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The entertainment conglomerate and the satellite TV giant failed to reach a new carriage agreement before midnight Tuesday. Seventeen Viacom-owned cable channels went dark on DirecTV on Tuesday just before midnight Eastern as the companies failed to reach a new carriage agreement. The channels yanked from the satellite TV giant's lineup include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, BET, VH1, CMT, Logo, Spike, TV Land, MTV2, VH1 Classic, Palladia, Nick Jr., NickToons and TeenNick, in addition to several HD counterparts. DirecTV has about 20 million subscribers. Including the HD channels, it carries a total of 26 Viacom-owned channels. A Viacom rep wrote...

Washington, D.C. (April 1, 2012) -- DIRECTV this morning was forced to remove 23 Tribune-owned local stations and WGN America after the two companies could not reach a new programming agreement. Tribune issued a statement late Saturday night saying the stations would no longer be available after midnight and early this morning the stations had been pulled. (DIRECTV posted an on-screen message on the Tribune-owned CW affiliate in the Washington, D.C. area that said the blackout would be "temporary" and that stations are sometimes pulled for a short time in programming disputes.) “This situation is extremely unfortunate,” Nils Larsen, Tribune...

Because I know that FReepers are smart and ingenious I am coming to you for assistance and insight in being able to get unplugged from DirecTV. They are raising our rates again. We currently use Netflix, but are also considering adding HuluPlus. Hubby streams from his PS3 in his game room, and in the living room we stream via BlueRay. Hubby and I are trying to get details on unplugging without losing our ability to watch our favorite (cable) show. I've read numerous articles how people are doing this same thing but have not found a step-by-step instruction in what...

More than 200,000 DirecTV customers in Greater Boston have been cut off from channels 7 and 56 since Saturday, and they might miss the Super Bowl unless the satellite provider settles its dispute with the stations’ owner. Disputes over fees paid by cable and satellite providers to TV networks and stations have sometimes resulted in temporary blackouts. Consumers lose access to programs until an agreement is reached. Florida-based Sunbeam Television Corp. - owner of WHDH-TV (Channel 7), WLVI-TV (Channel 56), and a sister Fox affiliate in Miami - blacked out its stations on the DirecTV service as it seeks an...

Comcast is calling out rival DirecTV over an ad campaign that it claims is misleading customers and making unfair statements about competitors. DirecTV’s new TV, Internet, and radio ads offer subscribers the NFL Sunday Ticket package (typically $66.99 per month) at “no extra charge.” But DirecTV only gives the package away when customers sign up for a two-year contract, which means that it’s not actually free, according to Comcast. In a lawsuit filed in a Chicago federal court, Comcast called DirecTV’s “no extra charge” claim “an outright lie” because “the offer requires a two-year contract with hefty termination fees for...

After launching a new TV spot in the vein of its popular "Russian Billionaire" ads, DirecTV has abruptly pulled the commercial from YouTube due to a flood of negative comments. Posted for only a few days on DirecTV's official channel, the ad by Grey New York sparked heated allegations of racism, reverse-racism, and even elder abuse. As you can see in the clip below, the spot stars fictional boxing champ Tommy "The Truth" Thompson and his entourage, which includes a kid called "Half Truth." The ad might have passed as annoying at worst, were it not for the fact that...

Anyone else experience this? Within a minute of Fox & Friends coming on the air at 5 am CST on DIRECTV Thursday morning, the channel was replaced with the Ci Channel (never heard of it) followed by a "technical difficulty" message from DIRECTV. Interesting timing/coincidence in light of suspected Wikileaks-related attacks on MasterCard, etc. I'm verklempt; discuss.

Washington, D.C. (August 3, 2010) -- The Better Business Bureau reports that more than 53,000 consumers have filed complaints about their satellite TV service in the past three years. According to the BBB, 39,000 of the complaints were filed against DIRECTV while 13,000 were against Dish Network. Many of the complaints, the consumer group said, stemmed from fees and terms in the satcasters' customer agreements. The companies often invoke penalties if customers cancel their service before their agreements expire; the agreements are usually two years in length. “Many complaints to BBB about satellite providers stem from steep cancellation fees,” Stephen...

Bigger isn’t always better when it comes to the stock market. Smaller companies have far more room to grow, to exploit new markets. Large-cap companies can struggle to expand much at all, let alone approach their early explosive growth. But megacaps can provide a little more security for investors than no-name highfliers. So when a megacap can deliver solid growth, it’s worth noting. The IBD 100 list of the top-performing stocks based on fundamentals and technicals includes quite a few big cap firms, from a wide range of industries and locales. 13. Apple (AAPL). Market cap at Monday’s close: $244.2...

