 PolarBear03The bear formerly known as aaron8301Premium
join:2005-01-03 | Why did they need to at all? Since they ended up renegotiating the contract before they pulled the channels anyway (as they pretty much knew they would since in my time I've never heard of Viacom actually pulling all those channels from a major provider), all they managed to do was alarm a bunch of subscribers unnecessarily.
Not only that, they weren't JUST notifying viewers that the channels were going to be pulled, but also implying it was TWC/BH's fault by asking viewers to call TWC/BH and complain. As I said before, notice they weren't putting up their own number? They didn't even mention their own name (a lot of viewers don't realize that Viacom owns all those channels).
I think that TWC should be able to sue Viacom for defamation. They did a good job making TWC look really bad, simply because THEY (Viacom) wanted a huge increase.
If I went around as a sat installer doing shitty installs and telling customers it's DirecTV's fault that the install sucks so bad simply because I wanted a raise and they wouldn't give me one, I guarantee you DirecTV would fire my ass. The only difference is DTV could get a new installer to replace me. TWC can't get MTV, Nick, and Comedy Central from somewhere else.
That still doesn't mean they should have to tolerate the badmouthing, though. Viacom should give up their right to even ask for an increase after that smear campaign. If I went around telling my customers that DirecTV sucks, I certainly wouldn't expect a raise. |
| Dream on.
It's just business as usual. Viacom presented the facts. There's no defamation. Both of them were playing an elaborate game of chicken.
It's not like this hasn't happened before. Charlie Ergen ALWAYS has fights with programming providers, which is why DISH keeps dropping channels from time to time and then picking them back up. |
