Money Squabble Leaves DirecTV Customers Upset

(Memphis) Many DirecTV customers are angry some of their channels have disappeared over night.

DirecTV dropped 26 stations Monday night when it couldn’t reach a deal with Viacom over how much to pay to carry their networks.

This is impacting more than twenty million television watchers.

Customers have lost some pretty major networks like Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, SPIKE TV, TV Land and many more.

DirecTV said Viacom wanted them to pay 30% more for their 26 networks.

DirecTV said to do so, it will have to pass the cost on to consumers.

In a press release, DirecTV says Viacom shouldn’t get the additional billion dollars they want, because ratings have gone down as people watch shows online for free.

Viacom says the deal is seven years old and DirecTV isn’t open to negotiating with them on a solution.

Shawn Danko is a DirecTV customer.

He bought DirecTV on the agreement of certain channels and doesn’t feel he should pay for them if he can’t watch them, “Either look at alternatives or look at calling them and saying reduce the rate until you guys figure it out but paying the same rate is ridiculous.”

Danko hopes this will change the entire way television providers look at the way they sell programs, “Reduce the rates or come up with a pay per use or a la cart use for channels. Allow more of those consumers to have a bigger say in what they watch and what they pay for.”

DirecTV is replacing some of the stations with similar programming and telling customers to watch Viacom’s programming online for free.

It’s unclear when or if the stations will be restored.