Today Sling TV customers woke up to find out that HBO is no longer available on Sling TV and Dish. This comes as Dish and HBO’s new owner AT&T failed to come to deal to offer HBO and Cinemax on Sling TV.
“Past behavior shows that removing services from their customers is becoming all too common a negotiating tactic for them,” HBO said in its statement. “We hope the situation with Dish changes soon but, in the meantime, our valued customers should take advantage of the other ways to access an HBO subscription so they can continue to enjoy our acclaimed programming,” HBO said in a statement.
Dish quickly countered with a statement of their own:
“Plain and simple, the merger created for AT&T immense power over consumers,” Dish senior VP of programming Andy LeCuyer said in a statement. “It seems AT&T is implementing a new strategy to shut off its recently acquired content from other distributors. This may be the first of many HBO blackouts for consumers across the country. AT&T no longer has incentive to come to an agreement on behalf of consumer choice; instead, it’s been given the power to grab more money or steal away customers.”
“AT&T’s actions are a deliberate slap in the face to rural Americans,” LeCuyer continued in his statement. “And furthermore, they are anticompetitive. AT&T, a company worth more than $200 billion, is intentionally punishing those who don’t have big-city broadband access, in an attempt to push customers to the only other satellite provider, its own DirecTV.”
It is true that Dish was in opposition to the Time Warner AT&T merger and even testified at trial against the deal. Now we have to wait and see what happens next between Dish and AT&T.
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