I don't see the big deal about CBS. If you have rabbit ears plugged into the receiver, you still get local channels. I'll still be pretty pissed if they took away Comedy Central, MTV, and BET. Even if most of the stuff on MTV is crap, there is occasional stuff I like.
I can't wait to get home and cancel my Dish service. Good luck trying to stick me with any cancellation fees.
I think, if I were DISH Network, I'd rather spend the 6 cents per subscriber and keep them happy by not having to interrupt service. Even if you increased everyone's bill by 12 cents to cover it, I don't think customers would notice. Seems cheaper than refunding $1 or $2 per month for the outage.
oh come on Max... Of course Im comparing digital cable...Im not one of those D&D guys that compares apples to oranges to make my point. I was paying $115/month with Direct for almost all the movie channels+ basic packages....I have all the movie channels(except showtime and TMC) with dig cable and add the 40 a month for RR high speed...and am payin $125... and on top of that...I can get all those channels in every room in the house, whereas before I only had signal to two rooms with the dish with dual connections (at that time they didnt have the ones now where you can get 4 on one dish)....and the rooms that werent hooked to the dish could only get over the air (antenna)...at least with cable, if I dont have a dig cable converter in my kids room...she can still see the channels up to 80 or so....no antenna needed. and lets not even discuss the weather factor....Do you know how frustrating it is to be watching the Rockets in a tight game and have the rain start and lose your dang signal with the dish? Used to happen all the time. Nick.... Im sure it is a good deal if you can afford all those high dollar options...but I cant. Im just a poor middle class working guy with a wife and kids who cant afford to schlop out the money for HD TVS and LP and I have no interest in the other sports packages...the only teams I want to watch, I get to see on Houston TV...Rockets and the Texans. SO maybe it works great for you...but dont try to play it off like satellite is some way superior product when it simply isnt true .
EchoStar ups the ante DISH blitz yanks Viacom nets By MEREDITH AMDUR, JOHN DEMPSEY EchoStar declared war on Viacom on Tuesday, igniting the bloodiest battle in the history of cable-network distribution. No distributor of EchoStar's size has ever removed 10 cable networks and a total of 16 television stations owned by Viacom from its satellite feed after negotiations for carriage reached a dead end. "This is channel yanking by a distributor on an unprecedented scale," said Mark Rosenthal, president of distribution for the Viacom-owned MTV Networks, 10 of which, including MTV, Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite, VH1, Comedy Central, TV Land, BET and Spike, vanished Tuesday from the TV screens of EchoStar's 9.5 million subscribers. One executive for a large cable operator said the outlook may not be good for a quick settlement because "Viacom and EchoStar's Charlie Ergen are two of the most vicious negotiators in the business. Viacom is a big bully and Ergen is a little bully, but they're both bullies." Rosenthal and Marty Franks, executive VP of CBS, were particularly incensed that Ergen included the home phone number of Viacom's president Mel Karmazin on the voice-mail line set up for EchoStar subscribers calling to complain about the disappearance of all of the Viacom networks. Tactics like that are an attempt by Ergen to undermine Viacom's relationship with its viewers and "extract a better deal" for the Viacom networks, Rosenthal said. EchoStar's executives, he continued, "care more about lining their own pockets than about what matters to subscribers." Instead of "negotiating in good faith," EchoStar officials "prefer to peddle insults, distortions and outright untruths," Rosenthal said. In a statement, EchoStar attacked as "strong-arm tactics" Viacom's demand that the DISH Network carry channels "of little or no measurable appeal to viewers" in exchange for the rights to carry each of the 16 owned-and-operated CBS stations in the affected markets. EchoStar also claims that Viacom threatened to withhold the Super Bowl from DISH Network customers until a federal judge intervened, keeping the TV stations on the satellite while the two parties continued their negotiations. Ergen appears to be ready to stand on principle by rejecting the Viacom deal, but he's walking a fine line financially. Depending on how long the standoff lasts, EchoStar could end up losing as many as 200,000 subs in the next month, or $400 million in revenue, one analyst estimated. The 16 markets where the CBS-owned TV station was pulled account for 17% of EchoStar subscribers, but only 4% of Viacom subs. "The price increases that EchoStar is griping about seem reasonably in line (roughly 7% compounded annually) with what other cable operators are paying for Viacom's cable network," Prudential analyst Katherine Styponias said, adding that EchoStar's claim of being gouged by Viacom may not hold much water in the court of public opinion. Viacom, for its part, is holding the line. Prudential reckons the company stands to lose as much as $14 million a month from the loss of affiliate fees and some $50 million from lost advertising should the standoff continue through March. "It is hard for us to make sense of their position," Viacom said in a statement. "They recently hiked their subscribers' bills by as much as $3 a month. Yet they are unwilling to consider paying an additional six cents a month per subscriber for the right to carry our channels." Viacom said its networks combined account for more than 20% of U.S. viewing time, for which they're asking "less than 5%" of what EchoStar currently generates from its average customer. Bob Iger, the No. 2 man at Walt Disney, told an industry conference Tuesday that distributors like EchoStar "can't afford not to carry best of brand. I think it's a mistake for a platform to deprive its customers of the content that Viacom has." Ongoing disputes Although it has raised the stakes dramatically, the spat between Viacom and EchoStar is just an escalation of the ongoing financial disputes between content owners and distributors. In the last year, Cox Communications successfully challenged Disney and Fox to reduce their cable-network fee demands. Chuck Dolan's Cablevision in New York deprived its 3 million subscribers of Yankees games for the entire 2002 season because Dolan said the YES regional sports network was charging too much for the service. Three years ago, Time Warner Cable created a public-relations nightmare for itself when it dared to dump ABC stations in New York, Houston and other TW markets after failing to reach agreement in a carriage battle with Disney. TW caved in after two days, and ended up writing a deal that was much more favorable to Disney than the terms on the table before TW pulled ABC. EchoStar could start losing subscribers fairly quickly because cable operators are already using the dispute as a marketing opportunity. Los Angeles area cabler operators Adelphia, Charter, Cox and Time Warner have set up a local hotline number to "assist" DISH customers who lost their CBS feed on their satellite service.
