Over 20 Million Black Households Can’t See BET TV + How Viacom and DirectTV Will Settle
Over 20 million black and urban latin households who view BET, VH1 and MTV religiously as their stapel channels for entertainment cannot watch any programs on DirecTV which offers its basic premium services even to lower income neighborhoods in cities across America. A hardship to many complaints thus far have been why are customers still paying DirecTV the same fees with less programming and channels. Consumers want answers, perhaps a refund or credit as jilted DirecTV customers who don’t care who is to blame for the problem in unsettled negotiations among DirectTV and Viacom.
DirecTV wrote a FACEBOOK message pointing the finger at Viacom for demanding billions from DirecTV which claims it will have to charge it’s customers for the excessive fees, but isn’t DirecTV making a profit itself? And if so what is this margin of profit? Can a portion of these profits which have to be within the billions actually pay Viacom more for operations or is DirecTV being greedy by refusing to pay it and blaming it on not wanting to charge it’s customers and thinking that their programs are indispensable?
We asked several avid viewers of programs like BET, MTV and VH1 if they could live without these channels and a surprising number of people said that they watch programs because they are simply on and used to viewing programs. It’s hard to break the habits of avid viewers. Look how many people have been watching General Hospital since its creation. Old habits die hard, but not so fast it seems as many viewers have already begun to watch other channels added to DirecTV’s line up from TV One to Fuse. Like a breath of fresh air, former BET, MTV and VH1 viewers who tuned in with DirecTV people are tuning into other programs on tv like never before .
What does this all mean? This black out gives people a breather to tune into other poorer performing DirecTV channels that normally viewers would have to purchase an ENCORE PACKAGE, but have settled for the basic channels of DirectTV packages like BET, MTV and VH1. This black out could actually increase DirecTV sales of other Encore and premium Packages now that the appetite of viewers grow wetter for those who can’t switch over to Comcast and other services.
It is obvious that once regular programming resumes on DirecTV which could be never , these newly added channels to pre-existing packages that no longer have BET and other channels would disappear again. Or this could be one huge experiment to see if these other channels could demand as huge an audience of the music channels.
As a result DirecTV would have an excuse to raise prices just a notch to include these channels by popular demand during a crisis and Viacom could make out like a bandit offering fees to view their programs online which no one is buying. Viacom would make billions more with Direct streaming access fees to its content from DirectTV of which DirecTV would receive a portion of as well. Like a marriage made in hell, all other media entities would have to pay for free streaming content that actually brings revenue to these conglomerates,but not as much as both entities know they can pilfer from the consumers and media thriving from streamlining their content for pennies in exchange for ratings or if a big ad affiliate can make up for these losses by at least having these conglomerate’ content on their sites.
It is clear the consumers and media are just puppets on a string as Viacom and DirectTV pretend to cyber box,but are working toward a new solution to both get fatter pockets. This explains why all shows are getting a facelift with new cast, hosts and everything. Anything new brings bigger interest and the networks are getting ready to conglomerate and take over the internet as well. Blogs and makeshift media were getting too powerful with their opinions and thoughts often jeopardizing the future of shows and celebrity popularity. Now everyone is on the outside just looking in.
If you thought Mitt Romney’s Bain affiliation scandal was insane these networks are ready to pimp us all, but we’re all too smart for what lies ahead. And if we can’t get to the network’s hows and celebs we’ll create our own and design our own celebs.This is war and too bad Rosci and Terrence J were sacrificial lambs during this shakeup and got the 411 in time of this mess. An even though BET, MTV and VH1 could be back on DirectTV tomorrow at least we all know what the negotiation is and why we shouldn’t take DirectTV or Viacom’s side who both left we the people in the dark.
For those of us who own both like Fios and DirecTV it’s just the principle that two lare companies could take the loyal viewers out of their element without the customers say. BET, VH1 and MTV are 3 of the most prominent channels in music and are being treated like step children. It’s like a bad omen or curse since Nicki Minaj told 7 million viewers at BET AWARDS to ‘Get D—d up!”
