The media landscape is changing rapidly, making it difficult to keep up with the constant shifts – new services, or even where and how to watch some of your favorite content. The only constant is that with rising prices and fractured offerings, it’s the customers who are left behind, often having to pay more for less.
Because of this, disputes between cable companies and content providers are increasingly commonplace while accountability and transparency with customers are increasingly rare, as we recently saw when Altice USA dropped MSG Networks from its Optimum service for subscribers in Nassau County and across the tri-state area.
When Altice dropped MSG Networks from its cable lineups, it left more than a million of its Optimum customers without access to live local games featuring the New York Islanders, New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils.
The rhetoric from Altice about why this was necessary was more of the same gaslighting that we have seen before – citing “exorbitant fees” and a need to keep prices down for consumers. But it does not take much thought to see how disingenuous this all is, and that the only costs Altice is looking out for are its own, as it fails to pass on any savings to customers while padding its profits.
More than a week since denying its audience this popular programming, Altice reportedly revoked its own offer and walked away from negotiating – but they still have yet to proactively give their customers a refund. Plus, they’ve dropped even more programming: subscribers in the New York region now don’t have access to WPIX (Channel 11), which carried dozens of Mets games last year.
Instead of automatically issuing refunds, Altice is only providing some combination of rebates, gift cards and/or billing credits to those customers who contact them directly to complain and are willing to endure excessive wait times to connect with an Altice representative. Some customers are indicating they are receiving more from Altice if they threaten to disconnect and sign up with an Optimum competitor. If Altice truly respected its customers and cared about keeping costs down, it would proactively provide a full refund of more than $10 per month to every single customer who has seen their local sports and other content yanked from the airwaves, equating to tens of millions of dollars a year to New Yorkers subscribing to their service.
And, of course, this is coming after Altice’s announcement just last month of significant rate increases, raising the price of its existing packages while offering new, supposedly customer-friendly options that appear to reconfigure channel offerings so that people are paying more for less. That’s not fair to consumers.
Altice should be back at the negotiating table, working to reach an agreement that restores MSG Networks for its customers, and until that content returns, they should immediately give the same full rebates, refunds and credits to every subscriber who has lost MSG Networks and WPIX (Channel 11) programming.
The media industry may be undergoing significant change, but that is no excuse for massive corporations to completely abandon their commitments to their customers and community to follow standard, common-sense fair business practices.
Altice has put its own bottom line above any other consideration, and they need to be held accountable. Customers should get what they paid for, or they should get their money back.
Dr. Taylor Darling is a former Assembly member for the 18th District (2019-24), representing population centers across Nassau County, including Hempstead, Uniondale, and Roosevelt.