whoa!!! i didn't realize your cable choice was so personal...ease up a bit. i switched to Dish to SAVE money...not to add a superior product, but to add an equivalent product at a lower price than I was currently paying. It's that simple. and as for affording higher priced options...brother, I wouldn't pay anything close to $100/month for cable or satellite. You're the big spender in this crowd, my friend. My Time Warner bill was just under $70/month for nothing more than the basic package of digital cable...I don't buy movie channels. The very same package is right at $40/month on Dish Network. So I got the very same package for $30 less a month...plus a 3 month promotional period of $13/month. I called Time Warner and asked them to match this before I switched over....they went on and on about how I'd have to pay for the equipment...but that was a farce, too, because the equipment was free through Today's Satellite. No-freaking-brainer for the basic package I bought. Didn't mean to get you all worked up over cable TV.
really?? those channels will be back. no way Viacom holds the line and keeps their channels from being broadcast to all the Dish subscribers....particularly since they're asking for a freaking 40% price increase. that's a freaking joke. this is the real difference between cable and satellite. satellite companies have taken hard lines negotiating with these media companies, and it's kept the price down. satellite companies cave and raise your rates every year.
it's true, though. we all know that if you just accept whatever price is given, you will pay higher than you might pay otherwise. that's been the story of cable TV for what?? 20 years now?? it's why cable prices have grown at a rate higher than inflation while other technologies' prices have fallen significantly.
You people DO realize that Time Warner cable is a totally negotiable service, dont you? Try it sometime, you will never pay more than satellite and usually quite less. Currently paying $9.99 a month for 20 channels of HBO and Max, plus HBO on demand. Beat that.
that was not my experience at all. i had digital cable...i called them and said, "hey..here's the deal i have from dish..can you match it?" they said, "no..but you don't want to switch to dish..you have to buy all that expensive equipment." they never made an offer to match or even to come close.
Dish Network has pretty good deals. I pay $50 a month for 150 channels (no movie channels, which i wouldnt want anyway), and that includes 4 rooms and 2 TIVO/DVR receivers. Didnt have to pay anything for the receivers or equipment. And rain has rarely made my signal go out for more than a few seconds. Probably only 4 or 5 times in the 3 years that Ive had Dish. However, Instead of watching Moose A. Mouse and The Tweenies, my kid had to watch Barney and The Wiggles. He was not happy.
OK, I am completely behind when it comes to children's shows...what is Moose A. Mouse and the Tweenies?
I don't get the complaints about losing the signal on satellite providers. Maybe older equipment or different satellites don't work as well, but I've used DISH network for several months now, and I have only had one outage (for less than a minute) during a REALLY bad rain storm with lightning, etc. The prices are great, the DVR they gave me for free is REALLY great, and I have had no complaints save for this current fiasco with Viacom (which I have every bit of confidence will get resolved eventually).
When I had DirecTV from 1998-2000, I only lost the signal once or twice during massive rain storms, and neither was all that sustained of an outage. Both of my friends who have DISH currently (and have for a year or two) have weather-related outages very often (maybe twice each). But I do think it depends on how good your signal is to begin with.
I think the battle that is being waged between dish and viacom is a battle of public perception of who is wronging who. I think Viacom is winning. Who looks like the bad guy here? I understand that it is a lesser of two evils deal but jeez... My 3 and 7 year old are steaming pissed because SpongeBob went bye-bye. They don't give a crap about anything else. I hope Dish caves and goes out of business and is sued for a bazillion dollars over this because I have two children that like the Viacom product. Removing childrens programming, HUGELY POPULAR children's programming (just check Entertainment weekly's cable and sat. ratings) is corporate guerilla warfare that thewy should be ashamed of. I am a Dish subscriber and regardless of the outcome I am GONE. See ya. I don't want to send $60 a month to them anymore. Chance
Correct me if I am wrong, but arn't the Rockets in development of their own cable network for all games next season? If that is true then it is really going to suck for all of you that have satellite. I am in San Diego and they have a similar deal with the Padres, and people that have directv/dish cannot get the Padres games without ordering at least basic cable which really sucks ... Luckily I only care about the Astros so it doesnt bother me, but for people here it really sucks because even if you get the league pass or whatever, the local teams games are blacked out ... Could be the same situation for the Rockets there next season.
