Also another thing to keep in mind Suddenlink is a mid-sized operator. They can’t offset some costs like Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV and Dish can. The companies I mentioned has 15-25 million customers. Suddenlink is in the 1-2 million range.

Also AMC is most likely bundling IFC, WE TV, Sundance along with it and probably wants more money for those channels as well. Unlike AMC its sibling channels are not performing like AMC to justify an increase.

Now while an increase for just AMC isn’t that bad you have to take in how much does AMC want for its sibling channels. Now here is where consumer bills come into play.

Remember the Viacom-Time Warner battle? Same thing, Viacom wanted increases for their 19+ channels while only five at the most warranted increases. But another thing to remember despite Bright House Networks also being involved in the dispute Time Warner Cable owns a minority stake in this cable company. Part of Time Warner’s duties for Bright House is to negotiate on their behalf. So technically this was one provider as well.

A lot of broadcast networks and cable channels are starting to lose money mainly due to the rise of streaming media (legal and illegal). Their ratings overall for live broadcasts are down compared to previous years. This also means the money are getting from advertisers are less as well. (Less ratings = less advertising money).

They see that getting cable & satellite companies to pay outrageous prices per subscriber makes up for their lack of advertising money. Companies that have a virtual monopoly like:

*Comcast/NBCUniversal (NBC, USA, SyFy, NBC Sports, Comcast Sports Net)

*The Walt Disney Company (ABC, Disney, ESPN)

*News Corporation (Fox, MyNetworkTV, FX, Various regional sports networks)

*CBS Corporation (CBS, CBS Sports Network, Showtime)

*Viacom through MTV Networks (MTV, Nick, Comedy Central, TV Land) and BET Networks (BET, Centric)

*A+E Networks [jointly owned by Hearst Corporation, Disney & Comcast through NBCUniversal] (A&E, Lifetime)

*Discovery Communications (Discovery, TLC, BBC America [distribution only])

*AMC Networks (AMC, IFC, WE, Sundance)

*Time Warner [not the cable company] (TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, TruTV, TCM)

*Companies that own local affilates like Sinclar & Hearst Coporation that are affliated with the Big Six Networks (CBS & The CW/Fox & MyNetwork TV/ ABC / NBC)

*National Footbal League (NFL Network/NFL RedZone)

These are the main companies that contribute 99% to the basic lineups of all providers. All of these companies have at some point wanted an outrageous increase or is very popular and wanted outrageous demands.

If all the cable & satellite companies would have given in at their first offer I honestly believe that our bills (don’t matter if you had cable or satellite) would be 10x more than they are now.

When you see both cable and satellite companies battling the above companies due to their outrageous increases/demands then you know there is a problem when you got DirecTV and Cablevision battling News Corporation.

DirecTV and Cablevision serve the New York market where News Corporation owns the Fox/MyNetworkTV affiliates and threatened to pull not only the cable channels but the local affiliate as well.

I expect that if AMC Networks try this again with another provider like Time Warner Cable or DirecTV you will see another battle. Generally if one provider stands up and speaks out against the outrageous demands they tend not to try it again.

So if Suddenlink happened to drop AMC Networks I would just watch their shows online or go to my relative’s house that has Dish. I wouldn’t cancel my service with Suddenlink over it because they could try this with Dish and then threaten Dish as well. See my News Corporation reference above since this scenario did happen.

Eventually the owners of the TV channels will break down and reach an agreement on favorable terms. Why? Because even losing Suddenlink (which is 1.5 million subscribers) would hurt their advertising money. So if ratings go down due to a disagreement with a TV provider their advertising money goes down as well.

There is my fifty cents and more.