DirecTV May Soon Start Dumping Channels

[WyldeMan45]

Well my contract is up with them next month, there seems to be more and more problems with them over the past few months. We still do not get AMC HD which is a big problem I have with them, among many hardware failures. Now they are going to start dropping any channel they want? I know they dropped G4 which doesn't bother me since I never watched it, but really what is next?

News reports say DirecTV is looking "long and hard" at its programming lineup to keep costs under control and therefore could remove some channels. Of course, this also sounds like an offensive/defensive move for when Big and Little Media lines up for retransmission fee negotiations which have resulted in so many big battles. DirecTV made the announcement at the satellite giant's Investor Day conference yesterday. "In our battle to manage our economics, we will look to repackage channels where we have over-distributed, or frankly just to remove certain channels from our platform if they are not relevant. Is there a place for channels that only serve a small fraction of our audience? Should we have to pay retrans fees and continue to carry channels which were once considered to be part of the equation when we didn't pay retrans fees? As the marketplace changes, these questions become more important for our entire industry..."