I've been hearing for weeks about the AMC/Dish kerfuffle, and now this.

Makes me glad my cable provider is my city. Not a single issue with subscription fees.

Earguy: Yeah, well we're also Daily Show/Colbert Report free, which sucks.

Well, go to the Comedy Central website and watch it for free.

extroverted_suicide: rudemix: Colbert and Stewart are in the second week of a two week vacation anyway.

Jesus Christ, again?! They take more vacations than GW Bush and Obama combined!

/occasional viewer, not a regular viewer

I don't think they'd been back from the last vacation more than two months before this one.

Is there a way to get all the programming that comes on channels such as Science Channel, Discovery, History, etc. etc. without having to go with friggin' Charter or the satellite slime AND without having to have some kind of game console? This whole thing grows confusing for me. And about as quickly as does my damned Charter bill.

Gabrin_Kinoda: ihatedumbpeople: Gabrin_Kinoda: The kids were watching, well, *attempting* to watch Spongebob on Nick while I was making dinner last night. Attempting, because the screen was filled with two crawlers--one from Viacom and one from DTV. The Viacom one said basically "we're only asking for a few cents more per customer," while the DTV one proclaimed, "Viacom wants $1 billion more!". It was quite funny to watch the 'battle of the crawlers' take place over Spongebob's face.

The best part was when "pro viacOm" commercials would start and get abruptly interrupted

Hmm, guess I missed those.

Hubby and I have been looking for a reason to drop DTV for a while now, and this may be the proverbial straw. Kids can watch Mr. Squarepants and iCarly on Netflix. I'm tired of paying $82 a month for the 10 channels that we actually watch.

It was during a rerun of tosh.o last night...a few seconds into the "DIRECTV WANTS MORE MONEY!!!!" commercials it'd cut off and go to another suddenly. Did it more than once, so not accidental

NickelP: NutWrench: Folks who can't imagine life without cable should buy a cheap antenna, hook it up and see how much stuff is broadcast over the air for free. I live in a fairly rural area and get 12 digital channels, most of them in HD.

I never realized how much time (and money) I was wasting before I cancelled cable.

I'll second this. Spend one month of your cable/sat bill on buying a roku box and get netflix/hulu plus for like $16 a month combined and you really won't miss it.

I think the only thing I'd miss is HD sports. Hockey (NHL Center Ice) is an option via my PS3, but haven't been able to find a good substitute for Euro or South American soccer. But for "regular" TV I'm intrigued.

rudemix: extroverted_suicide: rudemix: Colbert and Stewart are in the second week of a two week vacation anyway.

Jesus Christ, again?! They take more vacations than GW Bush and Obama combined!

/occasional viewer, not a regular viewer

I don't think they'd been back from the last vacation more than two months before this one.

I'd rather they take the vacations they think they need than get burned out and have the show suffer for it. Besides, think about it - they really don't take any more time off than any other show. They don't get their summers off like most other shows. \

I cut the cable about a month ago after deciding that most of the shows I watch were on local affiliates anyway. Can't say that I miss cable at all and I have an extra $92/month in disposable income for other things.

/still need to come up with a solution for football season...

j0e_average: Fark Viacom
Fark DirecTV
Fark paying for any TV.


Go outside. Read a book. Spend time with friends and famliy. Ride a bike. Have sex.

FTFY. This is Fark afterall.

The "innernets" spoke to me about 5 years ago.

They said "dude....get rid of cable TV. I gots the good stuff! I can give you everything you neeeeeed!!!!"

Who am I to argue with the "innernets"?

I just left Dish because they dropped AMC a 2 weeks before the premier of Breaking Bad. I had to pay $300 to get out of that contract and I'd do it again. Had DTV installed yesterday, and now hear that Viacom is out. Although, I can handle Colbert and Daly on the inter webs...just don't leave me hanging on Walter White - EVAR.

As a fan of Direct tv since they're the only place I can get the NHL Center Ice package, I called Viacom and left them a message last night. My idea was that they drop BET and consumers will meet them half way with their demands. However, if they can find a way to eliminate Bravo from the airwaves we'll go all in and take their offer.

DirecTV is too big to fail.

spentmiles: The people who are going to complain about this are likely television zombies who are more upset that their routine has been disrupted rather than the actual loss of programming. Once their oatmeal minds settle onto something just as inane, they'll forget these shows even entertained them when they were remotely new, like ten years ago. fark DirectTV. fark Viacom. Go read a book or just sit there and think. Maybe after a few years of that, you won't bore yourself to tears when left without a humming distraction.

A Spentmiles post that isn't satirical trolling?

I wish I could get my husband to agree to having satellite internet. We live in the country, which I enjoy, but internet options are limited to dial-up, satellite, or using our phones as wi-fi hot spot for the computers. Using are phones is faster than dial-up, but it is still to slow to download tv shows or movies. I don't watch a lot of tv, but it would be nice to have the option of downloading something if I wished to.

NickelP: Do you get espn3.com?

Turns out my ISP does carry it! It's not HD, but still worth looking into. Thanks!

j0e_average: Fark Viacom
Fark DirecTV
Fark paying for any TV.


Go outside. Read a book. Spend time with friends and famliy. Ride a bike. Have sex.

So many options when you turn off the boob tube.


Many people have jobs that require them to sit at a desk, sometimes they work from home, and have these things called televisions to keep them entertained.

