I'm not much of an Oscars fan, so instead I spent last night catching up with The Walking Dead. If you did too (or if you recorded it for later), and you are a Canadian Rogers Cable customer, you will have noticed the frequent distraction of a text crawl in which the cable company apparently threatens to drop AMC from its cable package.
The text crawl and Facebook ads (above) target fans of AMC's best series, such as The Walking Dead, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad. They lead to a web site called keepamccanada.com that asks viewers to fill in a form to let Rogers know they don't want to lose the service.
Every once in a while, cable networks renegotiate contracts with the providers. When the negotiations do not go thier way, they try to rile up the customers as leverage to get more out of the cable company. if the cable company pays more than is comfortable, the price of our service goes up. To be fair to everyone, we should also write AMC that they would be losing customers as well if they try to drive our prices up. I believe that a solid performer like AMC deserves more money for the quality original programming they produce, but not if it will hit the customers pocketbook. So, Rogers is not dropping the channel, it is more likely that they refused the first demand put on the table.In other words, it's AMC's tactic to get Rogers subscribers to get up-in-arms to keep the network no matter how much it costs. And it worked:
All over social media, Rogers subscribers are threatening to drop the service if it loses AMC. Considering that these shows are eventually available on Netflix and various (and often unofficial) online channels, this is a very dangerous place for Rogers to be. But although they have broadcast their case, Rogers social media managers seem to be failing to respond one-on-one to these customer concerns, which is somewhat of a fail.
Network Vs. Carrier, with customer anxiety used as a weapon. This won't reflect well on either side, in the end.
