Time Warner/Viacom Rift Healed, Pending Details 75
jwilcox154 writes "Yesterday a dispute over fee hikes had threatened a damaging blackout at a minute past midnight Thursday that would have prevented TWC subscribers from watching their favorite shows such as 'SpongeBob SquarePants' and 'The Colbert Report.' The two sides reached an agreement on Thursday, the first of January 2009. The companies stated the terms of the deal were not disclosed. Details must still be finalized over the next few days."
Commercial revenue down thanks to DVR (Score:4, Insightful)
Now its time for an alternative source of revenue. Unfortunately we are the ones who are going to pay for it as Time Warner and others have shareholders to meet and need to raise the price.
Thank god I do not watch TV that much anymore thanks to the internet. Maybe that is a good thing as some tier packages are approaching $100 and its ridiculous.
People unfortunately will pay big bucks for entertaining as witnessed from cell phones and TV packages. So why not charge more?
Re:Torrents, Usenet Binaries, Rapidshare, mIRC.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect it'll happen as soon as the content providers (like Viacom) do the same and stop forcing companies like TW to take all 20 channels even if they (or their customers) only want 10 of them.
IOW, TW can't give you á la carte because Viacom doesn't make it reasonable to do so, or doesn't allow it at all. Viacom will get $2.25/subscriber/month regardless of whether all the subscribers take 1 or 20 of the Viacom channels. So why bother with the extra overhead of letting the subscriber choose when it doesn't reduce any costs for TW?
Subject (Score:5, Insightful)
"The companies stated the terms of the deal were not disclosed."
I'll field this one. Viacom extorted a shitload out of TWC for the privilege of keeping the channels. For its part, TWC has agreed to rape its customers with even less lube to make up the difference.
Need more alternative channels (Score:2, Insightful)
I never watch MTV - no more music videos, instead FAKED SCRIPTED(reality?) shows and contrived pc interracial multicultural dating shows.
It would be nice if there were alacarte.
Or even new shows NOT owned by one of the few production companies out there. Where is the variety?
In the end cabletv will die out with real fiber to home internet access which is affordable.
icravetv.com (Score:4, Insightful)
TWC should only have to charge people for the pipe not the content. We watch commercials to pay for the content. I understand paying for premium channels but paying for ad-laden channels that fill most of cable is ridiculous.
BTW I seem to remember that one of the networks had icravetv.com shutdown prior to the super bowl because it would diminish the value of the event. I don't know how letting everyone who wants to watch commercials hurts you but then again that's my whole point.
Re:A red new item? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this is interesting in you really can't tell who has who by the balls.
My first reaction is Viacom has the upper hand. Nobody subscribes to cable TV to watch the carrier signal. No content means no customers, and Viacom was holding enough of the big channels that cable would be useless to most people without them. But then, with cable companies holding monopolies so often, cutting off Time-Warner means Viacom cutting themselves off from those markets for viewers.
If there were more cable companies available it wouldn't be an issue for Viacom. The customers would shift to the companies they were still carried on, and that would give Viacom extra leverage against those other companies at contract renewal, too. But here it's play ball or take what they can get from satellite subscribers, and the way smaller cablecos keep getting swallowed up by Cox, Time-Warner, and Comcast only makes it worse.