimes there are good shows on this channel like Nick at Nite…I love watching those old shows and Me TV the ones with I love lucy and the really old shows… I guess I will be watching a lot more dvd’s
We just switched from dish WHAT WAS I THINKING!! I was gonna save a couple of bucks. Now we are going to loose ALL the channels that my family watches? Dish here i come!!
Hey, Time Warner supplies internet service– that’s revenue. So they can’t say they completely don’t make money off these stations when they broadcast online.
All I have to say is, Hello Regulation!
This is absolutely ridiculous. I could care less about MTV. There’s nothing on there anyway. However, Noggin and Nick are the 2 channels my son can watch and actually are not filled with garbage!!!! Noggin is a savior in our house. Yeah for a channel that is geared toward little ones. Shame on Time Warner. We’ll switch to Direct if they actually go through with this.
Its about effin time!!!
Who needs all that bullsh8t tv anyway.MTV.. what crock !and VH1 and CMT. They used to be about music but now, its all about sex (especially same sex couples, not that theres anything wrong with that)and making them do stupid things, filling their livers full of poison ….. having to win retarded reality gimmics,.Theres nothing real about it! Its only a matter of time before NICK falls stupid along with the rest of the them .YAY TWC!!!!
Stewart and Colbert are the only reason I keep cable… later TWC, I have no need for a crappy channel selection on top of your already abysmal customer service.
Literally the only three channels I ever watch out of the 300-something odd that I have are Spike, Comedy Central, and Nick (at night). This is pretty ridiculous I think I’m just going to switch to some other provider or just cancel my cable tv altogether.
T.W always sucked. When they were adelphia or what ever it was. They sucked too. The hell with them. I have
WOW Cable,phone & internet with no probe’s.
My son like’s to watch all those cartoon channels there
getting rid of. If it was me I would drop T.W
ASAP.
What a joke. Viacom is painting itself as the poor victim by the big evil TWC. Don’t get me wrong, I think TWC sucks (I’m stuck with it due to where I live. No decent line of sight for satellite)but Viacom is full of shit. They’re doing a good job at pointing the finger at TWC for this but it takes two to tango and I do not feel sorry for them in any way. Sure “a penny a day” may sound like peanuts but think about how many people subscribe to TWC and how much that all adds up to. Greed. On both sides is what this is about and the customer is who gets screwed, naturally. Like Viacom doesn’t make money off ad revenues or have other ways to bring money in? Please. They are not the victims here. They’re manipulating the customers by placing the blame on TWC so that they’re flooded with outrage so that they’ll cave and give them their millions of dollars they’ll get from this increase. As someone above said, a pox on them both.
I agree with the first commentor. The junk on MTV and the others is unbelievable. Happy New Year Viacom! I hope you’re kicked to the curb. Increase rates for your junk TV? I think not.
A La Carte is a horrible idea unless you have some other {political} agenda. It would kill dozens of channels as their potential audiences dwindled and ad revenues dried up. Maybe even hundreds of channels. I mean, how much would you be willing to pay for The Food Network or Comedy Central? In order to survive in an environment where they only reached “subscribers” and not the whole cable audience they would have to cost a lot more than people think in order to make a profit.
When people read, like in the above article, that the bundle increase would “cost just $0.25 more per subscriber” they naively assume that is what they would pay in an a la carte situation for the same bundle. Hardly!
I hate the high rates of television service but would hate to have to do away with the variety of programming I get (until IP TV gets perfected….)
http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/magazines/fortune/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm
Forget the ADULTS who understand (at least in part) why their channel went away. I have a 4 yaer old who is going to freak if she can’t watch Noggin for her alotted time each day. NOT only that, I may lose my mind trying to explain it to her. Thanks again Time Warner….
What a bunch of cry babies!!!!!
Time Warner needs to DROP these looser channels.
I like Time Warner more than before.
screw viacom
OK, get cable internet. Watch all your TV on Hulu.com or whatever website has the shows you want to watch hi-def brodcasts now too!). Buy an xbox 360 (if you dont already have one) and subscribe to netflix (it streams movies through the xbox now) and then?
DUMP YOUR CABLE.
Skrew these asshats and their rate hikes for nothing. Prices should be going down right now. My solution will save you money in the long run and remove alot of the advertising your subjected to each day.
My children are heartbroken at the prospect of losing their favorite shows. Time Warner and Viacom need to learn to compromise and end this conflict.
I really cant stand TW as it is.
I had it a year ago, and they took away a few channles yet they raised the bill by a few dollars.
Im happy with comcast now.
Some of you guys just dont get it. Viacom is saying that this will only be a .25 cent increase but at the same time TWC is stating they are asking for a 22%-36% increase per channel. Someone is not telling the truth and I would lean towards Viacom because they are the ones losing money, not TWC. Is it a bad thing that TWC doesnt believe ALL customers should pay more for channels that have ratings that are slipping? Not to mention if they give in to Viacom, it opens the door for all of the other networks to ask for more money. Also, to all those people that say TWC should just eat the increase; if you had a business and one of your suppliers increased the price of something you used to make your product, would you eat the cost or would you increase the price of your product? Lets get real here people….
I just found out about this Viacom thing this morning and so did everyone I work with. The problem with living in Florida is that the Dish goes out every time it rains or we get a stiff wind.
I wouldn’t mind paying the extra 25 cents a month. Why doesn’t Brighthouse give us the option. Put it to a vote like they so many other things they do on their digital boxes
I personally could care less about the rest of the channels, but don’t take away Comedy Central.
Thank goodness I got rid of Time Warner a few years ago. I switched to something called Wide Open West, not the greatest, but I have tons of channels and options. Time Warner had been screwing with us for years. After being ripped off in monthly fees, then adding in new fees for renting their boxes, connection fees and poor customer service we decided to switch. Shortly after that, they stopped carrying a channel with local sports on it, we were SO glad we had switched then and even more so now!
I’m sick of all these greedy companies and their money hungry pocketbooks.. We’re in a recession for goodness sake…. Give us good honest service, for a realistic price!
I just downgraded to the most basic cable service $10 month for 25 channels. I still have high speed internet. My kids do not even miss their shows, we watch DVDs, play Wii, online content, and most shocking of all, get out of the house and do some activities. I recommend everyone try this once.
Screw you, Time Warner AND Viacom! You guys think you can play games with your customers and still have a business left by the end of ‘09? This was the worst time for THEM to decide to do this, because with the computer, tv shows on DVD, (without being cut, or tons of commercials), we don’t HAVE to have these jerks anymore. They have got to be KIDDING, if they think that people are gonna stick around to be pay for practically NOTHING. So be it. I’m fed up.
My opinion, both of these companies need to look at what crap they’re spending their money on!! How many retarded MTV channels does america need?? Get the shows with the best ratings and make it work on 2 channels. As for Time Warner….I agree with one of the other comments. What kind of crap channels are you going with here?!? I remember not too long ago you just took other “free” channels and decided to make us pay for them AS IF we don’t already!! Do you think I saw a change in my bill? And why aren’t they asking our opinions on this? We pay THEIR bills!!!! BOTH companies are being greedy dip sticks!!!
TW won’t give in. They forced NBC off the air in Austin, Texas back in October and it lasted for well over a month.
I sent an angry email to TWC, this is probably what anyone sending an email about this will get so I am sharing….
“As I understand, you need information regarding notice of dropping channel.
Please accept our sincere apologies for the less than satisfactory customer service you have
experienced with Time Warner Cable. Be assured we always have the best of intentions of providing
outstanding customer service to our customers, and we will do our best to address any issues you may
have.
