BANGOR, Maine — Due to an expired contract and lack of satisfactory progress in negotiating a new one, DirecTV satellite subscribers will not be able to view Bangor television stations WABI (Channel 5) and CW network affiliate WABI-DT2 after midnight Monday.
That is unless late negotiations produce a compromise, but WABI General Manager Mike Young isn’t optimistic that will happen.
“The short answer is no, I’m not,” said Young, who compared the struggle to David vs. Goliath. “Whenever one enters into a negotiation, there’s always a certain amount of give and take. We’ve been very good about giving and they’ve been very good about taking.”
Young put out a press release Monday afternoon stating that the Community Broadcasting Service — the licensee for both stations — had been unable to reach a mutually acceptable agreement after several weeks of discussions and negotiations.
“As a result, DirecTV will remove our stations from the local channel lineup at midnight tonight,” the release stated.
DirecTV spokesman Tom Tyrer said it is WABI, not DirecTV, which is removing the stations.
“The local stations are the ones which control their signals. They have to choose to be taken down,” Tyrer said. “We’ve actually gone to WABI and said ‘Why don’t we leave these stations up while we continue these negotiations?’, but they have refused.”
Young said that’s not true.
“That’s a falsehood. We did have that conversation earlier on and that’s why we did this extension [of a few days] to try and stimulate them to arrive at a mutually acceptable deal, but after several weeks, they were immovable on certain terms,” Young said.
DirecTV signed its first deal — for four years — with WABI in June 2008.
“We expect Diversified Communications [Community Broadcasting Service] to honor its obligations to serve the public interest and allow the stations to remain on as we continue to discuss our contract extension,” stated a Monday DirecTV release from Tyrer. “We have absolutely no intention of denying anyone access to these three stations. We have always compensated Diversified Communications fairly and have no problem continuing to do so.
“Unfortunately, these types of disputes have become more frequent as stations have become far more aggressive in their demands for excessive fees.”
Young was asked how this situation compared to contract negotiations with rival satellite TV provider Dish Network.
“I don’t remember specifically, but I do remember we never got to the point where we were talking about removing our stations from their system,” Young said. “I’m hopeful, but I don’t have any means for comparison.”
“What’s clear to me is this: We’ve been able to reach mutually acceptable terms with all other carriers and our mission through all of this was trying to negotiate a deal where it empowers us to continue to be the kind of TV station that’s earned the trust and respect of viewers and advertisers, because ultimately that’s who we agree to serve.”
Both DirecTV and Young said they regret that the disagreement has gone public.
“It’s wrong to unnecessarily antagonize customers who simply want to relax in front of their televisions,” read the DirecTV release. “We both need to take responsibility for earning their satisfaction and resolve this dispute without involving our customers.”
DirecTV was founded in 1990 and launched in 1994. It has grown to become an international corporation which provides, according to its corporate profile, digital TV service to 19.97 million customers in the United States and 12.75 million customers in Latin America. DirecTV reported revenues of $7.05 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012.
will the national programs still air? I dvr a lot of shows on CBS
It’s pretty safe to say that the answer is no. WABI holds the broadcast rights in this area. I doubt they could even bring in a Boston or New York CBS affiliate to fill the void.
I really hope that Directv can find a loophole that will allow them to broadcast a different affiliate from CBS. If WABI removes themselves from Directv it wouldn’t be fair to the customers if they could deny any type of CBS coverage at all. Probably it will be like you said though. :(
That would probably be a question for CBS. If the local affiliate refuses to deal with the service, may another affiliate step in? I suspect the contract with the network would answer that.
I was wondering the same thing. I know that before they started broadcasting our local channels they broadcasted a CBS affiliate in Raleigh, North Carolina, NBC came from New York City, I can’t remember where the ABC affiliate came from.
Before the locals were available I subscribed to the affilates from NY, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. We routinely watch the news out of NY, as the local news is a joke. The same stories are repeated for hours a day. The news stations out of the area report much more interesting stories. I don’t think I will miss the local news, and will watch the affiliates for the national programming. The five dollars a month, I pay for these station is so much better than the local news.
How are you getting those channels? Is it through Directv? They cut me off from the national stations when the local affiliates threw a hissy fit about it. I’d love to get the Nationals again.
