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Echostar/Dish Network Pulls Viacom Channels
RedWolves2 writes "As was mentioned yesterday, Viacom was trying to warn Dish Network customers over the weekend that its channels were going to be pulled from their service. Well today those channels were finally pulled. 'EchoStar Communications Corp. on Tuesday pulled from service 16 of Viacom's local CBS stations and 10 of its national channels after the companies failed to agree on contract terms and prices.' Echostar will provide a $1 monthly credit to customers who lose programming while the channels are unavailable. Sorry but $1 a month is not exactly a fair trade off. DirecTV sounds like a great choice."
If they watch TV, they do. Every "dead" channel has a message up pointing to the Dish Info channel, which is continuously running a ~2 minute explanation by Charlie himself of what's going on.
Dav2.718
I personally will be sending an email expressing my feelings that even though I am dissappointed to lose Comedy Central for an undetermined amount of time, I stand by Dish Network in their stance against Viacom.
-IOVAR Web Dev Platform
Disclaimer: I work for Dish Network
Second Disclaimer: I really don't have any loyalty to the company.
The channels you'll be missing are basicly Nick, Commedy Central, BET, VH1, MTV(1 & 2), Nick GAS, and a few others of little consequence.
DirecTV and Dish are functionaly interchangable as far as service, channels (at least normaly), and price are concerned (Dish is only significanly cheeper at its lowest tier).
Equipment wise it's a tough call. Personaly, I prefer Dish's DVR522. The reason is that it is a PVR/DVR unit available through the Digital Home Advantage plan with dual tuner capability. Dual Tuner DVRs are hard to find in the satelite industry. A recent software upgrade allows you to actualy set up a recording on the TV2 location from the TV1 location, thereby effectively making this a poor mans substitute for the 721 recevier.
If you don't qualify for DHA though, it's more or less a draw. Your choice, but I'd look into the equipment etc that you're installing to make that call.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
I don't think it's so much about "supporting unfair business practices." Some people just want to watch things on those channels. Given, MTV and such are pretty much wasted space... but if you've ever been around kids recently, you might know that Nickelodeon is still big with the young ones.
I have a little brother and sister (3 and 7 yrs old) and for whatever reason, the can't get enough of the stuff on there...
And I can't imagine what Survivor fans are going to do... (another thing I'm not a fan of). But some people just want to see watch that programming, no matter who owns it or usually, what they're doing for business practices. DirecTV sounds like a great choice now for some people because it's still offering those stations...
this isn't insightful, it's trollish. I don't know what everyone else is paying, but I assure you 1/70th of my bill in refund in exchange for taking 10% of my channels is not in anyway fair. Beyond that, most of us have contracts with them that will not let us drop and go to another service without paying an extra cancellation fee. And before you ask, yes, they have clauses that say they can change the programming, but so does every other carrier. Oh, and yes they did just settle a class action law suit on those cancellation fees last may, apparantly they didn't learn their lesson the first time.
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
"I was under the impression Dish had better technology and lower prices than DirectTV!?"
Sort of. Dish has cheaper low-end packages (e.g. Dish has a $29.99 package with 60 channels and locals) but after you get to the mid-range packages DirecTV gets more competitive (about $2 more expensive usually).
Dish originally had the capacity to deliver more channels, but thanks to the launch of the 4S and 7S satellites DirecTV now has the lead. This may change with the launch of Dish's next satellite.
What is actually hapening here is that Viacom is saying to Dish Network something like "We're not going to let you have the CBS stations and MTV and VH1 and the others you WANT unless you take the other 10 stations we offer which noone wants".
I bet Dish would love to be able to offer packages where you can pick and choose, but they are (in some cases) prevented from doing this by the Viacom's of the world.
As for DirecTV's vs. Dish, all I know are these few things:
Albuquerque PC
DIRECTV was already a great choice
Remember Smartcard Reader/Writers?
DirectTV is the company that's been extorting thousands of dollars from everybody who ever bought one - regardless of whether they ever used them, or intended to use them, to rip off DirecTV's signals.
When did we stop boycotting people who use extortionist threats to block techies from getting access to technological devices?
Are we all going to start doing business with SCO while we're at it?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Echostar will provide a $1 monthly credit to customers who lose programming while the channels are unavailable. Sorry but $1 a month is not exactly a fair trade off.
d ex.shtml
Guess what? Echostar doesn't own you anything. You should be glad they are giving you that discount, and you'd know it if you actually read the agreement they provide service under. Here's the related section of the agreement:
"G. Changes in Services offered. DISH Network reserves the right to change the Services that we offer, and our prices or fees related to such Services at any time. If the change affects you, we will provide you notice of the change and its effective date. The notice may be provided on your billing statement or by other communication permitted under Section 9B. In the event of a change in the contents of any programming, programming packages or other Services, you understand and agree that we have no obligation to replace or supplement the programming, programming packages or other Services previously offered that have been deleted, rearranged or otherwise changed. You further understand and agree you will not be entitled to any refund because of a change in the contents of any programming, programming packages, or other Services previously offered."
From http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/aboutus/RCA/in
DirecTV sounds like a great choice.
Make sure you learn to read their agreement when you sign up. Don't cry about about it after the fact.
this is my sig
Viacom Press Briefing on EchoStar Pulling our Networks
March 9, 2004
Remarks by Mark Rosenthal, President and COO, MTV Networks:
For the past few months, as this situation with EchoStar has unfolded, we've been trying to take the high road, speaking just to the larger issues and trying to ignore the gross distortions and inaccuracies that Charlie Ergen and EchoStar have been flinging around. There comes a point, however, where you have to respond, if only to set the record straight. And that's why we're here today - and we appreciate your taking the time to join us.