Certainly we understand your concerns, be aware that Time Warner is negotiating in good faith with
Viacom Networks, we are concerned that
Viacom’s demands are nearly triple the rate increase under the current agreement and we consider
that to be aggressive even in a strong economy. We regret that our customers get caught in the
middle and we understand that losing these channels would not be in the best interest of TWC. We are
negotiating quickly to reach an agreement that is fair and equitable. We have successfully
negotiated contracts and are hopeful we will reach an agreement or obtain an extension. Please visit
the following link for the most updated information possible at this time.
http://www.timewarnercable.com/Carolinas/programming/channelChangeUpdate.html
We value you as our customer.
If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to E-mail us again or contact our
Live Chat at the following link: http://www.timewarnercable.com/CustomerService/chat/chat.ashx“
It’s just ignorant. Bright House and Viacom need to settle the dispute in court or in some civil manner. Taking channels that a lot of people watch off the air will just cause more loss of money for Bright House and Viacom both. In my opinion, the whole “I’m glad that they are doing this because the network is trying to get more money out of the consumer.” They are talking 29 Cents from each customer or something along those lines, CENTS.. 29 Cents I can find more than that in my couch, or on the sidewalk for christ sakes. I’ll pay the extra 29 cents to watch the shows that I enjoy watching . It’s just ignorant.
What you all fail to realize is this happens every year, to all providers of a clear signal to your house. Whether it be cable or satellite. Boo freakin hoo. Everyone bitches their cable bill is to high, but MTV/Viacom wants to raise it more, and ya’ll are bitchin cause TWC is fighting that. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Do you want to pay the bill or don’t you. You choose to have the service in your house, ITS NOT A NESSACITY. You complain about all bills being high, but you still pay them. I think I get raped on water, electric, insurance and others, but I still pay it. You don’t see mad controversy over the amount of money you pay for NEEDS such as water and electric!!!! And besides, who cares if you lose some crappy reality programming? MTV is for whackos anyway.
I cant stand Time Warners Greed! and of course they are blaming viacom. ( wanna see how much WE pay?
Personally no more mtv? good! comedy central? Keep it, but FK with spkie , tvland, nick, and noggin ( keeps the screaming kids quiet) and they are messing with the wrong person! We will drop them, like nobodys Biz!
So glad I switched to Verizon. $40 cheaper a month and get to keep those channels. TW sucks.
I am glad i have comcast cable for now. As far as the one comment on raising your kids without tv, lol OK good for you, now my daughter watches dora and other educational shows, not sponge boob.. and she knows more then most 5 yr olds, and she is only 2. she don’t watch junk. But as far as Time Warner, I hope they Fold. If Verizon Fios was in my area wich it is down the street and soon will be, i am dropping Comcast as well. Hope everyone that said they will drop TM for Sat. will do so.
What the hell are they doing? I dont watch much tv but when I do, those are the only channels I watch… If they dont fix this Im dropping them.
I’m getting really pist at Time Warner. I just signed up for the bundle as of Dec 24th. I’ve already gone 5 days without phone service because of an area “outage” and now they are yanking my kids shows. Seriously if this happens I will be dropping Time Warner very very quickly. Back to Verizon and Direct TV at least they provide consistent service.
Out of the hundreds of channels that we receive through Time Warner digital cable, the channels that are being dropped (particularly Noggin and Nickelodean) account for about 90% of the programming that is watched in our household. In other words, if this indeed goes through, we have absolutely no need for cable. This is absolutely ridiculous! Twenty-five cents a month is pocket change! It’s the change I get back from a dollar when buying a Reese’s PB cup at a vending machine! If this blackout persists, then it’s GOODBYE TIME WARNER! I’m not going to pay a ton of money for channels that I never watch!
As I sit and read these posts, I find it rather amusing at some of the idiots out there. Granted, some make rational, same posts, but some of these are unbelievable. A college student that says 90% of his viewing preference is Viacom programming. How sad! Here’s the real facts. Regardless of the fact that 80% of Viacom’s programming has gone downhill over the years, and advertising for their programs have reduced, they have lost money during this economic downturn as many companies have. This is a power play by Viacom. TW is not running that alert screen scrolling across the bottom of you tv. It’s Viacom using it as a bargaining tool to get more money from TW customers. Yes I pay $160 a month to TW and I think that’s high. But enough is enough. I will miss some Viacom programming. I enjoy watching Spike reruns of CSI and some of the movies they run. I will miss TVLand and the ruruns of Lucielle Ball, Andy Griffith, MASH, Bonanza, All in the Family and others. And obviously Nickeleon will be missed by my niece. But life will go on. Alternatives will be found. Viacom does not pay for the equipment used by TW customers. Viacom does not pay for the techs that come to our house and make repairs. With the economic times as they are, the last thing I want is for my cable bill to go up again. And it will. And unfortunately, with the loss of Viacom programming, I don’t think we will see a reduction in our monthly bill.
Just get movies from Netflix, or Redbox, or Blockbuster in-store pass or online. You don’t even have to watch anything from these big six media jerks. You can rent movies from Dreamworks, Lionsgate, Weinstein, Overture/Anchor Bay, Summit, MGM, Freestyle, Strand, IFC, Image, First Look, Shout Factory, whatever. You wouldn’t be able to watch it all.
We have the phone, cable and internet. Three years ago we paid 120.00 a month. We now pay over 180.00 dollars a month. Nothing has been gained in the package, but it keeps going up. I definitely will not put up with any loss of channels. When the switch to digital happens I will get an antenna again, and use my cell phone. Tired of the BS
TWC sucks ass! I’ve had horrible dealings with them for some reason. The only reason I haven’t gone to DirectTV already is that they keep giving me a month+ time to come out and install/hook-up everything. Plus I’m addicted to my DVR.
But even though I couldn’t care less about MTV since there’s nothing MUSIC RELATED about it anymore … I’ll say a permanent FUCK YOU to TWC if this happens. And I know for a fact many others will too.
Please not Nickelodeon – I have four kids – I will go crazy and they will too! PLEASE!!!!!!!
Does anyone know how much TWC is charges to carry Fox News? I heard is was $3 a month, which is more than all of the Viacom channels combined. Is this accurate?
well this will be interesting…..i had direct tv and i hated it, love my time warner cable, i’ve had no problems with it whatsoever….oh well, guess i’ll have to read a book or something. sigh.
Hey people
We need to approach this from a different angle. There is very little we can do to stop this individually. Reading the messages it shows we are divided. Some are willing to pay more, some will move to an another provider etc. However, all these posts are of how we individually will react to the issue but not addressing the real problem.
This is nothing but a game between Viacom & TWC. The real issue here is how much more $$$ they think they can get out of us and how much $$ some of us are willing to to pay. The reality is we are already paying to much. We should not even consider paying more.
The problem here is very similar to the Ma Bell/telephone monopoly long ago. That was a monopoly just as the cable companies are today. TWC is a monopoly and the FCC is making it happen. X amount of what we pay is keeping that in check. We need to unite together and force a change in the laws to wipe out the cable companies monopoly factor. This would result in competitive pricing, services etc. as different cable companies would be allowed to provide sevices in the same areas.
a few links of interest.
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/csgen.html
http://www.wetmachine.com/item/1385
http://arstechnica.com/journals/law.ars/2008/11/13/cable-to-fcc-stop-investigating-our-rates
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-13251067.html
http://resources.bnet.com/topic/cable+television+and+fcc+and+telephone+company.html
The FCC allows only one cable company in any area. Local government awards the contract based on bids offered by different companies. Any area where more than one cable company still operates was grand fathered in because both companies were there before the “overbuilding” laws were passed.
Lets work together to change the laws to our favor not theirs.
Okay can you guys wake up and smell the coffee, you pay through the nose on Time Warner and get shit for channels? Seriously dude! I pay half the price through Direct TV and get over 300 channels..
I heard on the news that Time Warner will raise your prices this year by as far as 7%. And you get nothing for that added 7%, now they want to take away the crappy TV channels on top of that, and what leave you with the free Spanish Channels?