Yeah, me too. If nationals are available, I’d get them instead. Directv told me that if locals are available it’s illegal for them to offer the national channels. It would seem CBS is no longer available locally, so maybe we can get it nationally now. WABI is the worst channel anyway, always interrupting programs to air local stuff that doesn’t interest a lot of us. I also read that WABI’s parent company wants a 300% increase…ridiculous.
I agree. I’m hoping that since it was WABI who removed themselves (and not Directv removing them), hopefully that may give Directv the legal right to give us the national CBS feed. I am going to call and complain. I will post what my reply is.
I called Directv and complained. I told them that I expect a credit toward my bill for the loss of 2 local channels and they were agreeable. Bangor was automatically switched over to a national feed and I asked her why the rest of us in the Bangor area were not switched over too. She said it had something to do with FCC rules. I mean, the rest of us are expected to use rabbit ears and a converter box to watch CBS, so why aren’t Bangor residents expected to do the same?
Bangor residents also have the option to switch over to cable, while the rest of us don’t have that opportunity. Ahh, I think I just answered my own question. They don’t want the people in Bangor to switch over to cable so they are being given a national feed. They know that the rural residents don’t have that option so they don’t care about us.
She did tell me that while they are still negotiating with WABI they can’t offer me the national feed, so I asked if a deal isn’t worked out if we would then get the national feed. She said she didn’t know. Nice to get a solid answer (sarcasm implied).
Getting the national channels is not illegal. We have always kept the east and west channels….New York and CA ABC, CBS and NBC and the East Fox channel. IF you wanted the local channels you couldn’t keep the national channels. Because we chose to keep the National channels we were not allowed to have local…it’s one or the other. I can’t speak for how it works AFTER you chose local and want to go back to national….I can’t imagine that you would not be able to get them – you just have to pay for them.
You can’t get that deal as a new subscriber; you were grandfathered into getting the nationals.
I have had Directv for a very long time and I signed up prior to the local stations being available on satalite. I only lost PBS when Maine PBS started being available. When I lost PBS, I called Directv to complain and they told me that Maine PBS excercised a contract that forced them to stop providing the distant affilate station. It is my understanding that if I was to drop the affilates that they could not offer me affilates in the future. It costs me about 1.25 a month per channel that I want to keep, but I feel that it is well worth it, to be able to watch a professioal station that knows how to produce content. I really wish we could purchase all our content this way. Directv how about this, base price for service, and then a fee for each station that I wish to add. Then you would only have to pay WABI for the people who really want to watch their programming.
If WABI wants to charge more, they should start producing content that is worth what you want to charge for it. I know we live in Maine, and there is not the population to produce million dollar programming, but do you think we want to watch the same lame report over and over multiple times a day.
WABI your just not worth it.
I’ve also had Directv forever (since 1993 if I remember right). I remember when a portion of my programming came from USSB. When the locals had a fit about the nationals, I was cut off from the nationals and forced to have the locals. Boy wasn’t I mad. Like you, I called and complained and was told that they couldn’t give me the nationals anymore when that stupid affiliates law was passed.
You are right when you said that WABI’s programming is horrid. Something that happened two days ago is treated like it’s breaking news. Their local programming is boring too. I won’t miss them at all.
DirecTV first went on the air in 1994, after being incorporated in 1990.
Ooops! I was a year off! Sorry. :)
No biggie. I only saw that somewhere this morning, while reading these stories about WABI…
If channel 5 and the cw are dropped from my local channels on DirecTV, I hope they will charge me a lesser amount for 2 less channels. I don’t watch WABI so I won’t miss them. I’ll still have channel 2, where I watch the news and weather reports anyway.
Doubt it very highly, they charge a too high amount right now
You got that right!
Good luck getting anything out of DirecTV. DirecTV sent us 2 faulty refurbished boxes and tried to charge us over $100 for the third replacement box when the others failed.
They upset me and my wife so much with their crappy boxes that we went with DishNetwork.
Believing that either of the two parties’ priority is the welfare of its viewers is simplistic at best. The bottom line of their financial consideration will determine the respective actions of each side, without any consideration of their viewers. As Herbert Hoover so accurately stated, “The business of business is business”. Thinking that business is overly concerned with its customers relative to its profits is un-sound thinking. Ken
Something is wrong with this picture. WABI is demanding “excessive fees” to air their tons of commercials that they already get paid for. Sounds like a double dipping. They should be thankful since this stupid digital conversion that people can receive their signal thru the satellite because regular antennas deliver a “no signal” thru alot of their viewing area.
