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, cable TV customers 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. Their cavalier action revealed a complete lack of respect for residents in our community.
When Altice dropped MSG Networks from its cable lineups, it left over a million of its Optimum customers without access to live local games featuring the Islanders, Knicks, Rangers and Devils.
Altice’s rhetoric 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.
It is hard to believe that this anti-consumer behavior is still tolerated.
More than a week since denying its audience this popular programming, Altice has yet to proactively refund its customers. Instead, they only provide 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 indicate they receive 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 rebate to every single customer who has seen their local sports content yanked from the airwaves.
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 most users have to pay significantly more to receive the same content.
Altice should be back at the bargaining table, working to reach an agreement that restores MSG Networks for its customers. Until that content returns, they should immediately give the same full rebates, refunds, and credits to every subscriber who has lost MSG Networks 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.
