Haven't decided what I'm gonna do. Basically, if Direct and Newscorp don't come up with a contract, I won't see Sons of Anarchy next week. I'm a little pissed. Obviously Direct doesn't want to pay some hiked price. But when I call them, they say the dispute is about how much of my DTV bill should go to the Newscorp channels. Yeah, right. Way to shift the blame! It's not like I would have a cow if they told me my bill was going up another dollar a month because of FX.
Don't worry, the contract dispute will probably be resolved by Newscorp being allowed to hack the cellphones of DirecTV customers.
I suspect they'll reach an agreement pretty soon, if not before the deadline, not long after, I'm guessing. Glad I switched to U-Verse, though, 'cause if I couldn't get Justified when the new season starts, I'd be a little peeved.
I used to have U-Verse. Loved it. Then I moved and it's not available. I have DirectTV and the first I heard about this dispute was on Sons of Anarchy this week.
Yeah, these sorts of things get resolved sooner or later because both parties end up losing money if it goes on too long.
At least two of the local stations here have gone through payment disputes with the local cable company in the last few years and the ownership group for different station in town was in a pretty nasty fight with DirecTV last(?) year. The disputes with the cable company were resolved at the last minute, but DirecTV actually dropped the other station for several days, IIRC.
In my area, if you don't pay, you don't get much. Actually, since the digital transition, I'm not sure if you get anything ... the last time I tried to watch broadcast in this area, it was before the switch, and the analog signal was fuzzy enough that the digital might be nonexistent.
I don't know where you live, but before the permanent switch to digital broadcasting, many stations actually "turned down" the output of their analog transmitters. For a period of time, many stations were running both transmitters simultaneously and lowering the output of the analog side was done to save electric costs. You might be surprised at your digital signal. My mom lives about 45 miles from the tower farm where nearly all the San Antonio teevee stations have their sticks. Before digital, she couldn't reliably pick up my station's signal (she only has rabbit ears for her television). After the digital switch, she gets our signal clear as a bell and she picks up the stations in a neighboring teevee market that she's never gotten before. Even in broadcasting, digital is still pretty much an all or nothing proposition. You either get a signal and can watch something, or you don't. There's no "snow" or fuzzy picture.
I don't watch enough tv to justify cable, and the digital signals in my area are pretty good. I get 9 channels and hardly watch anything other than movies from netflix.
