It has in the recent past been moving to eliminate some of its channel options, which has not pleased many of its customers. This has raised eyebrows as to why a service that customers subscribe to and pay good money for removes content that was, hitherto, available. Here is a brief overview of the main factors that can be used to justify the removal of channels from DIRECTV.
Content Costs
The primary reason why some channels are eliminated is that the cost of licensing content rises. In the case of cable providers like DIRECTV, they must purchase the rights to broadcast channels and networks for extensive amounts of money. However, many networks have been known to take a higher amount each year during the renewal of the carriage fees. At some point, it reaches the level where it is no longer sustainable for the margins and profits that DIRECTV wants to achieve. This means that DIRECTV terminates channels whose content fees requested are more than what is reasonable in business. Other stations that are most affected by cost-related removals include regional sports networks and small independent stations.
Low Viewership
Thus, after the financial aspect, another critical factor that DIRECTV considers before renewal is the viewership of the channels. If a certain channel has few subscribers monthly, then it becomes rather difficult for DIRECTV to justify expensive licensing fees. Channels with only a couple of thousands of active viewers get hundreds of millions of dollars for content that does not bring enough value. Consequently, the situation where the channel gets dropped is created because of low viewership numbers in combination with high program costs.
Channel Tuberization
Other factors that have been identified within the industry include the emergence of “super-channels,” which are gauged for the declines in channel offerings. It can be observed that networks have paid more attention to developing one, or two, high-traffic channels with quality content instead of spreading content across multiple narrow channels. Consider the fact of FX as a destination channel more than channels FXX or FXM can be. This “Tuberization” means media companies continuously ask platforms such as DIRECTV to take their one premium channel while allowing other second-tier stations to fade away.
On the topic of cord-cutting and Changing Viewership Habits
New Streaming services also affected channel lineups, and many have shifted from cable and satellite to streaming services. With the shift in viewers’ behavior and their move away from traditional linear TV subscriptions, the audiences are more dispersed across more specialized platforms. In other words, current providers, including DIRECTV, must include channels that still relate to an undesirable group of viewers, who continue to adhere to outdated consumption patterns. This in turn causes or contributes to the economic issues that later result in the deletion of specific channels from the rosters.
Programming Duplication
To support this, DIRECTV frequently uses programming duplication as a reason for removing lesser-viewed channels from their package. This makes the format often used today where many channels are owned by one or a few media companies, there are a lot of similarities between the channels. Customers do not care or appreciate multiple channels providing almost similar things. Thus, DIRECTV excludes redundant programming that consumers can find in the list of channels with equal ease.
Increased Choice and Options
As the number of satellite and cable customers has been shrinking in the era of cord neutrality, the variety of content that viewers can consume has tremendously multiplied in recent years. Since most of the companies are now using streaming platforms to sell their products, customers have been presented with a chance to make more choices than ever before. Thus, DIRECTV’s strategy of having a pool of widely subscribed top channels as the core of most viewership is reasonable compared to the packages that are filled with dozens of similar or low-rated channels. It is logical to offer strong popular channels while using other services for a selected choice that fits the fragmented media reality of today.
What New Channels have been removed and why
Analyzing a few of them will help explain the cost and viewer-related issues that DIRECTV has been facing in its channel removals. The satellite provider DIRECTV removed Weather Nation from its programming slate in 2019 after it had incorporated the channel a few months earlier. The subscriber fees that Weather Nation demanded were just way too huge for the audience base they were delivering. Although it publicly stated that it received less than 200 complaints about the removal of Weather Nation, DIRECTV believed that it did not make much business or customer relationship sense to retain it.
Another conflict in the rights fee that the sports networks had with DIRECTV led to the removal of the ALT sports channels in 2021. Even in such events as live shows, a rating indicated that only a small percentage of the subscribers tuned in to a channel, less than ALT1. Considering the perceived subscriber fees having been stated to be as high as nine times the ad revenues, ALT sports just could not be sustained.
Other regional sports networks that appear to have had a similar experience in the recent past include Fox Sports Southwest, Fox Sports Ohio, and NBC Sports California. Due to the high asking price for broadcast rights for local MLB, NBA, and NHL games, these RSNs are no longer affordable by many providers. Bundle requirements bring about situations where DIRECTV is compelled to let go of several RSNs in one go since most of them are bundled.
What does all these mean for DIRECTV customers?
For those who have subscribed to DIRECTV and have been consistently tuned to networks that get eliminated, it is annoying when the channels are pulled out. To change the message, channel lineups are shrinking progressively, which annoys loyal customers who remember Peak TV. However, to most customers, the channels shave off remain unseen and unheard. As is observed, the majority of subscribers have always preferred to continue tuning to several certain channels only. And quite often the dropped channels are replaced by the new or more popular and frequently accessed channels.
Going Forward
Unfortunately, it is improbable that DIRECTV will bring a vast number of canceled channels back in the future. Even if license and programming expenses are to continue their inexorable rise, cord-cutting is steadily eroding the audience that can afford to pay for the big bundles. DIRECTV will continuously evaluate channel performance to identify if the current channels correspond to majority viewership. There is the hope that such niche channels, which are finding it difficult to attract a declining viewership, will be expected to lose their prized channel position at a later date.
Instead of waiting for the chance that it would climb back to the record high channel numbers that people saw in the past, they should learn to live with and accept the small packages that are being offered by DIRECTV with emphasis on those channels that people mostly turn to for their sporting events, news or entertainment. Adding some streaming additions to the existing DIRECTV package can be beneficial to compensate for some of the lost niche channel content. And if seriously suffering from specific deleted channels, switching to another provider often becomes the only viable solution for those who cannot accept the provider’s cost-cutting measures.
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