So, I have been following this story about Hulu refusing to air “controversial political ads,” which presently seems to be just Democratic “controversial ads.” See this post if you have not yet:
www.dailykos.com/…
Of course I hope you will avail yourself of this link, but knowing some will not, I’ll summarize. Hulu is refusing to air certain ads from the Democratic Party on the grounds that they are “too sensitive.”
See this link from the HuffPo on the same. Headline: “Hulu blocks Democrats’ Political Ads On ‘Sensitive” Issues Like Abortion, Guns.” In this article it also says that “Hulu has not responded to HuffPost’s request for comment. I thought, now why the hell wouldn’t they take the opportunity to do that? After all, everyone’s money is green and generally business doesn’t want to fool with that. Or at least that’s the way it used to be.
www.huffpost.com/…
When I first learned of this I thought, there must be more, because surely this is a subscription suicide move. And, in the diary I linked to, some in the comments said they’d already cancelled their subscription. To my surprise, some said they did not say why on their way out. I understand that a little better after my own experience trying to say “what the heck are you thinking?” Albeit, in less accusatory words.
Call me shallow, but I enjoy Hulu offerings and thought, not so fast. I decided to use their contact click to express my opinion on this, which is first of all---are you kidding me—ALL political issues are controversial and ‘sensitive’ by their very nature. And secondly, either refuse ALL political ads and make it clear that you’re speaking to both sides of the aisle, or take the money and run the ads from both sides of the aisle. Anything in-between doesn’t work for me.
I started with their “contact us” click on their website, but I quickly learned that thing was tailored to make it virtually impossible to make this kind of comment.
So then I googled and found their customer service phone number. I heard an option regarding cancellations and pressed that number. I waited a long time thru very bad muzak and repeated entreaties trying to tell me in essence, why don’t you just do this on line and save us the misery of having to deal with you in person. But I hung in there, phone to my ear, watching TV and waiting.
When I was finally connected with a representative, I put on my very good girl pants and explained ever so politely but firmly, that I did not want to cancel my subscription to Hulu. That I liked Hulu. BUT, that I had recently heard that Hulu was turning down Democratic ads on the basis that they were “too sensitive.”
I was very clear that I might not know the whole story (how can you when they refuse comment) but that I needed to know they were either refusing all political ads, or accepting these ‘sensitive’ political issue ads from both sides. I also made it clear that I did not expect the phone support team to be able to answer to this, but that since they always tell me we may be being recorded, I hoped that was true in this case, as I wanted Hulu to hear my comment.
Well, that customer rep asked for my member e-mail, and when I gave it to her she said, “I will cancel your account.” I said, “wait, what did you just say? Did you hear what I was saying?” Again, I was super polite. She freaking hung up on me. No, it wasn't a technical glitch, you can tell. Click. She was gone.
Mad enough not to be deterred, I called customer service AGAIN and went through the whole phone tree and wait thing AGAIN. This time I got a guy who was a better experience. He listened and said he understood and he would write this up and btw, would I take the survey after our phone call, basically to say how well he did? SIGH. At least he was professional, but let’s face it, who knows if he will or will not write up my comments. Don’t know if my chances are even 50/50. And how many people are willing to go through what I did, simply to give a company feed back?
So I am humbled regarding my idea that it is at all easy to let a company know how you feel. Some say writing a real letter gets their attention, but excuse my cynicism about that. I just don’t believe Disney is going to read my letter. Why would they go to that trouble and the expense to have someone reading snail mail, when they purposely obscure the easiest way they could get feed back from their customers? And AGAIN, why would they want to do that? I mean these are big companies that spend a lot of money on research to find out how their customers feel. It’s just crazy to me.
BIG SIGH. What I see is corporations doing everything they can to strangle any meaningful customer feed back they don’t want to hear, while at the same time they bound out there with statements about “sensitive political issues” when it comes to Democratic ads. As if AGAIN, there is any other kind of political issue. And yet, as they do so, they kill their own golden goose. I just don’t get it as it seems so counter intuitive. Or maybe, I dunno, they think if they make it hard for us to let them know we’re paying attention, it will go away
For now, I’ll give Hulu about 2 more minutes to do better. And then like those in the comments of that first post, I will cancel on them. But it just seems so frustrating to do so without being able to let them know why, because certainly that is the key to “making them” do better.
But these are the times we live in.