Direct TV offers the best packages, the best deals and the best customer service anywhere. It snowed where I lived two weeks ago and I never lost service.
Time for people to wake up and dump their local cable provider, before you lose out in the end!
I think Time Warner is right if these guys want a raise so will the others and it’s guna cost way more than some 25 cents.
Kind of funny how my cable bill just went up almost $20/month due to the annual yearly increase. Why don’t they use this to pay Viacom?!?! Yet Viacom can go screw themselves too with this increase. I will get my bill prorated for the loss of these channels if they do not come to an agreement by tonight and I will not pay anymore to view these channels if TWC gives in. TWC is a rip off and I would switch in a heart beat if I had another option (live in an apartment and cannot have a dish).
I love MTV and cannot live without it. Better be back on by Monday for THE CITY!!!
Simple: charge whatever MTV wants, make it a tier, and then I’ll cancel their tier.
This is actually funny. I am a TWC customer, the channels they are taking away are the ones that run in this house all the time, between myself (southpark) and my kids Nick, ect. The part i find funny is that we as the view are the ratings, (you know the ones the tv companies rely so heavly on). They are charging us to watch there shows which translates into there commercials which is the heart and sole of there business. So there shows ratings are high because we like there shows, but at the same time we are the ones watching there commercials. Take away our viewing privage of there shows and we as a human race will do what we always do find other shows to watch. We set into a routine we find things we like and as long as those things entertain us we stick around. Take those very things away and we naturally search for other things to entertain us. Once we find those new things getting us to come back will be very HARD! So go ahead viacom and take your shows away from us. Give us the chance to seek new shows so there ratings go up and your advertisers go to them, then your mighty giant company will start to faulter. I know this will happen because there are other shows out there. We just dont search for them because we like your shows (for now!). In short taking your shows away is only a short time pain for us, We will search out new and better shows and you will LOSE us as a rating point.
Thanks for reading
we have cable vision. Is that owned by TWC? I hope not, my 2yr old will be beside himself without his buddies on Noggin!
Why make the customers pay? The real people getting the benefit here are the advertisers.
Here my solution:
TW – Admit the value of the programs and pay for them. Go ahead and carry the programs, but don’t run the ads. Back charge Viacom a fee for advertising.
Viacom – Have the advertisers cough up the additional $.23 if they want to have their ads seen on TW.
This is a win win, the customer still gets his shows and now additional cost on the bill. As an additional bonus the shows are commercial free until the advertisers cough up the dough.
I’m very disappointed in both companies. They are both being greedy and aren’t thinking anything about the consumers. If these channels do end up being dropped, then our monthly cable bills should go down significantly. My household watches Nickelodeon, Noggin and TV Land the most. All I can say is “Shame on you Viacom and Time Warner for being so greedy and not thinking about anyone but yourselves!”
MTV is crap now, it has been for at the past 5 years at least, what TWC is doing is making children suffer. We are all home this week, this is ohio there is snow everywhere, and now we have our cranky preschool kids without spongebob. Now I understand that they can play dress up blocks and not spend all day in front of the tube, but the relief it gives parents to make dinner or pay bills is insane. if they dont fix this…and soon I’m going to drop cable all together and get dvds from the library!
money money money. what the hell is the matter with this god forsaken country. they can’t seem to fix anything anymore these days. Okay MTV sucks ass now anyways people. it used to stand for Music Television. and now it stands for “who wants my cock in their ass”Television. it’s stupid. but hey my kids watch Nickelodeon there’s good educational shows on that. my sons learning Spanish in a fun way thanks to Dora and Diego. Stop being so damn greedy yes the economy sux ass right now and probably will for a while. but it’s no reason to kill off 19 channels that millions or americans watch DAILY!! But hey that’s true as long as Internet is in Time Warner can’t stop anything or get what they want. Downloading i think is gonna be bigger then ever i fear this next year if people don’t start getting their heads out of their asses. aww. Reap what you put off is what it’s always been.well i know i’ll cancel my cable soon if this happens. spending $80.00 a month screw that.
“I have Time Warner for my Internet connection and just went on the Comedy Central website. A pop-up appeared telling me that along with TW dropping all the Viacom channels from their cable service, they will also be blocking me from watching Viacom shows online.”
I think it’s more likely that Viacom will be blocking you from watching Viacom shows online. I can’t see any reason why Time Warner wouldn’t want you to be able to continue watching them online.
I don’t care that MTV is gone,it is a bunch of crap anyway. However, my daughter enjoys Noggins! What about Diego and Yo Gabba Gabba,she love those shows. I guess its back to PBS.I just hope TWC doesn’t expect the same amount of money for less service.
This really sucks…. im going to miss icarly… first trl…now this?….is like hell….
This really grinds my gears 75% of my favorite shows are on VH1, Spike, and Comedy Central, also I watch Nickelodean time to time so this is complete bull, I really h8 that these to companys cant stop whining and just strike a deal, is it really worth Time Warner to lose thousands maybe millions of subscribers, if this doesn’t settle im switching to Comcast, Dish Network, or AT&T
Luckily I just switched to Comcast, Time Warner has got to be out of thier minds, they going to have a lawsuit on their hands pretty soon.
I really hope things work out, if they don’t I will just have to use this to get out of my contract with TWC. It is a shame that many of the programs my girls love will be gone because they learn alot form Noggin and Dora.
I know my family will be fine without those channels but we still like to watch them. I got into a contract with TWC and it was a contract that included these Viacom channels. I imagine I should be able to get out of the contract since TWC will no longer be honoring it’s end of the contract…..
I guess we will see how things go.
i am angry because i just signed up with time warner about a week ago… i feel jipped. i’m losing 19 channels…i don’t watch a lot of them, but i’m going to miss spike! i truly hope that they compensate so i won’t end up paying for things i wont have.
At .25 per month at 13.3 million viewers, that equates to 40 million dollars per year extra that Time Warner has to pay. Who’s the bad guy here? Viacom for holding out to get the extra 40mil or Time Warner for not wanting to give in to the extorsion?
My cable service is already shitty where I live, Internet is terrible as well after 3 cable boxes, 2 cable modems and 19 stations going off my set I can happily say I’m moving to Satellite.
So I can’t win either way in this scenario. Obviously if TWC caves, they will raise our rates. Even if it’s just a few dollars a month it’s still a problem because our family budget has been so nickel and dimed over the last few months. Everything has gone up “just a little bit” that it is now to the point where something’s got to give. I guess it will have to be the cable.
My 10-year-old DEMANDED I get DirecTV (which he has at his other house), and six months ago I finally gave in. Couldn’t be happier with the service. And this is just one more reason why.
Cable sucks.
Surely in this economy Viacom isn’t asking for more are they?????
I am soooo mad right now my daughter almost started crying when I told her…this is so not fair im so gonna fucking switch I hope tiime warner goes underground
Judging by their press release, Time Warner Cable is trusting that Americans can’t do simple math: $39 million per year / 12.3 million customers = $3.17 per year per customer. On a monthly basis, this translates into 26.4 CENTS per month per customer, or roughly 0.86 CENTS per day per customer. These are approximately the amounts that Viacom claimed that the increase would cost Time Warner Cable customers.
Lol, people and their boxes. Well, the hip ones have got flat rectangles I guess.
I cant see this going through, for long anyways. Nickelodeon and MTV are too big.
i want my VH1 and tv land i take care of an elderly man who only watches tv land what is he going to do with out i love lucy. and logo my mom loves that one. the bottom line is we will be paying for this not twc or Viacom. all i have to say is if they try to take away HBO then some one will have to die…..
