DirecTV is a good service, but howiss losing several popular Viacom channels in dispute between DirecTV and Viacom for days make things any better at DirecTV regarding disputes.
The differences between the recent Dish/AMC and Direct/Viacom disputes were discussed at the time. And, it was clear why most people supported Direct, but not many supported Dish.
-Dish dropped the AMC channels. Viacom pulled their channels from Direct.
-Dish made the decision in advance to drop AMC at the end of the contract, with no negotiation. DirecTV wanted to keep the channels up while negotiating.
-AMC made some of their programming available at no charge on the Net. Viacom removed all of their programming from the Net.
-Dish is doing this because of Charlie's personal dislike of AMC's parent corporation due to a separate lawsuit having nothing to do with these channels. DirecTV was only concerned with the issue at hand, the current carriage agreement with Viacom.
-Quite simply, Dish has more of these public disputes with content providers, always using the excuse of saving its customers money. Yet, never has a loss of channels brought about a reduction in package price.
-Dish was involved in 22 of the 42 most recent channel takedowns on cable/satellite.
I'm sure there's more. But, those were the main ones off the top of my head right now.