DirecTV - Leaving after 28 Years (Feedback)

I am a customer for over 29 years. With the latest notice of an upcoming price increases in November, I'm choosing to cancel my subscription. This service has just become too expensive. Most of the content that I'm interested in is two or three years old. My calls to customer support have been less than pleasant & useful. I find that the latest mobile app is worthless compared to the "old" one. Some functions do not even exist anymore. When I have mentioned that I intend to cancel my subscription the agent immediately says they will put me in contact with the loyalty group for pricing adjustments. Why do they not contact loyal customers and offer price discounts as an incentive? Why do I have to call (and likely waste my time) to perhaps get a small discount for my loyalty? 

Bye, Bye DirecTV

DTV nor any other TV provider have any control over what the channels send them, the content providers send the same programs to all TV providers.

@dtvdvrdude 

Proactive discounts would not be a sustainable billing model for them. As networks increase their costs year by year they would have to raise bills even more to make up for those discounts.

Besides, they have enough people calling in to deal with. Might as well assist customers taking the time to contact them instead of those lazing around waiting for a discount.

And remember, pay TV is a luxury service. So nothing entitles any of us to a discount. If you cannot afford it without a discount, or just don't like the price, then reduce service so it is in whatever budget is comfortable for you.

They are a business, not a charity. So if that doesn't work for you then bye bye indeed.

Direc tv are criminals. They will send you new equipment to replace their faulty equipment and then restart your contract without stating otherwise. Then when you go to cancel you will get put on hold for hours only to pay a early termination fee after doing nothing but losing services for years. This company are a bunch of crooks. Wouldn't recommend to my worse enemy.

And now they are in a urinary competition with CBS. Fortunately I have Paramount + and can stream it. I also have a couple other streaming subscriptions. Hmm, there just might be something to this streaming thing.

I heard that over the past 5 years, Direct TV lost 50% of its subscribers. I wonder how much they have lost since the first time they dropped CBS and during the several months when they dropped Fox. As the days and weeks go by without CBS, I wonder how many more they will lose and if they have to raise the rates for the remaining clients to give the CEO his bonus. 

PS The combination of VPN (Express VPN can be loaded on Fire TVs) and Paramount+ that live streams the LOCAL CBS station, I can watch any out of area sports broadcast on CBS. For example, if I want to watch the Seahawks, I tell the VPN to select a server in Seattle and then launch Paramount+.

This partially makes up for Direct TV losing NFL Sunday Ticket. For couple of years they were "comping" me the service to keep my subscription.

@zfarley90 

A warranty replacement doesn't renew the agreement but an "upgrade" does. If the model was truly like-for-like than it was activated as an upgrade in error, which is a mistake not criminal.

What are the models of the old box and the one that replaced it? If it lines up as a warranty replacement than the cancellation/retention agent is supposed to submit a ECF waiver request for the error.

So mistake that is fixable doesn't make them crooks.

@DanFlak 

Not quite. They are in carriage negotiations with Tegna, not CBS itself. That is the company that owns many local affiliate stations.

Tegna wants to raise costs and DirecTV wants to minimize that. Each are negotiating within their rights, just like 3 years ago.

DirecTV did NOT drop CBS. The owner of your local affiliate station Tegna took the feed away until a new agreement is reached.

In any case the purpose of pay TV is not for local channels. We go to pay TV for the national channels which have no free over-the-air (OTA) broadcast. If you are desperate for your locals, then plug in a regular antenna in the meantime while the negotiations complete. Otherwise watch something else as you have many other channels.

The NFL chose to go with streaming for the Sunday Ticket which hurts those who don't have internet, or not good enough to support dedicated streaming. Personally I think they jumped the gun as the national infrastructure for internet has a long way to go to be relied on like that across the board. And I wonder how technology and programming will catch up to stop VPNs getting content you are legally not permitted to have.

But for the main point, you can thank Tegna for the channel being gone. They own the broadcast rights so is their decision. Well I don't want my bill going up further for local channels. Perhaps all those who are desperate for them should offer to pay the entire increase Tegna demands and we can all move on.