As we said in our statement last night, we are disturbed and disappointed by EchoStar's decision to pull the plug on our channels. This is channel yanking by a distributor on an unprecedented scale. This is not something we wanted to happen or would ever want to happen. We are broadcasters and programmers, and the most important relationship we have is with our viewers. The idea that something or someone would disrupt that relationship -- particularly in an effort to extort a better deal for themselves -- is, to us, really reprehensible. And, additionally, as consumer oriented people, it really bothers us to see a company treat its customers with such disregard.
EchoStar has been trying to paint itself as the victim in this situation. To hear them tell it, they were forced to pull the plug on our networks to protect their subscribers from the "exorbitant" rate increases and unfair carriage requirements we were trying to "foist" on them.
In a word, that's ludicrous.
Here are the facts:
First of all, EchoStar is hardly some small mom-and-pop operation that is being pushed around. It has more than 9 million subscribers -- 10% of all multichannel homes and 43% of all satellite households. It is the fourth largest distributor in the U.S. and as a result it has enormous negotiating power.
Faced with the clout that comes with having that massive distribution, we've been doing everything humanly possible we can -- for months now -- to finalize a deal with them. As I said before, the last thing we ever want to do is wind up in a situation where our viewers can't get the channels and shows they love. So in our negotiations with EchoStar, we were extremely flexible and offered substantial compromises.
Now I hope you will keep in mind that every cable and satellite operator negotiates these sorts of agreements, and we have been able to establish and maintain solid business partnerships with virtually all of them. The sole exception is EchoStar/DISH Network.
Along these lines, I would also point out that over the years there have been thousands of successful marketplace negotiations between broadcasters and cable and satellite distributors involving the packaging of retransmission consent rights with cable carriage. In all those cases, only one company ever had a problem with it. That's right -- it was EchoStar, which complained to the FCC about the same "packaging" practices it challenged in its recent lawsuit against Viacom.
As it happens, the FCC decisively rejected EchoStar's complaint, pointing out that Congress established a detailed regulatory scheme that permits broadcasters to negotiate retransmission consent and cable carriage together. For the same reason, the Federal district court judge who is hearing EchoStar's case against Viacom recently denied EchoStar's motion for a preliminary injunction and gave us permission to deauthorize (which we did not do) EchoStar's carriage of CBS if we were unable to work things out.
It's also worth noting that EchoStar has a history of bringing frivolous lawsuits and has been sanctioned or admonished by federal judges several times, including in a litigation with CBS when they were found by a Federal judge to have engaged in "clearly willful" copyright violations. Just this week, a federal judge sanctioned EchoStar in yet another an antitrust case they brought.
Anyway, we could not have worked harder to
Jon Stewart has absolutely no say in what commercials are shown, those are all picked by Viacom and the local markets. As for them not mentioning it on the show, yeah, Viacom probably told them not to bring it up. But hey, everyone's got a boss right? I am sure Jon has a mortgage and a family to support just like the rest of us. Don't be so hard on Jon, he really has nothing to do with this.
>This may change with the launch of Dish's next satellite.
Dish has always had the upper hand on capacity. Here's the list of DirecTV satellites (via lyngsat):
101 - DirecTV 1R/2/4S
110 - DirecTV 6
119 - DirecTV 5
I don't know where DirecTV 7S is, it isn't listed.
And DishNetwork run satellites:
61.5 - EchoStar 3
105 - AMC 2
110 - EchoStar 6/8
119 - EchoStar 7
121 - EchoStar 9
148 - EchoStar 1/2
151 - EchoStar 4
That's a *LOT* of broadcast power. And with the Turbocoding (soon to be 8PSK) used on 105/121, that's twice the bang for the buck. Not to mention the option of 7/8 FEC over straight 5/6 QPSK FEC (all that DirecTV supports), they have much more to play with. They can squeeze a bit out of the failing transponders by setting the FEC to 1/2.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Check out the whois on the domain "ilostmyfavoritechannels.com". It was registered by Viacom back in January! The page contains anti-Echostar remarks and links to go sign up for the competition. Check it out for yourself. WTF is up with that?
Was Viacom planning ahead of time on Dish not giving in to their demands, so they could try to "teach them a lesson" by pulling the channels? What's with all the anti-Dish stuff aired by Viacom on their stations? Viacom keeps pointing the finger at Dish, basically stating that the channels were "removed."
Maybe Viacom was setting out to cause harm to Echostar, who has a history of refusing to bend over and take it when it comes to price increase demands. Or maybe I'm being a little on the conspiracy theory side of things. But I wouldn't put such a thing past them. Everything they're doing (the banners, the anti-Dish stuff, etc.) only keeps pointing the finger at them and away from Echostar.
In case it wants to change, here's the whois for the domain:
Registrant:
MTVN Online Partner 1 LLC (SMQELJVTUD)
1515 Broadway
8th Floor
Attn Pier Borra
New York, NY 10036-5794
US
Domain Name: ILOSTMYFAVORITECHANNELS.COM
Administrative Contact:
MTVi-Admin Contact (35876815O) mtvi-admin@mtvigroup.com
MTVi-Admin Contact
MTVi Group
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036-5794
US
+1 212 846-3367 fax: +1 212-654-9068
Technical Contact:
Amirian, Brian (36553847P) amirianb@mtvi.com
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
US
212 846 3223
Record expires on 16-Jan-2006.
Record created on 16-Jan-2004.
Database last updated on 10-Mar-2004 02:46:42 EST.
this is my sig
All Dish customers please try this one out. Last night they had the LOTR Fellowship marathon. Tonight is Monsters inc. This channel is being provided in lieu of all Viacom channel.