Update: Rainbow Claims AT&T is "Acting in an Aggressive Manner"

Update: The back and forth continues. In an e-mail statement to Paste, Rainbow Media Holdings says that “AT&T is acting in an aggressive manner that puts their corporate interests ahead of their customers.” Representatives from the company say “AT&T is threatening to yank AMC, WE tv and IFC, and leave their customers without the hottest show on television, AMC’s Mad Men, just before the premiere of the new season." They want viewers to know that they “are negotiating in good faith with AT&T and are hopeful that [the two companies] can reach an agreement as soon as possible so that [their] viewers don’t lose out.” Any AT&T customers who would like to keep viewing the channels can call 1-877-9-KEEP ON or go to IWantMyTVChannels.com.
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Reports surfaced yesterday that AT&T’s DSL television/internet/phone service, U-Verse, is considering dropping three channels owned by Rainbow Media Holdings when a contract between the two companies expires July 14. One of the channels, AMC, broadcasts the acclaimed drama Mad Men, which is scheduled to premiere July 25.

Paste discussed the ongoing negotiations with AT&T’s Director of Corporate Communications, Dawn Benton, who told us Rainbow is trying to forge an unfair agreement with the company. “We don’t want customers to have to miss any programming that they’re interested in, but we want our customers to know that we can’t and won’t give in to unreasonable deals that unfairly disadvantage them,” Benton says.

Benton says Rainbow tried to renegotiate a contract for a channel that hasn’t expired while also attempting to incorporate a new channel that wasn’t formally presented to AT&T until after the original contract between the two companies expired July 1 (AT&T agreed to a 14-day contract extension that expires tomorrow). She says aggregate data indicates that “Rainbow channels are among the least watched and most overpriced per viewer compared to other major programming providers.”

Benton says AT&T wants to continue negotiating with Rainbow, but feels that they are “at an impasse” with the company. “Rainbow is using one of their channels to try and force us to carry and accept inflated prices for the other channels…. We want to make it clear that we’re not threatening to take Rainbow off the air (we want our customers to have access to the programming that they want); we’re simply letting our customers know that Rainbow could force us to remove the channels if an agreement isn’t reached by [July 14].”

If the contract between the two companies isn’t renewed, AT&T U-Verse subscribers will no longer be able to access Rainbow’s AMC, WE and IFC channels.

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