Recently, Viacom, which provides channels such as Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central, pulled its channels from Suddenlink programming. The move comes after months of failed negotiations between the two sides, with Suddenlink claiming to try to get the lowest price possible to keep customer prices low.
According to www.suddenlinkonyourside.com, Viacom is mostly responsible for the change. The website, which is a FAQ about why the channels were dropped, claims that during negotiations, channel providers can keep their channels on during negotiations, but Viacom refused and pulled their channels. The website also explains and gives reasons as to why people shouldn’t change providers, such as Viacom will do the same thing eventually to those providers, and also addresses those who wonder why, if Suddenlink is truly trying to control costs for their consumers, their bills continuously rise every year.
The attempt to curb the criticism from customers hasn’t proven to be effective among college students. Students at WT, living both on and off campus, have been critical of the recent actions of Suddenlink and Viacom.
“Suddenlink literally took away the only channel I watch,” TJ Buecker, freshman Engineering major, said. “I’m going to find an alternative as soon as possible.”
Other students have also questioned the reasoning behind continuing to make customers pay the same amount for their monthly bill while not providing the channels. Some have requested that Suddenlink add replacement channels if they don’t budge on the Viacom agreement.
“If Suddenlink is taking channels away, they should also add channels,” Zackary Byrd, sophomore Mechanical Engineering major, said.
Suddenlink has made the effort to add some new channels. Channels such as CMT have been replaced with ID, and Nickelodeon has been replaced with Sprout. Suddenlink has also been in talks with Comedy.TV to try and bring a sufficient replacement for Comedy Central.
Viacom has a different account for why these channels have been pulled from Suddenlink’s programming. On their answer to Suddenlink’s website, www.keepviacom.com, Viacom claims that contrary to what Suddenlink has claimed about increases in prices, Viacom actually accepted a proposal from Suddenlink that would result in only a $0.20 increase per customer, a price Suddenlink could have absorbed and not charged to the customer and still make a $61 profit.  Viacom claims that Suddenlink rescinded the proposal at the eleventh hour, and decided to switch to less popular programming in Viacom’s place.
“We know they didn’t lower your bills and we know these ‘replacement channels’ were not requested in a customer survey,” one line on www.keepviacom.com read.
It is evident there is a battle beginning between Viacom and Suddenlink, and no end or compromise is in view at this point.