PlayStation Vue is dropping Viacom's entire channel lineup

[Shawn Knight]

Sony has revealed that as of 12:01 a.m. Eastern on Friday, all Viacom-owned networks will be removed from PlayStation Vue, its Internet-based streaming television service.

Dwayne Benefield, vice president and head of PlayStation Vue, disclosed the news in a recent post on the PlayStation blog. Benefield said that as part of their ongoing evaluation of the service, they determined that removing the Viacom bundle of channels is the best way to continue to offer the most compelling value to subscribers.

The executive attempted to put a positive spin on things by first announcing that BBC America and NBA TV will be launching on the service on Wednesday. Benefield added that VICE and more local broadcast stations from CBS and Fox are coming soon.

Interestingly enough, Benefield didn’t say whether or not Vue pricing would be affected by removing Viacom channels. In a message to The Wall Street Journal, a Sony spokesperson said they had no pricing changes to announce at this time.

That said, losing Viacom is a big blow for Sony as it consists of popular channels like BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike and VH1, just to name a few. With additional competition in the works from AT&T and Hulu, having fewer channels seemingly doesn’t bode well for Vue. If there’s enough backlash from customers, it’s possible that Sony could reconsider although I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/66976-playstation-vue-dropping-viacom-entire-channel-lineup.html

 

[bandit8623]

Not a big deal I don't watch any of those channels anyways.

 

[GeforcerFX]

Most of these streaming tv services seem to be aimed at younger audienc, losing Viacom could hurt them.

 

[psycros]

Not a big deal I don't watch any of those channels anyways.

90% of subscribers will feel exactly the same way. Besides, there are multiple options for still watching those stations, and I'm sure at least one of them is available on the PSX3/4.

 

[ghostf1re]

The only channel that I care for in that group is Comedy Central and that's solely for South Park. The rest of those channels can go pound sand. Especially channel that have become pure crap like MTV.

 

[Camikazi]

I was worried when I first found out about this but when I looked up the channels being lost I figured out I am only losing one channel I occasionally watch and that is TV Land. The rest of them don't bother me at all since I never watched any MTV or Nick channel anyway. They are also adding in other channels which are more interesting to me than the Viacom channels so I see it as a win.

@GeforceFX These services are not actually aimed at younger audiences since the ones who watch Nick channels and most MTV don't pay for the TV anyway, this is aimed at adults who don't like paying $200 or more for cable and want a cheaper alternative.