And Direct TV gets money to air the tons of commercials that they get paid for. Then they send you a bill every month for the privilege of watching all those commercials. I cut the cord 20 years ago when they started in with putting commercials on pay TV. I thankfully have no skin in this game.
There are too many annoying commercials.
Yup. I have had nothing but problems with my digital converter box, That’s why I signed up for the locals from Directv. I don’t know about anyone else, but this digital conversion thing has made tv reception worse by giving us a blank screen if the digital signal is not 100%. At least when we had analog you could still watch tv even if the signal wasn’t the great. I’d rather put up with a little “snow”on my screen than to see a black screen with a “no signal” message.
And you by into whatever Direct Tv says? I have a bridge I’d like to sell you when you have a minute.
What percentage of WABI’s viewers watch it on DirectTV?
37%
I DO!
…
No great loss. They have nothing. CBS is the #3 network anyway.
CBS is actually the most-watched network of 2011-12. Then Fox, ABC, NBC, and the WB.
I live in a very rural area and cannot get WABI (or any other channel for that matter) with any type of receiver. I used to have Directv, but it got too expensive, so I dropped that as well.
If there are any shows I want to watch, I simply watch them on the internet as then there are much less commercials and I can watch when I want.
Try Dish, we love it and cannot/will not deal with Direct.
Not everyone can get Dish, either. We tried to get Dish when we first moved to the lake, but, its not available to us because their satellites sit so low on the horizon that we can’t get the signal through the trees.
Don’t give up on Dish quite yet. Keep calling and ask if service is available in your area yet. They launch new satellites just for this reason. Best of luck to you.
If they are willing to send someone to my home to test for a signal, I’d be happy to have them come out.
My son just had Direct TV installed when this news broke. He called them and told them to take their junk out of his house. I used to have Direct TV but if the humidity got above 50% the reception was iffy. I switched to Dish and have had alomost no problems ever since.
I would go to dish if I did not have a contract with Direct
Call Dish up and let them know that. DirecTV keeps sending us their crap telling us they’ll pay any and all breach of contract fees, so Dish might be willing to do the same.
DirecTV also sent us an offer for a $200 credit card if we switched back to them. Tempting but not that tempting after the crap we went through with them.
Direct broke the contract not you. Call Dish and have them set you up. Call Direct and tell them to come and take their equipment back or do whatever they wish with it. Then tell them that they can take you to court if they want any money from you.
And here we go again with one of the most ludicrous debates concerning an intertainment medium. Television stations generate revenue on ad sales. The larger the market, the more they can charge for their advertising. By being carried on cable and satellite stations and networks can expand their markets exponentially and thus expand their potential revenue exponentially. THEY, the stations and networks, should be paying the cable and and satellite companies a fee for the service that the cable and satellite companies provide, not the other way around. I have ZERO sympathy for the stations in this debate. If WABI goes off the air then it is their advertisers that they are hurting-I won’t miss them one bit. Their attitude is what drives the cost of cable and satellite TV access through the roof with no end in sight. Unless and until the carriers grow a pair and stand up to this shakedown, then those who subscribe to these services can expect their bills to go up every six months, paying for the privilege of being force fed commercials. Yes, you can turn them off, so I would then ask, why are you paying for a service you don’t use if you have to turn it off all the time. I pulled the plug on mine 10 years ago and though I miss some programming, I’m saving over $100 a month that I can put to better use.
Sports is what drives up the cost of satellite television. It is reflected in the outrageous salaries. I wish I could trade ESPN to get CBS back.
“To borrow one of its advertising taglines, this is ESPN: a network as
big as the leagues it covers. As a business, ESPN thrives because it is
playing a different game than the big public-airwaves networks. NBC and
CBS make money from advertising. ESPN does, too, but it takes in even
more from cable-subscriber fees—an average of $4.69 per household per
month, according to research firm SNL Kagan. Last February, ESPN entered
its 100 millionth American home. By comparison, the next costliest
national network, TNT, takes in just $1.16 from about as many homes. If
this were Pop Warner, the refs would have called the mercy rule by now.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/espn-is-bigger-than-ever-and-that-might-not-be-a-good-thing.html
And now I read today that the networks are trying to sue Dish network because of their new thing that skips commercials saying it is a theft of services unless the viewers watch all their commercials. I dont want to watch all their car ads or the drug ads that all say ask your doctor, talk to your doctor. Thats the doctors job to know and we are the only country that allows prescription drug advertising. Someone in Washington got rich by forcing us to watch this crap
Last I knew, there were only two countries in the world that permitted the advertising of prescription medications: The United States and New Zealand.