Hmm I wonder how many people have these "mistakes", because after looking into this it seems there's many more cases of this. Seems like a pretty good scam to pull on people who don't know any better. I did get it refunded after I showed it was identical to my old genies. Thank God I thought about it after boxing everything up.  I don't know why your such a direc tv blowhard but I'm sure you have been taking plenty of handouts throughout your time with direc tv.  I don't care about handouts. I just like transparency and they had zero.

@zfarley90 

I agree that their system needs to be programmed better to avoid any activation issues. That is assuming the agent who placed the order didn't order an upgrade. If the latter, it would have shown on the order confirmation allow you to catch it long before it is activated (and ideally before shipped so just cancel order and place under the correct reason).

And you can lay off the insults and handout accusations. I was simply informing you how this is supposed to work and that this is an error that should be easily corrected. Just because you don't like the situation no need to take it out on others. Lets keep discussion civil shall we?

Shopping channels pay DTV to carry them and if the channels didn't have ads then they would charge all TV providers more to make it up.  AFAIK their offer was double what DTV is paying now so their answer was a silent no.

@DanFlak 

The issue is not that Tegna made an offer. The problem is their offer is higher than DirecTV is willing to pay. Remember the higher that DirecTV pays, the higher our bills will be. Their costs go up, so do our bills, which is how TV providers work per simple economics.

You do NOT get 158 channels just to advertise the Shark vacuum. That is a ridiculous exaggeration. A few (count them on one hand) channels are shopping networks that pay TV providers for their channel slot. Other channels sell timeslots to advertisers, which no TV provider has control over as they don't choose what is on the channel. So if you see the Shark vacuum on many channels, then that means they are paying a lot of channels to be advertised.

You are not paying for CBS. You are paying for a programming package level and access to whatever locals DirecTV has available for your area. That is subject to change so there never a promise, guarantee, obligation, etc. to give you CBS or any other Tegna owned channel. As long as you get a single local channel, you get EXACTLY what you pay for. That is the reality.

If you've been with DirecTV for a while, you would have gone through this situation 3 years ago. That is when Tegna last pulled the channels when the prior agreement came up. TV providers never get the channels permanently, they have to negotiate each time.

Alternatively the TV providers (DirecTV or otherwise) could just accept the demands from the channels and raise the bills that much more. Would you accept that or would you just be complaining again that you don't get it the way you want? Either they get a more reasonable rate which minimizes costs increase (ideally avoid or even reduce but realistically that doesn't happen) or they just give in and really jack up the price higher. I don't know which is your better situation, but I prefer they keep negotiating to minimize those rate hikes.

Wish those who just fall apart when a local is gone temporarily would pay the full increase instead of the rest of us.

Technically speaking you are correct. Thanks for the explanation. However, not all of the useless channels advertise shark vacuums. I did exaggerate They are full-time ad channels for other products.

If it is a matter of dollars and cents, then why isn't Direct TV not charging me for not getting CBS? I am sure they are not paying them for not providing them with the content.

I realize that Direct TV, like any other business, is in business to make money for the CEO and shareholders and not to satisfy customers. They do that only to the extent that they are forced to do so.

TV providers sell those slots for shopping networks to help supplement affording the channels they pay for (local or otherwise). If they didn't then that would be more cost added to the bill. Same thing for channels selling advertising time slots as otherwise they charge the TV providers more, which then rolls into our bills as well.

These channel negotiations come up all the time. Sometimes they are in the public eye where the channel is gone temporarily. TV providers are not going to adjust pricing day to day to keep up. DirecTV does a annual adjustment based on prior negotiations to keep pricing stable and not fluctuating all the time.

If a single channel affects your livelihood so much, you can see about a one-time $10 credit by logging into your account online or call DirecTV. It is not automatic as not everyone cares about a little local, but is there for those that matters. Some put that cost towards a regular over-the-air (OTA) antenna to get the free broadcast of locals that is unaffected by whatever TV provider you have.

https://www.directv.com/tvpromise/

But yes in the end, like any business they are to make money. Tegna gets a higher rate, they have to pass on a higher cost to customers, which does not favor the business as customers can only handle so much change.

I also stand by that most of us didn't go to pay TV provider for locals. We can live a few days (or a couple weeks depending) without the channel and our lives are not destroyed. So I suggest being patient while negotiations complete like they've done before and all can move on from this situation. If one is in turmoil and freaks out because a single local or 2 is gone for a short while, then I think some self-reflection needs to be done. Just my perspective.