This really sucks! I LOVE Nick there isn’t going to be anything on anymore!!!
i am so sick of the cable company. In NYC (Manhattan) the only choice in cable tv is Time Warner. They charge a ridiculous amount of money in the first place. Now we will get even less. If they cancel these channels I am canceling time warner. I already pay too much as it is. The customers shouldn’t be in the middle of this argument. NYC- a huge city and only one service provider.
all I want to know is will Charter communications be affected by this foolishness, b/c i say it run across the bottom of the screen this morning, someone need to tell us something…this makes no sense, now what will we watch and or our children…
Lets see loose mtv the music channel that no longer shows vid’s or pay more? I say drop em. My kids are grown and I have no need for nic. These people sell advertising in the form of commercials then they want Time Warner to pay them for giving them a bigger market? It seems to me that Viacom should be giving Time Warner money not the other way around. For me it boils down to one thing money if it is going to cost me more money then I say no. The fact that the channels in question are ones that I do not watch makes the decision that much easier.
This is more B.S. from time warner , they are making it look as if they are the victims just as they did with time warner customers getting gipped out of having the NFL network, because the NFL wants time warner to offer the NFL network for free and time warner wants to scam you into there lame arse sports package ( HINTS CHARGE YOU FOR WHAT THE OTHER CABLE PROVIDERS GIVE YOU FOR FREE)…screw time warner , im so pissed right now, my kid watches NOGGIN every morning and my wife the stupid reality shows on VH1. we will be looking to get out of our price lock guarantee if we lose these channels, should of signed a channel line up guarantee. CAN SOME ONE SAY DIRECT TV. I DONT WANT IT BUT WE MAY HAVE TO….
I would like to first take a moment and personally denounce all of the “dish lovers” out there who are making an empty handed plea on this sad blog to all of the narrow minded consumers out there who have no life to switch to dish. Nobody cares about all your happy little plugs to get people to switch. You are nothing but a silly little bunch of asshats who would sell their soul to the DISH DEVIL just to get reception in Podunk, U.S.A. No one reads the fine print anymore, and as American consumers we owe at least that to ourselves. I HATE TIME WARNER….wake the f**k up people! It’s not Time Warner, it’s not Viacom, it’s the greedy ass people who work in the entertainment business as a whole is what this is all about. People are trying to live the American dream and will squash the little guy who doesn’t know any better along the way just to get their piece of the pie. It’s nice to see some people on this blog speak the actual truth on this matter, but the other 99% asswipes who think bashing Time Warner and praising dish or some other competitor who’s name doesn’t show up in the media as front page news almost every day is the way to do it. I as a simple consumer realize the TRUE nuts and bolts of this entire thing, and it’s called BUSINESS. Every conglomerate wants leverage, and what better way to do that than in the media. America, maybe we should all take a refresher course on reading the fine print in our lives. We might be a little smarter than the day before, you think? That is all, Happy New Year and have a day.
Time Warner: you are going down.
Babylon is arriving with fury…
Wow. I am seriously concerned for this country if so many people get so upset over something so trivial. It’ll get settled, it always does. In the meantime, play in the snow, or the sun, kiss a person you love, and enjoy the revelation that the universe is much bigger than SpongeBob, Brody Jenner or Jon Stewart.
(Besides, don’t most people find the use of a children’s character as a sympathy ploy for a huge company to be a least a little off-putting? Really? Bueller?)
If I don’t have MTV tomorrow, I’ll be cancelling Time Warner and getting DirecTV. End of story.
This kind of tactics have been usesd by Viacom and other conglomerates for years, It happened to Dishnetwork a couple of years back as well, while they are actually creating a buzz, and an agreement is imminent, it’s just a matter of when and how much,customer call volume will be trough the roof for TW; and an agreement WILL be set. It’s far from the end for any of this two monsters.
All this its actually an early awareness for your next INCREASE in your Cable bill! TW will get Viacomm back, Viacomm will get their money, and customers will now have to pay the price for it!!!
I have TWC and will not be switching to any other provider. The shows on the channels that will be removed are horrible for the most part. I couldn’t be happier to see the MTV channels go. Besides if I really want to watch a show from those channels I can always go online and watch for free. GO TWC!!
I think next year I go to switch to another cable provider.This is sad…
Yeah, how dare someone force TW to make fee increases — Time Warner is in charge of that all on their own and seems to do just fine raising their rates without outside assistance.
I dont really care about MTV & CMT & VH1, MTV has really takenthose & turned them into smut tv. We wonder why americas youth is so messed up! I am 30, use to watch MTV in high school when it started getting bad, it did have a small effect on how I viewed reality & how girls “typically act” or so I thought. I have two small daughters now and we never turn on MTV. But my girls love watching Noggin and Nick jr. CMT isnt music tv anymore either, even though I do watch it when they do happen to play it. do the math people, look at your guide & you will see that the country music television only plays a few hours a day of music, the rest is reality tv crap or movies.
Thank god GAC isnt with Viacom. I do think TWC is ridiculous though, their service stinks, I have them so I know. You know whats really bad? Ive had several of their honest service techs tell me when the have OFTEN come out to my house, that Time Warner doesnt say it but the technical issues are due to a system wide issue, that TWCs systems are all messed up. So go figure, we pay more for a system that they know doesnt work.
Oh well, I was probably going to cancel the subscription anyway, due to the lack of quality programming, now I will keep the internet access and dump the rest.
i live in texas where we have several different options. my girlfriend and i enjoy watching the sarah silverman show, southpark, and other shows on com. central and her daughter loves nickelodeon. we couldn’t care less about the rest of those channels. mtv has been nothing but garbage for more than a decade and vh1 isn’t much better. and i absolutely loathe country music. everyone i know with a satellite provider HATES it. my uncle always says that anytime a snail farts within a hundred yards of the dish, his service goes out for 3 hours. at&t’s uverse is not available in our neighbor yet and my girlfriend owes money to verizon b/c of an old cell phone bill. we have been very unhappy with twc’s customer service, pathetic programming options and pathetic VOD options for quite a while now; unfortunately, we are stuck with it for now.
watch tw will give in and pass more then .25 cents.
this is just a rouge. tw is “saying” that it will pass exuberant cost to the consumer. so when they do give in it wont be a shock when it hits the bill. i say just drop them if Tw caves for vicom its not worth it and besides
most of the programing vicom offers is garbage they canceled danny phantom! i say give them the boot.
are you kidding I think this is the start of something great for America.. maybe more folks will say the hell with both Viacom & TWC. I say lets all unite and cut or service watch free tube for about six months till they give us a fair product at a reasonable price.. Lets DEMAND ala Carte programming and pay only for channels we want! I got 200 + channels with only 12 tops i watch and I am paying 100+. I don’t blame TWC & Viacom but ourselves for being zombies with our mouths open and they keep shoveling the sh@$ and calling it cake..LOL
Hey who wouldn’t want to own a company like that…
You know, I am shocked at the lack of information some of you base your comments off of.
By reading some stockholder news stories via the New York Stock Exchange and other news sources, it is very clear that Viacom is pulling these channels by choice and TW is not blocking them. Granted this is happening because TW is not giving into their demands, so I can not hold Viacom solely responsible.
I will stand behind TW on this one, Viacom is asking for $35 milliion to $40 million more a year, well TW has about 13 million subscribers in their major markets (I will concede that I have not found their actual subscrber count), do the math on this with me, that is not .25 more a month. Some of you are already griping about $5-$10 rate hikes, well it looks like after all the added FCC fees, surcharges, and taxes, you would be looking at $3.50 to $4.50 a month, at best, just to keep 18 or 19 channels alone. (Some of these channels look like they will be lucky to survive this next year as well.)
Can you really accept this and then know that if Viacom is sucessful in this, this will happen with all other content providers? Rate hikes will go out of control. This would make it common place and then the effects would spill over into DirecTV, Dish, Comcast, Cox, Charter, AT&T, FIOS, etc…. EVERYONE LOOSES.
It’s not Go, Diego Go, it is Win, TW Win! Well maybe it should be Go Away Diego, Go.