WABI is greedy and by the way it is 12:05 i have direct tv and they are still on the air
WABI also took 2 years to get HD on Time warner due to a contract disptute. You had to watch football games shown on WABI using rabbit ears if you wanted to watch in HD. Seems like a trend.
Must have reached a deal its still on
Well it appears to be off directv now. I believe this hurts wabi, its viewers and advertisers the most. Hopefully they can come to an agreement soon! In the mean time, looks like ill have to watch channel 2 for news.
when i come back from Bonnaroo i’m switching to strictly internet services Hulu, Netflix, and soon MLB Network on my xbox…cable can die a slow unhappy death
Jon, how do you receive those services? Satellite? Cable? Who is it who can die a slow, unhappy death? Does your xbox get WiFi?
For some reason I wanted to find out more about this and the message on directv says to go to directvpromise.com for more information. According to them, wabi wants a 300% payment increase! How ridiculous?! I want that kind of pay raise too! Maybe ill apply at wabi today!
I bet most of their employees didn’t even get a cost of living increase, never mind 300%!!!
oh well WABI’s loss..I can watch all the shows I like from CBS online. We are rural Maine not the big city that has cable at our fingertips… I will not be bullied into changing to DISH or anything else…WABI will be the 1 that will lose in the long run, we now know how LOYAL they are to RURAL MAINE!!
Dish cant even compare to DirecTv, they say they can but no way… Their DVR’s are JUNK.
Dish’s DVR’s aren’t as user friendly as DirecTV’s DVR’s but the ones DirecTV were sending us were refurbished crap that wouldn’t last more than a few months. The first time they said they were going to charge us $100 for the replacement box, we dropped them. We gave them the choice to send us another box for free, minus the time we had no coverage or lose a customer. They told us they would not send us the replacement if we didn’t pay, so we told them to cancel our contract. It was impossible to reason with them. If I have the same problem with Dish, then you better believe I’d drop them also.
You are correct unless you have a new TV…..
Wrong spot, sorry..
Ive had good luck with DirecTV, never have got a refurbished box, I usually buy my box off Ebay then activate it…. I work with a guy that has Dish network, they have been out numerous times trying to get his straight…..Even the Dish guy said the DVRs were the problem… With the more LNB’s it is getting more complicated to install your own dish…Not like it use to be…
I’ve known a few people who have worked at WABI over the years, Mr. Young. They were all paid, essentially, slave wages. I’ve known people who have left WABI to take jobs making more that still were making less than $10/hr, and these are people running your equipment and your local programming. The pay these college-educated professionals made was pitiful.
My guess is that WABI is just being stubborn, and trying to keep more of the gold for itself. WABI likes its viewers to think it’s The Choice for “community programming”, but, it’s just another channel.
Oh, and “the CW”? What a joke.
We lost WABI at midnight. I’m sure, somewhere, on our 400+ channels, we’ll find another CBS affiliate, or we’ll just start watching those great CBS shows on HULU and NETFLIX.Hard to imagine I’m rootin’ for Goliath here, but when David has a track record of being unreasonable, reason trumps.
Perfectly worded! I’m rootin’ for Goliath here too! Hulu works for me too!
well the pay scale at WABI has not changed and no cost of living increase for their employees, however Management is raking in the big figures. Mr. Young were you planning on passing the 300% payment increase from Direct TV onto your employees who work hard to keep this station on the air?? Doubt it…..shame on you WABI for being so greedy.
I’m not at all surprised. It’s to bad that some WABI staff, with college degrees, could leave and take jobs in retail big-box type locations here in Bangor, and make $1+ an hour more. WABI, you should be ashamed.
GOOD RIDDANCE WABI! Hope your advertising business jumps ship.
WABI management cannot be trusted. Remember the many years Time Warner Cable did not carry CBS in HD? No other stations in Bangor seem to have a problem working out a deal with anyone.
