Major cable company losing major channels but yet calling ours

[MoonChild2007]

I am sure everybody knows this by now but a major cable company is losing some of the major channels such as MTV , noggin, etc. I am sure this company will be swamped with calls from angry customers but I am not understanding why customers who have cable at my employer, insist on calling us about it. Our call center went up to about 500 calls mostly about this issue. It even says that on the scroll on the bottom of the screen, X COMPANY CUSTOMERS, CALL THIS NUMBER but yet they call us.

Its not sucky but I have had one woman ask me how long this scroll is on for. I ask her I do not know.

Oh well, doesn't affect me either so I'm cool.

[Bella_Vixen]

For example, Spike was off for most of the day today.

As in, it was off at some point this morning, and didn't come back on til sometime late this afternoon.

Mom was pissed because she missed her Grissom marathon.

Good thing she has all 8 seasons on DVD.

[JLRodgers]

Sadly the town (that our "local" channels come from) is affected by that as well so we keep on seeing the stupid banners on them (and ads, which doesn't make sense as it doesn't affect our cable company). We keep on seeing all the "these stations will be dropped!" even one of our local stations is wanting to be paid money for all the cable viewers (but not satellite viewers.... it "almost" makes a person wonder why - until you see the affiliate link to the satellite company on their website).

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Q!

Viacom, who tripled their licencing rates, resorted to goomba extortion tactics in order to strongarm money out of the cable companies by making it look like greed on the part of the cable companies was the reason for the whole mess.

Basically, this is a paraphrase about how it went:

Viacom: Well, we've got some fines to pay for some unethical practices we did in the recent past, an'd ya'lls contract came up first. So we're tripling our fees. Pay up or else.

Cable: What? Are you kidding? Our customers cant' afford a rate increase right now. We can't pay that! Our customers can't pay that, either, we're in a recession!

Viacom: Fine. Your customers have no clue how cable works, they'll just think it's all you guys. Eveyone loves to hate the cable company. Hey everyone, the Evil Cable Companies are taking off 19 of your favorite channels because they are being greedy! Swamp them with phone calls and protest!

So there you have it. Channels are on this morning, so I can only imagine that the cable companies caved. Which kind of annoys me, because I would rather bleed my own blood than have a bully succeed in bullying someone.

We read this morning that if cable didn't cave on this, then Viacom was going to start running ads featuring Dora the Explorer, saying how greedy the cable companies are. Nice.

That's like me going in to buy a steak, saying "man, prices are too high today, I can't afford that." and the grocery store going, "Oh, you aren't buying today? Hey, everyone, Kink is going to go home and eat some babies because she's too damn cheap to buy a steak! Lets send a flash mob over to her house!

[Dreamstalker]

Both my mom and I have had fairly recent occurrences with our cableco where a given channel will be "not authorized" for a good part of the day, only to come back at night. We have the same provider (the service leaves a lot to be desired at times, but they're a monopoly in our neck of the woods).

[Pagan]

We've got sort of the same thing going on, but not with cable.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/s...s,667041.shtml

Thing is, this isn't the first stunt that "Q" has pulled involving NM. That I know of, they have had to issue refunds to all customers in the state twice and have been on the verge of getting kicked out of the state for years.

I just wonder why they keep it up (although this one affected not just NM this time) because every time they pull something in NM the Public Regulation Commission pops 'em for it.

This also cut off service for some emergency services, too, which I thought was illegal.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I don't work for Q, but it probably ain't Q's idea to cut services. It causes an ENORMOUS headache, loss of customers, etc, to do stuff like that.

It's probably the same thing...NM gouging Q with outrageous licencing fees, sticking them between a rock and hard place. Q either raises their rates...pissing off customers...or dropping services....and pissing off customers. They can't win.

Remember, these sorts of companies, Q and the like, are just middlemen. They buy product, and get it to the consumer. If they can't get their hands on the product, they can't get it to the consumer. But since they are the guy you get your bill from, that's who gets jumped on.

[Rapscallion]

There was something during last year where a major provider jacked up prices to a major distributor - the distributor told them to take a running jump. When billboards go up with each vaguely slagging each other off, you know it's got dirty.

Rapscallion

ETA - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11...nel_agreement/ for more details

[Chromatix]

Reminds me of this: http://www.eatliver.com/bmw-audi-subaru-bentley/

[wraiths_crono]

Uh i work for AT&T Uverse, and we were getting emails about how to handle the situation: 1. ask the cu exactly what the member saw on the screen 2. remind them AT&T is NOT affected by this change.


still 108 calls in Q.

[Pagan]

It's probably the same thing...NM gouging Q with outrageous licencing fees, sticking them between a rock and hard place. Q either raises their rates...pissing off customers...or dropping services....and pissing off customers. They can't win.

Remember, these sorts of companies, Q and the like, are just middlemen. They buy product, and get it to the consumer. If they can't get their hands on the product, they can't get it to the consumer. But since they are the guy you get your bill from, that's who gets jumped on.

Yeah, but you don't know the history Q has in this state. The reason that they've had to give at least two refunds to all customers in the state is because of them not improving basic service in the state that they were supposed to do in the first place. This has nothing to do with Q being a middleman.

This is what was going the last time: http://www.redorbit.com/news/technol..._in_stalemate/

They seem to think that they can just jerk us around because we're a small (population), poor state.

[PepperElf]

we had something similar happen to cable where my family lives... but with a local channel and not a major network. i forgot over how much money but the local channel had a fight with the cable network over the contract and money... and didn't settle before the deadline. so the cable network lost the channel for a good month or so.

sis kinda laughed when she went to work cos she didn't have cable... so she still got the channel. but she was nice and recorded the shows for her coworkers until the cable company reached an agreement.