Don’t even get me started with a la carte service, I am a big believer in costs are lower in bulk.
The only thing I can say is that who needs TV when you have the internet?
I personally haven’t watched cable in six months because I watch all of my shows on the internet and the only use my TV has gotten in that time is for DVDs, because those don’t work on my computer, and video games.
Maybe part of the problem for Viacom is that they have 5 MTV channels and 3 VH1 Channels! Most of the shows are total crap. How can you have good programming for eight redundant channels? Even teenagers think most of the shows are stupid. 19 channels and how many shows are standouts? Nine or ten maybe??? Why not break up the music, the kids, and the comedy channels into three different options and let the consumers decide if viacom is worth more money per month??? Maybe they will respond “I don’t care if I have my MTV!”.
Time Warner is a horrible company with horrible business practices.
Directv here I come
man wtf i need noggin for my little brother to keep him busy while i work
Time Warner sucks.
And I’m a 15+ year user.
I “rent” two of their cable boxes. When I have a premium service (like HBO), my reception is impeccable.
When I drop to basic, the “simple” channels such as CBS, NBC, ABC start to pixelate. No reason. And their service department says it’s my fault.
If I call to ADD a channel, they charge me $1.95 for making the phone call and speaking to a person. Go through the Web site to do it? Same $1.95 fee.
I do the triple play (internet, cable, and phone service). I locked in 5 percent savings for a year – now it’s a two-year lock-in. And if I cancel early, I have to give them the 5 percent back, plus a penalty fee.
But this news makes it just ridiculous. I am close to the point of cancelling completely and telling them to fuck off.
where can you go to get more cable companies to service in your area and who do you contact to get assurance your bill will decrease with the loss of 19 channels??
In the last week or so, I noticed Palladia on Time Warner HD and thought to myself, “this is a pretty good channel.” Live HD concerts right in your living room. I’ve been watching that at night almost exclusively. And now it will be gone. Comedy Central is a channel that I consider a “must” if you are going to have cable (been watching The Daily Show since it was hosted by Craig Kilborn), and watching Noggin makes my little girl quite happy. You’re messing with my family, folks, and I don’t appreciate it. I say let these two giants fight each other into oblivion and I will explore other options in the meantime. I’d love to take this opportunity to extend a well deserved e-finger to both sides. You suck.
Viacom is acting like a greedy, petulant two-year old. It’s ridiculous- they’re a media titan and they want to extract even more money from people who just want to enjoy some television with paying an arm and a leg to do it.
As far as all you people vowing to drop TWC- you’re all idiots!
Clearly, TWC is trying to save all our asses some money. If they weren’t, they obviously would just take on the costs and pass them onto us. But they’re fighting it. WHY? TO SAVE US SOME FREAKIN MONEY! OBVIOUSLY!
So if you’ve considered dumping TWC over this, go ahead and do it, you deserve to have a crappy dish.
If TWC folds to Viacom, then I will probably just eliminating anything but regular broadcast which I watched for 59 years with no problem, and it’s free!
While most sane people are reorganizing to face the down economy, it seems like Viacom is trying to fix any problems on the backs of their customers. If they’re losing advertisers, I wonder if it’s because they are losing viewers?
I am researching other cable options right now. They both need to work this crap out and I’ll be angry at both parties if I lose these channels. I love Comedy Central and watch Vh1 & MTV quite often. This is so unfair to the customer’s and I better see a refund in my bill for next month as well. Time Warner even stopped taking complaints on the phone. I’ll be going down to their office on Friday if this happens.
I have 3 kids and this REALLY sucks… Noggin is a wonderful channel with educational programing and none of the annoying commercials.
TW is our only non-dish option right now and I really despise the idea of having a dish.
I hope they get it worked out – for my sanity sake! I can guarantee our bill will not be more than $1 less per month if they don’t come to an agreement.
First of all, this is NOT Time Warner Cable’s fault, nor is Time Warner Cable being selfish. Viacom is trying to recoup economic losses on Time Warner Cable just as they did with Echostar in 2006… remember the two days of blank screens??? To those of you considering switching to a dish, enjoy being locked into your contracts when the same thing happens with Direct TV or Dish Network. Every service provider has an agreement for every channel, feature, and service they carry. Based upon how happy Viacom was when Time Warner signed an 8 year deal in 2000, who would have thought that they’d become this greedy when it came time for a renewal? It’s not Time Warner Cable’s fault that MTV is a garbage network and Spike TV rivals the shows seen in the movie Idiocracy–maybe this is why advertisers aren’t paying as much money for air time on your networks. If Viacom thinks that Time Warner Cable customers watch their networks 1/5th of the time, it would:
#1-be a foolish move to remove programming from Time Warner Cable as it would create a substantial loss in revenue gained by advertising as, according to the numbers above something in the 150 million viewers would be watching some other network’s advertising.
#2-in this economic hardship devert more money from hard working Americans such as myself. 25 cents per customer adds up when you look at the Time Warner Cable umbrella, ultimatly, the end user always suffers.
Time Warner Cable has built a business plan on current revenue. If you haven’t noticed, when something is wrong TWC fixes it for you without charging for the Technician’s Time, Gas, Etc. Time Warner Cable technicians replace remote batties for idiots that can figure it out, they reprogram tv sets after power goes out. If you want to complain about your high cable bill, you can thank every idiot that wastes corporate time and money with BS like that. Go ahead, as a technician what the wierdest trouble call they’ve ever rolled on — you would be amazed! The last TWC tech at my house told me a lady wanted him to shorten her extension cord because she tripped on it when drunk–What does that have to do with cable Tv??
-My two cents
for all of you that think that they will see THE DAILY SHOW and COLBERT eps online, think again!
I just went to THE DAILY SHOW website, and it’s going offline Jan. 1. Probably Hulu, too.
I think it sucks, but what can you do? Just pay the .25 cents and move on! I mean WTF? Too many families with kids who rely on those shows, will find it difficult to explain why these channels are gone.
My blood boils because I just heard about this YESTERDAY! You would anticipate that given the supposed several months of “negotiations” that TWC subs could be notified at least 30 days in advance if there are problems with retransmission agreements. If disputes can not be handled between the parties, have an arbitrator on standby to negotiate conditions for broadcast on fair and equitable terms.
What I cannot understand is that TWC has no problems raising rates each year by $5.00-$10.00 or more. So why are both companies acting like children over a rate increase of .25 cents? I hope lawsuits come out of this if TWC and Viacom can not come to an agreement.
Time Warner Cable is one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with. I am forced to use them because I live in a CO-OP that will not allow satellite. They constantly screw over their customers. Whether its messing up a bill OR not having enough Customer Service Reps working to take calls. Try calling 718 358 0900 on some occasions. You may bet a busy signal for 20 minutes straight.
Why is you guys turning off my shows and other people shows just for a contract or whatever.This is crazy,you need to stop this.Just one thing, DO NOT ANNIHILATE PEOPLE SHOWS AND MY SHOWS.Because we can be mad at you and other things.But remeber this we is the U.S.A., and we is strong and you strong too that means you have the power to stop this.RIGHT NOW!!!
Interesting comments from both sides of the fence here. The TW customers that have submitted comments about leaving because of this channel loss are the same ones that complain about price increases. I’m sure TW already pays Viacom about 400 million a year now, why should they pay more because their revenues are down. If TW’s revenues are down, who pays for that loss? No one! They take the hit. They don’t just raise prices because of it. The customers who have left for DISH or other satellite complain bitterly about their service, but fail to mention that they received better service and programming from TW. I’m not even a TW customer, I’m in the Cox area, but my friends in TW area all say the same thing, it’s better than DISH and way better than AT&T and less expensive than both. That’s the problem with these blogs, is that anyone can publish any amount of misinformation on a whim. Does anyone realize that .25 cents a month more for 15 million customers comes to $45 million dollars more per year, on top of $400-$500 million already! What’s fair here people?