WhiskeySticks: As a fan of Direct tv since they're the only place I can get the NHL Center Ice package,

There's NHL GameCenter, which streams via Roku and PS3. I haven't tried it myself yet, but it's at least an alternative.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=543056

spentmiles: Stewart and Colbert have run out of marijuana jokes, Republican bashing slap stick pieces, and soft liberal interviews, so there's not much to miss there.


You sound like a bitter college Republican who really thinks this is what both the shows are about.

Few folks in here that don't even OWN a TV. See how much more free time you have to be an ass on Fark when you don't own a TV?

PinocchioDeBergerac: I think the only thing I'd miss is HD sports. Hockey (NHL Center Ice) is an option via my PS3, but haven't been able to find a good substitute for Euro or South American soccer. But for "regular" TV I'm intrigued.


foxsoccer2go.com

NutWrench: Folks who can't imagine life without cable should buy a cheap antenna, hook it up and see how much stuff is broadcast over the air for free. I live in a fairly rural area and get 12 digital channels, most of them in HD.

I never realized how much time (and money) I was wasting before I cancelled cable.

I live in a city of over 150,000 and I get 3 channels(including subchannels). According to one of those antenna website, Fox is the same distance as the other stations but it won't come in. It is going to be football season soon so that is unacceptable. Even worse, the channels that do come in don't come in very well.

So, how good/bad is DISH network? Their DVR is supposed to be very nice, and their packages seem really cheap, if I'm not missing the fine print. I've avoided it this far, and while I'm not thinking of using them for my internet, their TV package is starting to tempt me.

PinocchioDeBergerac: There's NHL GameCenter, which streams via Roku and PS3. I haven't tried it myself yet, but it's at least an alternative.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=543056


For as much as I splurged on my tv and surround, I think I'll stick with the dependable feed via Direct Tv...plus I can record games as I watch my Hawks fall apart. Also I don't own a PS3.

Hagenhatesyouall: The "innernets" spoke to me about 5 years ago.

They said "dude....get rid of cable TV. I gots the good stuff! I can give you everything you neeeeeed!!!!"

Who am I to argue with the "innernets"?

THIS
No cable/satellite for over a year.

$100+ in my pocket every month.

BurnShrike: 6655321: Bradog: I'm wondering if I can use this as a convenient excuse to break my contract.

The only right you have is to pay the bill. The business can change the terms and conditions of your contract whenever they want.

That's what they want you to think, but it's not legal. That's the whole point of a contract: to set up the terms that both parties agree upon. Even if you write "I can change whatever I want whenever I want" into the contract, it's not valid.

Try using the phrase "purely precatory condition" in your letter to DirectTV and it might help

well, since I don't even own a TV, this makes me laugh.

NickelP: Is something else going on here that isn't apparent? Hearst just pulled a bunch of local affiliates from Time Warner because they couldn't get a 300% increase. I know I've seen similar situations in the last year. Is there a reason all these guys think they should get 30-300% increases for some reason this year?

This is what's going on: The market is really based on individual programming, not channels. Most programming on a channel is failed programming that is subsidized by the one or two shows on the channel people want to watch.

More and more people than ever are going ot Hulu Plus, Netflix and Amazon Prime to get those shows without cable. Cables revenues are going down while network revenues are coming from sources other than cable in this arrangement. The cable companies (or in this case, DirecTV) are trying to hold on to their same revenue while providing less value to the network it puts on.

My advice: stunts like this just accelerate the number of people jumping ship. If I were DirecTV I would just take the deal and not draw any attention to the fact that your content can disappear at any moment. It is not worth the loss of subscribers.

FTFA: "Programmers like Viacom typically won't allow anyone to buy their channels individually, but we hope to change that," DirecTV said in its statement.

Oh, the irony.

Earpj: We tried the antenna thing. Got 1 channel in clearly. I'm in a town of 100,000. My Mom, in Colorado Springs, gets about 10 channels...I think.

And, yeah...football. Also..the Olympics.

Man that has to suck. I live in a burb and get every damn local channel thanks to the $30 antenna I mounted on the pole used to support my, now defunct, DirecTV dish. Most of the shows I watch are broadcast so it didn't make sense for me to pay $85/month (this was about 3 years ago) for a handful of shows and the ability to channel surf 300 channels.

For those who ask MTV "Where are the music videos???" find out if you have a local affiliate for CoolTV. All music videos all the time. There is a separate channel for country music videos, thankfully, that I blocked on my sets.

BarkingUnicorn: DirecTV says Viacom wants over $1 billion. DirecTV has about 20 million subscribers. That's an average of over $50 per subscriber. Something smells.

Most likely it's $1 billion over the course of the contract with Viacom. So it's likely $1 billion over the course of several years.

I don't really care about Snooki. What I do care about is Dish taking AMC off their list. How am I supposed to get my Walking Dead fix now?

Savage Belief: I don't really care about Snooki. What I do care about is Dish taking AMC off their list. How am I supposed to get my Walking Dead fix now?

Have some bath salts.

Every time I see things like this I hope it's what pushes the FCC into forcing cable companies to have to allow customers indivual channels the providers have been fighting it for years with the argument that they cant do it when the technology has been around for 10 years, I hate paying for 300 channels when I only need 7

Savage Belief: AMC

I'm shopping around to see what's out there. Now I know not to choose Direct TV. Crap, is my only choice left Comcast?! I guess it's time to hook a PC up to the tv again, or upgrade my blu-ray player to support Amazon Prime.

/Don't watch TV
//Not paying cable/satellite bills is even more enjoyable than watching TV
///Netflix/Amazon/Internet streaming via Roku FTW.


Fark you Viacom! I still remember when MTV stood for MUSIC Television.