LIGHTEN UP, YOU'RE TOO PRICE-SENSITIVE: If you're looking for Colbert or The Real World or SpongeBob or WWE:Raw or People Getting Maimed Plus Racism Point O or late-night Friends reruns, don't come looking at my house. DirecTV and Viacom can't decide on the price for Viacom's basic cable channels, so subscribers like me are back to getting our news from the news instead of from The Daily Show. Leading up to the blackout, the trenches of this war were in the crawl, where the content shriveled to maybe 70% of its size, and there were an insane three tiers of argumentative scroll: DirecTV's point at the top; Viacom's counterpoint in the middle; DirecTV's rebuttal at the bottom. And apparently getting the first and last word worked, because DirecTV is winning the P.R. battle.
In fights like this, there isn't a moral high ground. It's just a business negotiation about how to divide up a customer dollar. I don't blame either company for trying to make the best deal possible. But I do hate being spun, and the point that DirecTV is pressing, apparently successfully, is this: By bundling its popular channels with unpopular ones and charging high prices for the whole package, Viacom is increasing the consumer's satellite bill.
Which leads this consumer to ask: then is DirecTV going to reduce my satellite bill for the the duration of the blackout, when nobody is paying for or getting Viacom channels at all?
Didn't think so. Thanks, liars.