The Viacom propaganda scroll running across the Fresh Prince of Bel Air reruns right now urges Time Warner Cable subscribers to “Demand your Nick Now” – a sad pathetic ploy to muster up some ’80s “I want my MTV” consumer rage.
Most of these channels are useless. If MTV or VH1 would return to music videos there may be a reason to care. For the kid shows, parents can pop in a DVD unless they think their kid is going to develop self-esteem issues because they can’t watch iCarly. Then the kid needs to see a therapist and not more TV.
It’s easy enough for me to find something else other than Will Smith and the occasion Jazzy Jeff cameo to fall asleep to.
Time Warner needs to take their Viacom savings and professionalize their operations. It’s like calling a backwater tow truck company, but only we’re in Manhattan.
Both sides (TW and Sumner) really don’t know what they’re doing either so it’s all a wash.
This Internet think just might stick around.
I, along with my two kids, am a big Wow Wow Wubbzy fan from Noggin. I could personally care less about MTV or Comedy Central, but Noggin is great educational TV for the young ones–no commercials, created by Sesame Street, you can’t get any better than that. My kids are frickin’ brilliant because of this channel. And yet, they’re willing to pull Noggin and it’s not the kids that will be suffering–it will be the parents!!! With the whining, screaming, and all out chaotic temper tantrums, I don’t know how I will survive the next few days when I can’t pull up their favorite shows!!! This better work out…for the best!
Wow, and I thought Cablevision was bad.
I’d gladly take them back in a second. TWC offers poor customer service, lousy internet, lousy channel selection…for more than Cablevision soaked me for in NJ.
Take them to the cleaners Viacom. The only ones of those channels I watch is TV Land, and I can get that programming elsewhere.
This is just rediculous. Viacoms programs are not worth all this attention. I am a fan of Viacoms shows, but I won’t pay extra fees because they want to act like tv terrorists. If TWC actually gives in to Viacom, how long before Viacom does this again. Yes, Nickelodeon has educational shows, but they shouldn’t be the reason that a perosn gives in to demands for more money form a greedy company. I am protesting Viacom because I am tired of being forced to pay for others to keep getting richer while I live paycheck to paycheck. I find Viacoms actions completely repulsive and will cancel my TWC if they actually give in to Viacoms threats.
Hooray Time Warner! Who needs Viacom’s crap anyways. I never watch ANY of MTV’s channels anymore it’s a waste of brain cells just flipping by them. NONE of them are about the music aside from Palladia and even that is getting more and more commercials everyday. I will miss Spike TV, Nick and Palladia and that’s about it. Viacom is just upset about it’s ratings decreasing but it only has it’s self to blame and should not pass on it’s woes to the consumer. Maybe if they had some decent programming instead of Jerry Springer type trash all the time thier channels would be of more value.
Both of these companies are being greedy and self-centered during a time of belt-tightening across the country. It’s just another example of the executives in the boardrooms drinking their own brand of kool-aid. I wish they would go ahead and broadcast these people committing hari-kari. It would be a very highly rated show.
Great time to switch to satellite.
Sorry to say the reason why everyone’s cable goes up is because all the tv stations are raising their rates so that they can go HD. Each HD camera is 80,000!!! When ESPN went HD they increased their rate to the providers by 33%! How do you think these stations plan on paying to go HD? By raising their prices, which trickle down to the consumer. I have Comcast – and I pay substantially more for it than Time Warner customer. Why? Because Comcast went ahead and agreed to the NFL station demands of higher rates. Viacom is trying to get TIme Warner to pay 39 MILLION dollars more than what they already pay (approx 250 MILLION plus right now). Who do you think is trying to gouge?
Viacom…. let them know you are not happy with them wanting you to ultimately pay more…. 1-800-516-4399
Get a video out cable for your computer so you can watch the shows online for free! Screw these big companies. Time Warner wants to convince us that we are paying too much? Why don’t you charge a set rate per channel based on what you pay to have the channel, big TW? Let me pick the channels I want? How about that? Too complicated? Then tell me I will be paying 20 cents a month more. If I am going to go broke on two extra dimes, I’m an idiot and shouldn’t be alive.
I can’t help but laugh at all of the people kneejerking the blame over to TW. I’m no big fan, there is no TW cable in my neck of the woods and I have had Dish for over 10 years. Which is why I am laughing. Recently Dish had a big hassle with one provider of content, guess which one? As a matter of fact, it seems that when big hassles over programming rates come up it is almost always from the lovely folks at Via. I’m not saying that TW is an angelic corporation with nothing but subscriber welfare on their minds, but Viacomm seems to really enjoy using this tactic to bully cable and satellite providers into whatever rate hikes they want by fomenting consumer outrage at the possibility of not being able to watch the reality drek that MTV has become or the next installment of drivel from Comedy Central, seriously South Park and Futurama reruns are the only things that get my set over to that disaster anymore and my set hasn’t rested on an MTV channel in something like 10 years since I like music and not reality shows. Not that some of their other channels don’t have some great programming, but they are not the keystone of channel lineups that they seem to think and their tactics only continue to work because their contracts with different providers come up at different times and the average person seems to have trouble remembering more than a few weeks back, so the fact that they do this regardless of which cable or sat provider they are dealing with, and regardless of the deals worked out with other programming providers is lost on the people who seem only able to panic at the potential loss of a short time of a few channels’ content, thus getting Viacomm their way and costing themselves more and more in rate hikes each time.
Who will be explaining to my 18 month old that Noggin is no longer available?
Greedy assbags. nuff said.
okay theyre both greedy and IM not paying extra for anything!!! i love viacom channels but they are trippin if they think that the US is not already in an econmic crisis! People need to stop defending these greedy corporations….i applaud time warner for not buying into viacoms bullshit but theyre still the same rich old men making money…theyre not hurting for cash….it amazes me that all these people are complaining about these channels but have these same people called up their congressmen to cancel these bailouts, and try to get the govt to do something about outsourcing, and try to help out detriot autoworkers???? DON’T think SO! how about you all suck on that and something productive with your pathetic potato couch lives!!!
Ha ha. So Viacom is willing to lose 13 million subscribers. I have TWC, and I don’t really care. Let them drop all the Viacom channels. I’m just waiting for FIOS anyway. Maybe RADIO will make a comeback. Where’s Stan Freberg when you need him?
I have been counting down till VH1 does the rock of love bus ..and we have 6 kids living here …u drop nick and we have a serious problem…sooooooo dish here I come if this isnt settled – guess I just needed a little push to go there and yanking my channels because of corporate BS just does not work for me
I wonder if the CEO’s are willing to take a paycut if it were to resolve the problem hmmmm….or maybe take whaetever equals to $39 million per year from all theyr employers..what $2 a month $3 a month…hmmmm I wonder….
The danger to TWC is people realizing that cable AND directTV isn’t worth it anymore. I just got an AppleTV and love it. Yeah, you have to pay for rentals or to buy a season, but from our calculation, if we dump TWC, what we save in monthly subscript more the covers what we’d have to pay for on AppleTV
Add to it the all-you-can-eat combination of NetFlix and a Roku box… wow, seems like TWC is starting to look like an outdated horse drawn buggy.
See ya.. TWC
Fuck Viacom.
Not so blind item of the day:
What clueless content provider executive’s office has gotten a bad reputation for *hanging up* on viewers fans & consumers calling to complain about how it & a certain cable company can’t seem to negotiate a deal that is worth only $9 million more than SAG will get from new media under the AMPTP’s ‘Last Offer’ ($39 million is in dispute between the cabler & the content provider while all the AMPTP companies are only offering 122,000 actors $30 million in new media residuals for the next 3 years (that’s $81.97/actor/year)?
To be fair the executive office of the parent company of the cable company is dumping callers to voicemail.