Media mogul John Malone has agreed to reduce his voting control of satellite TV operator DirecTV Inc. to 3 percent by trading in his super-voting shares for common shares worth some $162 million more. Malone also agreed to resign from the board of directors, the company said Tuesday. The transaction was necessary to satisfy a concern the Federal Communications Commission had about Malone essentially controlling two TV signal providers that do business in Puerto Rico, DirecTV said. The Malone family controls Liberty Global Inc., which owns Liberty Cablevision Puerto Rico. Under the new arrangement, Malone, his wife and two trusts...

I'm in the process of selecting a satellite TV provider since I'll be moving soon when I buy a house. I found an old FR thread from 2003 on the topic of Direct TV vs. Dish TV. The market has changed since then. I only have two TV locations. I don't need the premium channels, just the basics, especially Fox News. Any suggestions and information will be appreciated.

Just started getting the 'Storm Fade' effect from "Snowmageddon"..have lost most of my DirecTV channels to one degee or another. Still getting my local channels though (off my roof attenna no doubt, but still digital. I gotta admit i'm curious as to how long it will last (the outage) considering the intensity of the storm. But considering my usual TV fare for Friday nights, is Ghost Whisperer, Medium, and Numb3rs, that and a large list of movies at Netflix to watch instantly, i'm not all gthat put out. Shame Hulu doesn't have a deal with CBS, so that if the...

I just turned on my TV, and went directly to DIRECTV's "News & Information Channels". Right between FOX Business (Dave Ramsey) and FOX News (O'Reilly) is a click on for "The Australian Open Experience" (DIRECTV's channel mix). DIRECTV always places these next to HIGH TRAFFIC SITES. DIRECTV is acknowledging FOX is #1.

Washington, D.C. (December 1, 2009) -- DIRECTV is now running a series of clever TV commercials depicting a fictional cable TV company discussing ways to combat the satcaster's HDTV programming lineup. The commercials, which feature actors who often star in film spoofs by director Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show), smartly uses humor to portray the 'cable guys' as dimwits who don't understand how to provide more HD channels. (Note: Guest directed the commercials.) However, in DIRECTV's latest commercial, the satcaster seems to take the viewer himself for a dimwit, someone that it can bamboozle into thinking he...

Despite the recession and growing competition, DIRECTV has been remarkably effective in continuing to add subscribers. In its last financial statement, the satcaster said its net subscribers rose 74 percent in the second quarter, with a monthly churn rate of just 1.5 percent. At the end of the second quarter, DIRECTV reported that it had more than 18 million subscribers in total, a seven percent increase over last year's second quarter. Well, DIRECTV, enjoy it while you can. I predict that the nation's largest satcaster will start to experience a slowdown in subscriber growth -- and it will be largely...

Customers sue over unpermitted "termination fees" A class action lawsuit alleging that DirecTV imposes early "termination fees" of up to $480 on customers who cancel the service--often charging the customer's bank account or credit card directly without their permission--has been cleared to proceed by a California Superior Court judge. The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in September 2008 by Los Angeles resident Kathy Grenier, claims that when Grenier cancelled her DirecTV contract due to a malfunctioning receiver, she was hit with a $240 termination fee, withdrawn directly from her checking account. Grenier's suit was later consolidated with another...

No thanks to Comcast now charging a totally silly US$63 per month for their Extended Basic cable service, I am looking at switching to satellite TV. My configuration requirement is simple: a two-receiver setup where one receiver will have a built-in DVR, and one receiver will not need it (since it will be in the kitchen). I do not need HDTV support for now. I am down to two different plans: DirecTV's Choice Xtra package and Dish Network's Silver 200 package, using the configuration I mentioned above. I'd like to find out which is the better deal in terms of...

I'm a DIRECTV customer. Starting a couple of days before Xmas, the program guide all of a sudden started acting funny. I'll let a poster with the same problems* on DTV's tech support forum ( http://forums.directv.com/pe/action/forums/displaythread?rootPostID=10475141 )pick up the story from here...12/23/08, looking thru channels to see what was on, i noticed that all the channels i get between 303 and 399 have their schedule messed up. a 1/2 hr show will show up as running for the entire 2 hr time slot. then if i go into the future, the next show will be running for 6-8 hrs even...

Washington, D.C. (December 30, 2008) -- On July 31, 2008, Dish Network issued a press release saying it planned to expand its high-def lineup to 150 channels by year's end. On November 1, 2007, Verizon released a press statement saying it would have 150 HD channels by the end of 2008. And several times this year, DIRECTV issued press releases saying it would have the capacity to deliver up to 150 national HD channels before the year was over. So now that the year is over (minus about a day or so), did these top TV providers keep their promises?...

Today in America times are tough and customers are hard to come by. That is why it is important not to do your customers wrong. DirecTV doesn’t seem to understand this philosophy. They give you substandard service and then when you had enough they try to extort money from you. I have cancelled my DirecTV service because of bad or what I like to call NO customer service. Now they want to tell me I owe almost $400.oo in contract cancellation fees. I never signed a contract with DirecTV. I have noticed through all my research that many people have...