Déjà vu? Some Canadians at risk of losing AMC’s ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Breaking Bad’

Stop us when this one sounds familiar: AMC is currently making a carriage dispute public by telling viewers that they will be losing some of their beloved programming. The difference? This time, it’s happening north of the border.

Over the weekend, a new website arrived online cautioning subscribers to Rogers (one of the top cable providers in Canada) that they could soon lose such programming as “The Walking Dead,” “Mad Men,” and “Breaking Bad” if a new agreement is not reached soon. This is the same sort of dispute that carried out for much of last summer involving Dish Network, but in that case there was also a lawsuit involved and and “Breaking Bad” was sacrificed as a result.

While we had a good deal of sympathy for AMC during the first battle, isn’t this starting to be a situation of where there’s smoke, there’s fire? The network has been involved in more public carriage disputes than any other major cable network within the past year, as it has been their strategy to take their qualms public and mobilize fans. While they understandably believe that their high-quality programming is worth a prize, cautioning fans in such a way is largely a tactic in order to further negotiations in their favor using public perception.

In a statement, Rogers promised viewers that they have every intention of keeping AMC programming in the future, but also expressed their displeasure at the way in which the network went about explaining the situation to its viewers:

“We’re surprised and disappointed they would alarm our customers. We are in negotiations and expect a positive outcome.”

What do you think about this latest battle: do you understand that AMC wants a high price for their programming, or do you think that these disputes happen publicly a little bit too often? If you want to read more about the future for “Breaking Bad” the show, you can find out by heading on over to the link here.

Photo: AMC