Times have changed since DirecTV has grown to be a big player in the communications industry. They are frequently engaged in contract disputes with network providers, which sometimes causes a temporary programming blackout and in some cases forces a channel to be dropped, such as G4 (a Comcast-owned channel).
Earlier this year, DirecTV had a dispute with Viacom, so consumers could not watch 17 channels, including Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. DirecTV again went with the angle of “fighting for the rights of the consumer”, and the CEO claimed that it wasn’t right to force consumers to pay for channels that they didn’t watch (Viacom’s contract was an all-or-nothing deal).
I feel that it is rather ironic to say this, as no cable provider offers an “a la carte” programming plan. Many subscription plans are put together in such a way that consumers must pay for a new tier just to view one or two channels that don’t exist in a lower tier.
Several years ago I was forced to use cable because there was no feasible place to put a satellite dish in an apartment. I couldn’t wait to get back to DirecTV because they were so much better. A lot of Comcast’s bandwidth was eaten up by the analog channels that they offered, and thus their high-definition digital lineup was so highly compressed that it was unwatchable.
Things have changed now, and most cable providers are 100% digital and/or have increased their bandwidth. Now, nearly all channels have excellent quality with a lot of high-definition offerings. DirecTV may have led the way in terms of signal quality, but now most cable providers can provide the same or better.
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