The ire is apparent all over Twitter…both conglomerates = EPIC FAIL.
I look forward to the change. All of the people disconnecting cable I will see you soon, as i will be by to turn off your service. Thanks for keeping me busy this year.
i am so pissed..
time warner sucks big time..this was the best xmas gift ever..thank u time warner…and now how am i gonna watch CHARM SCHOOL REUNION????…on vh1 with megan hauserman and brandi c? uhhhhhhh…i am pissed
time warner go to hell
honestly it doesn’t matter what you put here it all boils down to hiring our cable bills as if we don’t pay enough right now. you know what they say money talks and bs walks.
TWC SUX! Their shows Pixelate and they blame us, even on tvs without setboxes.
WORSE STILL ITS A FREAKIN MONOPLOY!
I spent all day calling other companies and cannot get any other cable out here. There is some kind of territory thing they (twc) are the only ones allowed to service my street ( area).
Directv which I had in the passed and loved now wants a 500.00 deposit to wire our home.
Dish ? they want us to buy these int’l euro channels in an effort to keep the cost down or sign up for HD which we have no use for.
Why doesn’t TW just make Viacom’s 19 Networks another tier and charge an additional 5.00 for those that choose to subscribe to that service.
MTV, Nickelodeon, TV Land et. al. They all lost their pizazz years ago. Let Viacom see who will pay for a premium tier. Then give those of us who don’t subscribe a prorated credit.
I am so upset… I love mtv… I watch it all the time. .and Spike tv.. its not the best but I love watching csi on it. this is bullshit! we pay enough money to get these channels.. why cant they just fix it and do something for us.. Im sure they are going to be losing alot of money if they dont. cuz I am gonna switch!!!!! SCREW THIS SHIT..
stop complaining about losing your “babysitter” ie, nick and noggin. Do what parents did when there were only saturday morning cartoons and play with your kids and spend some time with them.
Bottom Line………..No Spike TV, No UFC, hello VIOS and screw you TWC you dumb m****r f**kers.
Bad reality shows and bad music videos?
MTV/VH1 can go play in traffic. Don’t seem how people can blame Time Warner for this one. Viacom wants more money for sub par programming that cost almost nothing to produce. Get a washed up celebrity, some Ho’s and “Roll em!”
So long MTV, we hardly knew ye
I’m not totally sure about the details, but as a Time Warner Cable customer I would rather TWC toe the line than give in as it would appear the smear campaign by Viacom is intended to create a feeding frenzy to force TWC to submit to their increase…because Viacom knows Americans, and Americans gutting something out to make a point does not seem to be our strong suit (hence the people indicating they would be dropping TWC).
Giving into Viacom will do nothing more than lead to more increases, as time went on, as others will most certainly do it (and use this method of smearing the cable company) and the idea that Viacom is willing to cut their noses off (by losing the second largest cable companies viewers) just kind of appeals to me in this case.
If I read the above correctly, they are asking for a 22 to 36 percent increase, so that means the 25 cents a month would now make my costs go from approximately 1 dollar a month to $1.25 a month…which means that Viacom is making approximately 13 million dollars a month right now from TWC customers and they want to make 16.25 million each month from TWC customers…which equates out to making the 39 million dollars that TWC is talking about over the time of a year, so the math works out for what TWC claims…
To me, as tough as it may be, the best approach would be to not fall for the smear tactic by Viacom, let them lose 13 million a month and see how long they can go on rather than have TWC cave in on this because those extra quarters (when others start doing it) we would pay would start adding up as it is now.
If Viacom’s approach was to be upfront and just say that due to contract disputes, TWC will not be carrying their shows anymore, I would be more convinced that TWC is actually the problem…trying to lead us away to other carriers at the last minute, well it just stinks of smear to me and is corporate extortion.
I’m staying with TWC because I would rather ride it out, then cave in to these tactics used by Viacom.
Bottom Line………….If TWC drops Spike TV & I cannot see the UFC, hello VIOS. I have 4 boxes and my computer uses their modem. They will lose out on $150 a month from my household. They can go and f**k themselves those cheap bastards unwilling to pay Viacom what they feel is reasonable. Cutting your nose to spite your face, assholes is TWC.
I am a Directv customer. Even if I used cable for TV reception, it would not affect me because Charter Communications is the local cable provider, not Time Warner. However there are many areas served by Time Warner in San Bernardino County, California, the county that I live in. Time Warner even serves the county seat, San Bernardino. Personally, I never watch any of their channels with the exception of TV Land occasionally. Even TV Land is straying away from what the channel was orignally supposed to be (a classic TV channel) just like MTV has. More reality garbage is showing up on TV Land. Thank God that most of the classic TV shows are on DVD nowadays, inclduing the classics that used to play on TV Land.
I am amazed at the number of shills from both companies in here.
My vote is: it’s easier for me to switch to satellite than it is for me to switch the programs watched in my household, crap though they may be.
I can’t believe all these posts from dopey parents who fear for their children’s wellbeing without Noggin et al. Tell your little bastards that shit happens in life, and read a book instead.
I think you make a very good point Chris in NM. I think there two problems though: 1.) Most people just want there channels and don’t care about the behind the scenes 2.) I think Viacom has done a much better PR job. The phone numbers are running on all their channels and Time Warner hasn’t given out a 1-800 number for Viacom to call and complain. I have called to TW and complain, and I would gladly call Viacom too if TW would put the info out there.
Hey look ppl I am at work right now dealing with all your stupid remarks and comments! Dont call us we are trying to save you money call VIACOM 212-258-8000… They are the dumb sh**ts that want to remove the channels not us! they want 3.2 million more annually to keep the channels and you are going to call us if they are removed not to mention call us if they arent removed and we raise the prices so why dont you make a good choice and call them not us!
Look, people! This is VIAMCOM’s fault. They are completely and totally at fault for this, and they’re hawking Time Warner Cable customers to get riled up and demand, demand, demand until they give in. This is ALL in favor of Viacom.
Make no mistake, I’m not fan of Time Warner Cable, but this is ridiculous on all levels.
(And if Noggin suddenly ceases to exist on the T.V., my four year old brother and two year old sister will raise all hell!)
If this isn’t resolved quickly, add our family to the list of those who will cut service with Time Warner. We even have a bundle, but I’m quite disgusted with them at this point.
I saw the scroll on thier channels this afternoon. Frankly this is a bad time for a feud like this to take place. On Powerlunch on CNBC the anchors did provide some info: like Viacam would like to see thier subscribers to go see the content on thier website. But Warners got the ripping and they deserver it. I’ll be checking Direct TV to see if the channels have been removed. Now Warner Cable frankly screwed with the parents on this one becouse I bet thier some that are fans of Spongebob; personally I like ICARLY and I gotten to use the antics of Jake&Josh. But this is real stupid for this feud to go on cable carrige fees. Frankly cable operators should be examing Direct TV and other satellie providers who are beatting them in thier own marketplace. Case in point a few years ago the local cable operator dropped Fox40 which carried fox sports football;when this happen the cable operator lost out to direct tv.
Personally i could care less about loosing CMT, all those MTV stations and most of the others wouldn’t be a huge loss but I want my Daily Show!!! How am I supposed to know whats going on in the world without Jon Stewart?
In hawaii we only have 78 channels from TWC. If Viacom pulls, then we are left with 59 Channels, my Niece Watches Nick all the time, shes going to be bugging me for the rest of my life. But oh well, i feel sorry for the Comedy Channel. I say, Good Riddance MTV you lost your purpose, i dont even see Music anymore.
JCarson: AaronSch as well as everyone else in entitled to their own opinions. Just because you don’t agree with him, doesn’t mean you have to waste space announcing it. Get over yourself and your self righteousness. All others with potty mouth ,You know who you are, keep the filthy language in your house and not on a website where others have to see it.
Nuff said on that.
