Walking Dead area availability in question due to AMC price

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Some areas may not have AMC’s The Walking Dead for much longer, as a reported price increase for the channel has some television providers taking a stand.

Fans of The Walking Dead have gotten used to seeing their favorite zombie slaying heroes on AMC, but some areas might not be able to afford to handle the popular television channel for much longer due to a reported increase in the cost of carrying their programming.

That’s exactly what is going around Hendersonville, North Carolina according to WHKP Radio.

Cable providers want to keep their price down as much as possible. That way they can keep prices lower and maximize their profits. Every once in a while, providers have to negotiate deals with the companies whose channels they provide, and it sounds as though things aren’t going well with working out a deal with AMC.

"“When a programmer like AMC demands an unprecedented increase in its monthly fees, we believe it’s our responsibility to take a stand.  AMC is attempting to leverage its one hit show, Walking Dead, to force carriage of its weaker content.  The secondary channels are not popular and adding them to our lineup could impact our ability to enhance broadband capacity,” said Tony Carter, General Manager of Morris Broadband."

Viewers of AMC are probably familiar with this situation. In the past, we’ve seen AMC do the same thing with other cable companies in order to make more money to invest into their franchise.

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"“Our customers have likely seen alarming advertising crawls during recent episodes of Walking Dead.  It is important to note that negotiations continue and we would love to accept reasonable terms well ahead of the February return of new episodes to this program,” said Carter."

Those crawls were a regular part of things a little over a year ago, when AMC was threatening blackouts and programming removal, blaming the television providers for the loss of stations. However, this complicated game of negotiations and positioning is an ugly part of business that is supposed to happen behind the scenes.

For now, fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead don’t have to worry too much, as situations like this are usually resolved before programming is lost. But sometimes things just don’t work out and a provider has to drop some television options.

Hopefully, that doesn’t happen with fans of The Walking Dead.