A 300% increase? Really? I think WABI should make themselves available for comments and questions as DirecTV has done. I’ve emailed my concerns to both parties to get a response from DirecTV. I have yet to receive returned communication from WABI. They tell us “consumers can install and use an antenna” to continue receiving the WABI signal. I don’t pay for satellite service with a local channel package to have to use an antenna for one channel. Wake up WABI. It’s your consumer base that suffers from your failure to negotiate a reasonable contract. In turn, your revenue will begin to suffer from that same failure to negotiate. Are you ready for that, WABI?
Not being inside the negotiations it is tough to pin blame, but if you have ever had any sort of kerfuffle with Direct, they are horrific to deal with – god forbid you might actually try to unplug from their service. They are super aggressive and intimidating. Never a wise choice if you have anther option.
I know we’ve found them difficult to deal with too.
I have been a customer of Time Warner cable, Dish Network and now of DirecTV. TWC had equipment that was so out of date it was laughable, Dish Network was ok, but lacking in channel selection and when you called for help, you were obviously not talking with someone in the USA, and I have had no issues with DirecTV. Their equipment is good, channel selection is good, their customer service people use English as their first language…. no problems at all.
Its funny too, I called the directv number listed on wabis website last night and the customer service rep was so clueless she didnt even know what I was talking about. “Your not losing CBS, I dont know anything about that. Thats never happened before.” LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!! Hire the handicapped there fun to watch!!!!
You AREN’T losing “CBS”, you’re losing WABI, a CBS affiliate. It’s like saying you’re losing the Bangor Daily News, because your local 7-11 stops carrying it.
no Cbs affiliate is avaliable in my rural area
Mine either. Oh well. Hulu.com, here we are!
It does not take a rocket science to understand this dispute nor does it take one to forecast the outcome: The ‘market’ will determine the outcome. If WABI is correct Direct TV will cave, if Direct TV is correct, WABI will cave.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I am so tired of being gouged by cable and satellite companies. They have made millions since the “conversion”. I want my antenna and 3 channels back :(
Nothing stopping you…. Its free…
It’s not. You gotta buy a box.
I watch wabi alot and I just read that wabi wants a 300% increase,as inthestix says they already get money from advertisers.
maybe its time to call them and tell them you won’t patronize their businesses because of this
just my opinion
i believe channel 5 the only locally maine owned TV station….the other stations owned by out of state companies
ps direct tv prices are going to go UP on jan1 2013
That’s correct. It’s the only locally owned TV station in the state and always has been. It was the first TV station in the state and the first to broadcast in HD (Portland seems to lag behind in these things). Since I don’t have HD TV sets, I have no idea what that means. I worked for WABI-TV for nine years in the 60’s. That’s a long time ago and I have no idea what’s going on now. All I can tell you is when I was hired, I revised for the better how people were paid, with guaranteed increases. The guarantee was for three years but I ended up getting 11 raises in nine years with only the first three guaranteed. That’s with a high school diploma. I had no complaints what-so-ever and still feel great loyalty to the company, even after all these years. We did a lot for the community – were very involved and I’m very proud of that – particularly Christmas Daddies.
WMTW, WCSH, WVII, WLBZ and WGME were also locally-owned from their founding until they were sold to out-of-state interests. Part of the reason the local owners sold out was because of the daunting expense of converting to digital.
Things were definitely different back in the 60s when the networks paid local stations to air their programming (and clear those network commercials.) Today, the situation is reversed; the stations pay the networks to carry their programming, which is why you’re seeing these disputes with cable and satellite companies over compensation. The money to keep the network programming and local news has to come from somewhere. The federal government enacted the Cable Act of 1992 to address the issue of sports programming migrating to cable because they have two revenue streams – advertising and subscription fees – to outbid broadcast TV.
It’s no wonder that ESPN costs $5.15 per month per subscriber despite having fewer viewers than a top-rated local broadcast station – those sports rights are mighty expensive!