Viacom: Wake up and smell the coffee! No one in their right minds will agree with your idiocracy. Oh I only want billions of customers to line our pockets some more so I can have a mansion to stay at while on vacation. Consumers are not stupid and can smell a rat a mile away. We all know you are the greedy one who wants to get rich off of the consumers, and we aren’t falling for it.
Time Warner and other companies willing to stand for the consumer: Encore! Tell Viacom where to stick their shows! Don’t let a multi billionaire company push us around. We can always watch online or rent from the video store.
Of course there will be the ones who switch to satellite etc, but they are only giving into the greedy companies.
Don’t get me wrong: Many will suffer because of this but pleas remember who the greedy one is, Viacom!
Special note to Viacom, if you want more money make it worth it and get rid of all those stupid commercials. Really does anyone like watching commercials? When cable first came out people subscribed to it because there were no commercials, now customers have to watch just as many as those watching analog TV.
My opinion? I think the End is here. All we know and trust is falling apart under us. Believers know exactly what I am talking about! Watch for the signs!
STUPID STUPID STUPID customers as if you would be more happy over with dish or without cable. So what they are taking off the air MTV…., Vh1…., Nickelodeon. Better for you might be time for those good new year resolution to be made a reality. GET OFF YOUR FAT ASSESS and go for a walk, spend more time with your kids that watch toooooooooo…… much Nickelodeon, educate your minds because its tv NOW next it will be your PATHETIC jobs on the line. SO STOP YOUR VICTIM CRIES FOR ATTENTION and get off your lazy assess.
FROM AN EDUCATED Latina that does not give a shit about how many channels I get, I will just find something to watch regardless of what channels comes through my cable box!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cables too high now……….. just another ax
Happy new year to you all wise guys!!!
If VIACOM can push TWC to increase the fees by 35 millions, then VIACOM will also increase their fees to other cable companies, Dish/Sattelite, and FIOS.
Then other programming company will do the same. Obviously we all then have to pay more money for our cable bill.
Now, WHO WIN? VIACOM and TWC.
WHO LOSE? YOU AND ME!!!!
You guys should have learned that when our economics chaos, the winner are corporates (BOA,CHASE,other countries that sell gasoline to us, etc…)and WE ARE THE LOSER!!!
VIACOM can easily playing a hard ball because of the demand. And can cause a chain reaction that causing other programmings inc to increase their price as well using the same strategic that VIACOM is now using.
The MTV rate is getting lower because we have many channel options now. MTV is available online….too.
Use YOUTUBE and select which ever you want instead of waiting them to be aired.
My internet from TWC is fast with reasonable price.
I’ll keep this service!
Just signed up for DirectTV. I had about 60+ channels with TWC for $108 per month, now I’m looking at 200 channels for $50 per month. Thanks for sucking so loud that it got me off my butt Viacom (and TWC). I think they should both be ashamed of raping the American masses.
That’s ok I will watch online and hook my tv up to my computer.Time warner can kiss me where the sun doen’t shine. LOL
Negotiations still ongoing …
http://twurl.nl/mytgu5
its 12:07 and nickelodeon is still on? whats the deal
well… its past 12 and they’re not cancelled. yet….
As of 12:24 AM Eastern standard time on January First, 2009, I still have comedy central, MTV, Nick, and all associated channels on my local TWC subscription in north central NC, did they come to a deal, or is this 12:01am in say… the pacific time zone, in that case, the east coast wouldn’t be blacked out until 3am.
they reached a deal. yay! now i can watch charm school reunion and my 3-year-old can watch imagination movers. sweet.
Where does this end? Everytime a company wants more money, is TW just supposed to pay and increase rates?
I agreed with the NFL network decision and I agree with this one.
I’m not getting my raise this year and neither should viacom. I have 1300 DVD’s to watch till they work this out.
NO SPONGEBOB! NO vh1, no stand up, futurama or south park, no MADE, or TRUELIFE, BUT SERIOUSLY its an apocalypse I mean……………………NO SPONGEBOB!?
ugh, this angers me. There is no way i will over go back to directv, they say 99% of the time your tv will not go out, pshhh…. during a wind storm or even a cloudy day, turn on the tv and all your hear is, beep beep beep, until five hours later it comes back on. i like time warner because of the free hd, and although directv hd has more channels, no way am i paying an extra 9.99. I have time warner bundled with phone and internet, only pay $119.99 for life. Directv was $59.99 plus tax just for TV, phone (AT&T) $38.99 plus $44.99 for dway satellite internet. uhhh i think i have a good deal. basically i’ll pay an extra dollar for my shows. just so i dint have to go back to satellite!
p.s. north east ohio, bad satellite reception
According to ABC, Time Warner Cable and Viacom just reached a deal that would prevent a 19-channel blackout. The link is here: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/business&id=6580151. Details have not yet been released.
It’s all worked out:
http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn
We wanted to change to dish when they offered it to us not too long ago, but we didn’t. Then we heard TWC was going to raise their price again. Now this whole ridiculous business with passing the paying of channels on to us, therefore another rise in price. Thanks for a last straw.I find it strange they both cant see the losses they will have when a lot of people just say to heck with it and drop them all. Oh and thanks for making everything digital before hand so one cant even have what ever they cold catch from the air any more. Way to be a super douche.
u know its stunts like this in the old cable industry that makes them lose thier customers. Both deserved to the feel the wrath of O’Reilly in my opioin.Now could a channel blackout happen again? think about it.
Remember when a mind was a terrible thing to waste? Oh well, I guess the hope that there would be a reprieve from the polluting of America’s youth won’t come to pass afterall. It’s back to J-E-L-L-O.
This affects all U.S. Time Warner cable subscribers including those in New York and Los Angeles.
and
TWC Subscribers Don’t Lose Viacom’s MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon & Comedy Central In NY, LA, Everywhere
Nice of Nikki to remember that there’s more to the country than just New York and LA. Or do the NY/LA people need reminding that they are part of “all [the] U.S.” and “Everywhere”?
WHO CARES, WHO CARES, WHO CARES?
WHO CARES, WHO CARES, WHO CARES?
I DON’T GIVE A SHIT.
I DON’T GIVE A SHIT.
WHO CARES, WHO CARES, WHO CARES?
hey AaronSch-
boy are you a narrow minded idiot. You think TV is the reason America’s youth is messed up? SpongeBob? Really? Wow man, you got kids? This is about customers having to pay for bad corporate decisions. I am already a customer and nothing you post is going to change the fact that I like my cable TV. This IS America, right? I DO have choice don’t I? Why don’t you go to Canada or some other revolution conspiracy meeting or whatever it is you think the answer is and the rest of us will stand up for our rights as Americans. Just remember to look over your shoulder cause Bret Michaels rock of love might hinder the enlightenment. If only people would listen to you, our nation would be fixed as a whole! HAHAHAHA
This same thing happened a few years ago with Viacom and Dish Network. I wrote to Dish Network thanking them for not giving in and charging all customers more money immediately. I told them I’d be fine without the Viacom channels. Then I wrote to Viacom and told them I hope Dish doesn’t pay them because I don’t want their networks anyway. I can watch Colbert and Daily Show online.
Greedy corporate America is what this is. And anyone who threatens the cable company over this is just telling them they’re willing to pay more money.
Screw Viacom! I’m sick of paying for all these channels I don’t even watch. Now they want more money. Greedy bastards. They probably send it all over sees to you know where anyway.
Go TWC! Stick it to them!
To twc employee: who started the feud between Warner Cable and Viacom inc? Who threw the first punch is what I like to know.
Bottom line is viacom was greedy time warner did not want to up the price of cable to its customers and in these times of economic hardship I say god bless them for standing up for us even tho the thught of my daughter mourning the loss of wubzy and dora was quite scarry, I am glad they were able to reach and agreement and I am also glad that cable is not going to cost 3x what we were already paying!