AT&T blacks out HBO, Cinemax for Dish, Sling TV users over carriage dispute
Prefix:  Speaking generally, with regard to &quot;blackouts&quot; impacting immediate and short-term, essentially already sold and &quot;committed to&quot; services.<p>Pertaining to this instance, that would include taking on and honoring the contracts and commitments already made by your acquisition.<p>--<p>Here&#x27;s an idea:  Regulation that says the moment they do such, they have to discount all impacted customers&#x27; billing by the amount represented by these services.<p>And, up the food chain, the other parties lose their corresponding revenue.  No grace period, no exceptions.  Every hour of blackout costs them, for what they are not providing on the packages they&#x27;ve sold customers.<p>I&#x27;d also argue for an additional penalty assessment for lack of notice to customers of service change.<p>When it starts costing them all money, negotiations may go a bit more smoothly and willingly -- and planfully.<p>&quot;But, contracts!&quot;<p>Commercial contracts face all sorts of legal limitations.  This proposal seems a pretty simple and purposeful limitation, that is overdue.<p>--<p>P.S.  Once it&#x27;s coded into their systems, it can be generalized.  Failed Internet connectivity?  Discount!  Missed service call?  Discount!<p>In other words, stop them from externalizing the costs of poor support.  (Which they can do all the more readily in the absence of effective competition, a known issue here in the U.S.)<p>P.P.S.  You can also see the pressure&#x2F;incentive this situation provides, for customers to move to online streaming over a neutral carrier (if they can get it), for such programming -- including access at time of release as opposed to through an archive.