Once you get into it, it's hard to get out. These last two season have been unbelievable.
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AMC Demands Pay Raise
- Thread starter Huntn
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Once you get into it, it's hard to get out. These last two season have been unbelievable.
Networks like AMC and cable providers like Suddenlink go through this sort of thing all the time. Now that AMC has several popular original series, they're able to act like they've got these big swinging balls and they are daring cable providers to drop them.
Which won't happen. You know what will happen? Where I live, a year or so ago Fox got all uppity and decided to charge Time Warner a lot more to carry all their channels -- sports, FX, Fox "News", and others. They wanted beaucoup money. Time Warner, in one of the few occasions I've ever sided with a cable company, told 'em to go pound salt. There then ensued several weeks of back-and-forth fingerpointing commercials urging viewers to call up the other side and demand their FoxSportsOhio, or whatever.
The end result? TWC gave 'em more money, and to recoup their losses, they took away a basic channel, Fox Movie Channel, and put it on an extra-cost tier.
Don't be surprised if the same thing happens here.
As for a la carte, I'd love it, most people would love it, but cable companies won't do it unless the government forces them.
The story was too dark for me. As a rule, I don't like watching a series based on self destruction.
Good info, thanks!
And if AMC's numbers weren't good carriers would drop them or demand to pay them less money when contract negotiations came up so I can't fault AMC for wanting to get more money because they are putting out a more in demand product.
As someone else said this would most likely never happen and if it did we'd see a lot of the smaller cable channels disappear. Many times cable providers have to sign deals for bundles of programing so that bundling process gets passed onto the consumer.
Lethal
I've heard the same thing about ESPN, so I'll take MacNut's word too about regional sports networks.
Doesn't AMC run commercials too?
This is one of my primary complaints about AMC. If I can get away with it I prefer Turner Classic Movies, without commercials. Not only that but traditionally AMC has edited R content out of movies and this is a cable channel! However, what I'm seeing with The Walking Dead it seems like death and destruction R is ok, just no sex R.
A la carte is such a bad idea. Think of your favorite niche channel, AMC, Adult Swim, History, Speed, etc., and then consider whether it/they would have ever gotten off the ground without being subsidized by a cable package.
I assume they do, but I don't know how their revenue streams break down. I'm sure their ad rates for their popular shows have gone up as well. If you are more in demand why not try to get better compensation? You never know when the pendulum, or circumstances, are going to swing back the other way.
I worked on a live show once that couldn't get a sponsor to save its life so the first one was self-funded. Well, it was an off the charts success so when the sponsors came back around going "Hey, great job! We'd like to sign contract you sent us now." The producers were like, "Nope. That was a bargain deal to go into untested waters with us. The show was a grand slam and the ad rates have gone up accordingly."
Lethal
Gotta strongly disagree with you here. That's akin to say we'd never find a good website without webrings back in the day or that we couldn't find good music without American Bandstand. There's plenty of ways to discover good video entertainment. As TV becomes a la carte and App-ified, even more good video will be created because it does t have to fit in an established channel lineup. We won't be force fed shows either, remember "57 channels and there's nothing on?" Comtent innovation is good for the viewer. We stand to benefit. The cable companies have EVERYTHING to lose. They have it coming, too.