I don’t think I’ll take DirecTV’s word about a dang thing. When my husband and I moved to Maine in ’07, we were told by our realtor that DirecTV was THE provider for satellite tv. We were also told that we could have local programming. Well, it wasn’t until this past year that we have been able to get Maine channels – and we had to UPGRADE (for a monthly fee, of course) to HD, even though we do not have an HD television. On top of that, we had to have a second satellite dish installed and the receiver that DirecTV supplied was defective. And it’s replacement was also defective. And we are on our third receiver, which also creates a blank, dark screen when you try to record a different channel. (The receiver was made in, you guessed it, friggin’ CHINA). Oh yeah, it took an average of one to two weeks, each time, before a technician could come all the way to Belfast (from Stockton Springs) to replace something that wouldn’t have been an issue to begin with, if DirecTV did any quality control on their components. Oh, and paying for no signal during each of those 1 – 2 week episodes.
I also look at all the CRAP channels that DirecTV has and see that their prices are about 30% higher than DISH for comparable programming. Oh, and DISH’s dvr is free, where DirecTV makes us pay an additional fee, and don’t forget the additional fee for Maine channels… No, I am NOT impressed with DirecTV, nor do I necessarily believe their self-righteous whining about whether they or WABI are the victimized party in this dispute which simply boils down to corporate greed by BOTH parties…
We, too, are serviced by the DirecTV staff (sub-contractors) out of Stockton Springs (we’re in Swanville.) We’ve had none of the service issues you’ve described, and were treated well by DirecTV’s subs. When we got our initial service, in October 2007, the tech was hours late getting to our home, but stayed until nearly 11pm, getting the job done. We’ve had them back a time or two for various issues (a problem with the dish, and a problem with the SWiM), both of which required hardware replacements. They were polite (if not talkative), and did the job. One guy actually gave me his personal phone and told me to call him directly if there was a problem in the next couple of weeks. There wasn’t.
That being said, yes, I think DirecTV charges to much, and yes, we’ve had bad experiences with the company on the phone.
But have always been treated well by the local subs, prompt, and got the work done.
Dish Networks DVR’s are not free, in fact you pay a montly DVR fee for each DVR, where as with DirecTV you pay one DVR fee and can have multiple DVR’s (we have two with one fee)
///86///
It is interesting that WABI is making this out to be a David vs Goliath deal but they aren’t making any statements or replying to e-mail. DirecTV has replied to e-mails (albeit a boiler plate response, but still offering info on the topic at hand) and they also have a website where they have updated the info as it changed. DirecTV says that WABI is demanding a 300% increase in their fees, nothing from WABI to dispute that, DirecTV says that WABI removed their signal from the satellite – again, nothing from WABI to dispute that either. I have a hard time feeling sorry for “the little guy” when they use bully tactics and hold their viewers hostage in their negotiations in an attempt to extort more money from the “big guy”. Shame on you WABI!
Someone just posted a request on WLBZ 2’s Facebook page (“WLBZ 2”) asking them to do a fair story about how the relationship works between satellite and cable distributors, and local affiliates. I think it would be a great idea, if anyone here wanted to “Like” that, and maybe they’d consider doing that…
Channel 2 news is looking AWFULLY GOOD now. WABI advertisers must be a bit upset about this. WABI won’t reply to e-mails, but DirecTV does. Doesn’t the brain trust at Channel 5 understand that there are other options? Who really cares if they are off the air for a while? Don’t they get it? It’s like “….my arm hurts, hey, I’ve got an idea!!…why don’t I just cut it off?”
Let’s see how many more “Likes” we could put on WLBZ 2 and WVII’s Facebook pages…Let them see we -DO- care…
Currently WLBZ 2’s page is:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/WLBZ2
And has 7,791 “Likes”
WVII’s page is:http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/WVII7
And has 1,1157 “Likes”
WABI’s page is:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/WABITV5
And has 11,678 “Likes” (But I am about to “UnLike” their page)
Just a thought. One way to use (social) media to communicate with the media…
Why not do as Connecticut does? They have a law that the cable & satellite providers must carry the local TV stations in order that the citizens may know what is happening in an emergency. Perhaps Maine needs to do the same.
We are on a customer retention list because we complained about prices for all these channels we don’t want and 15 minutes per show of ads. Roku and the internet might take over the viewing of more people. The networks all are trashing each other and I don’t trust the news anchors and political pundits. They quote percentages but don’t prove anything. More people should complain and Direct TV will listen. They offered lowered prices. We were going to stop paying for it when the gas prices were going up. Dropping them is still an option.
i quit direcTV i am now on dish the only reson was wabi leaving drectv
the fourth quarter of 2012 hasnt happened yet, just saying….