50 Cent Calls AT&T “Racist”, Urges ‘Power’ Fans To Switch Cable Provider
UPDATED with AT&T statement: You could call it “Slam AT&T Or Die Tryin’” or you could just say the Power EP star is really peeved today at the telecommunication giant over possibly stalling carriage negotiations. Talks between Starz and AT&T continue but if a deal isn’t reached by the end of month, the premium cabler and its sister Encore could be off U-Verse. And that saw Curtis Jackson take to Twitter Saturday over his drama potentially not being available for AT&T and U-Verse customers next week. Calling AT&T “racist,” the EP also brought up issues of discrimination involving the company and a now pink slipped executive who was found to have derogatory imagery and texts on his company phone. Here’s what 50 Cent said Saturday, with just hours to go before the latest episode of Power goes to air.
Man Im sorry I have say this, but AT&T is racist they have had issues in the past and here we go… https://t.co/69rOlT4ke6
— 50cent (@50cent) July 18, 2015
Having had its second season debut last month with a record-breaking first run viewership for Starz, Power pulls in around 6 million viewers an episode on multiple plays and platforms for the channel.. Among more than half of Power’s viewers are African-American – that’s more than any other scripted show on premium cable. Power was renewed for a third season on June 10. Now the second most subscribed premium cable channel after HBO, Starz last sealed a deal with AT&T back in February 2012. Starz Play, Encore Play and Movieplex Play were added to U-Verse in December 2012. The current talks have seen the arrangement extended once already but sources say that there may not be a second time. With that in mind, there’s often brinksmanship in such carriage negotiations, and most are disputes are resolved before a channel gets pulled off the provider. This also comes as AT&T is in the process of getting government approval on their $49 billion acquisition of DirecTV.
An AT&T spokesperson told Deadline tonight: “Starz and their paid talent can spin up whatever they like, but the bottom line is we’re NOT going to negotiate a deal that is bad for customers. In these negotiations, our customers are all that matter to us.”
Still, for 50, the eleventh hour was too close for comfort.
When this was happening they were saying they had the STARZ and other networks that created… https://t.co/OIt7GvhpHY
— 50cent (@50cent) July 18, 2015
Change your cable package from AT&T to anything else. It’s 2015 and these people are still racist.… https://t.co/X0o9OCq9OJ
— 50cent (@50cent) July 18, 2015
If your a fan of POWER and you have AT&T as a cable carrier, you will no longer see it. Switch to… https://t.co/JyFNzrodgv
— 50cent (@50cent) July 18, 2015
“Starz is in ongoing negotiations with AT&T U-verse to continue distributing its 30 Starz and Encore channels and services at a fair and reasonable rate,” said a STarz spokesperson in a statement over the talks with AT&T. “Without a new agreement, the millions of AT&T customers who have chosen to subscribe and pay for Starz and Encore will be at risk of losing these channels and the popular original programming like Power and Outlander, as well as thousands of movies. Starz has enjoyed a strong and mutually beneficial relationship with AT&T until now. We are hopeful AT&T will negotiate in good faith and that we will reach a fair agreement that allows its customers to continue to get great entertainment at a good value.”
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Deadline’s David Lieberman contributed to this report.
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