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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."
The problem for Echostar is that most of their customers have no idea that Viacom is at fault here; they're going to blame Echostar.
I'm sure glad I don't work for Echostar's PR department.
I was under the impression Dish had better technology and lower prices than DirectTV!?
Why are people suggesting to simply go to DirectTV when this is not the issue at hand. Isin't that extremely short sighted.
If it works against Dish, you don't think DirecTV would be next?
DirecTV sounds like a great choice
Sure, if you want to support Viacom's unfair business practices. If they didn't force bundles on the networks, none of this would be going down. Viacom's 'bundling' is certainly no more ethical than Microsoft's 'bundling' that we all hear so much about...
Maybe partying will help...
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.
Why not? When you're paying $6.50 a month, lose some channels, and then pay $5.50 a month what more would you expect? Free home delivered meals for a week out of every month? Sacrifice of the director's first born?
Put things into perspective!
RST
Not 'meeting demand' is just a euphonism for 'not willing to raise prices'. I'm sorry, but the networks like Viacom had their way, we'd all be paying out the ass for their 'services'. Oh wait, cable users do that already.
I applaud Dish Network for taking a stand on Viacom's monopolistic and unfair rate hikes.
DirecTV sounds like a great choice /. readers as a whole blasting EV1servers for caving in to Evil Company X's immoral and potentially illegal ultimatums? Yet the articles posted on THIS subject all carry an editorial spin of abandonment when a DN stands up against Evil Company Y's extortionist tactics? WTF?
Aren't
and I did listen to Dish Network CEO talking to customers on the off-air channels.
He makes a couple of good points. According to him, their situation is like 'a consumer who goes to the gas station that is selling gas at $1.50 a gallon but ask you to pay $2.00 a gallon and after you buy gas, they ask you to buy carwash and wiper fluids'. Also, if CBS is really intetersted in getting consumer confidence, then they would've allowed Dish Network to air the channel to its 1.6 million subscribers.
[Rant mode]
Am I annoyed as a consumer? Hell yes. If I pay for the service, it's operation should be fairly transparent. I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK about companies bitching with each other. If you are running such a big corp, then its your responsibility to forsee and handle problems. I am not taking anybody's side when I say this but this is getting out of control. Companies there are more interested in making the buck without caring about consumer sentiment/service.
[/Rant mode]
Free XBox, PS2
If history is any indicator - this problem will be resolved for the consumer before anyone has a chance to miss survivor.
If Viacom Calls Dish's bluff this could drag on but I doubt it will do so in the public arena.
MTV pulled and money back in my pocket is exactly what I wanted. Fuse is 100 times better than MTV/MTV2 anyway.
Sorry but $1 a month is not exactly a fair trade off. DirecTV sounds like a great choice.
/. for switching to a satellite company that has blanket prosecuted people that buy smart card readers (Because everyone that buys one must be doing something illegal!)
First of all, I'm majorly impressed that dish is not bowing to Viacom's demands, as most cable companies AND direct tv have always in the past. I also don't know how anyone could make a case on
Secondly, to everyone but the highest teer (who already recieve every channel), they've added multiple channels until this battle is over. The added networks include FUSE (formerly Much Music) and several additional Disney Networks (to replace Nick.)
I think Dish has handled this issue the best they could, and I think they're closing stock price (Up) reflects what people think of them vs Viacom (who incidentally closed down on the stocks.)
But Viacom won't allow this. Because who would actually pay extra for the garbage channels? If any satellite or cable operator were to threaten to seperate the channels into their own package or to charge individually for them, Viacom would then pull the plug on all of their channels. No company could survive with no Viacom channels, so they give in and pay a huge amount of money for all of them. Disney tried the same thing with Cox Cable. Funny, these types of sales tactics used to be called racketeering and were actually illegal. Imagine if GM had 95% of the American auto market and built their cars to only run on GM brand gasoline?
You are correct, the DIRECTiVo is lacking a few of the features of Series 2 TiVos, and Series 2 TiVos are not as hackable as Series 1.
However, the fundamental purpose of a DVR is to record and playback programs, and the rest is all gravy. The vast majority of people will find that DIRECTV's DVR is far and away the best because they don't need or don't care about those other features.
I agree that it would be great if DIRECTiVo's could do all that Series 1/Series 2 standalones can do, and if all of our platforms were more open to video extraction. But the core competency of TiVo standalones and especially DIRECTV's TiVo-based DVR is vastly superior to all others, and when it comes down to it, that is what matters the most to most people.
I feel the need to reiterate that although I work for TiVo, my opinions are entirely my own.
DirecTV sounds like a great choice
Something isn't right here.
Microsoft bundles a bunch of crap, makes you take everything, and charges out the ass, and everyone gets all up in arms about it.
Viacom does the same damned thing, and you start bitching about changing to DirecTV...a company that already caved in to Viacom's unreasonable demands.
And I hate to break it to everyone, but while $1 doesn't sound like a whole lot, that probably is about right for what carrying Viacom adds to the package price for each customer.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I mentioned this yesterday but it was too late to get much notice...
There is an important parallel with what is happening here and what happened to the Hollywood studio system in the 30s and 40s. Hollywood studios owned most of the theaters at that time outright but there were some independents that were trying to stay in the game. The studios would work with these indeprendents, but in order to get a good A movie they would force the theaters to take 4 or 5 crappy B movies as well. This was found to be an illegal practice in the vertical integration lawsuits that concluded after WWII.
This is almost the exact same situation... but now it's actually legal. It was made legal by Ronald Reagan who explicitly made vertical integration legal again (as part of his deregulation program) early in his presidentcy.
It's an anti-cometitive practice and it hasn't always been allowed. There is a good reason bundling was made illegal in the trustbuster days and it should be illegal again... and the practices of both the cable companies and providers like viacom are a great example. Not all regulation are "undue hinderances."
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
Viacom is a HUGE player in "Television".
DishNetwork's (I didn't know they were still around, BTW) decision to turn their back on this huge player (Their "Media Brands" - CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, BET, Paramount Pictures, Viacom Outdoor, Infinity, UPN, Spike TV, TV Land, CMT, Comedy Central, Showtime, Blockbuster, and Simon & Schuster, not to mention any other subsidiaries/divisions of those "Brands") is REALLY FUCKING SIGNIFICANT.
So many channels, so few umbrella. (No plural on purpose)
It's sort of like when you clicked on that checkbox next to Jon Katz' articles.. Except, you don't get the option. In my opinion, and it seems many others, this option is missing from TV that you have to pay for.
Kind of like having to eat from a TV dinner (no pun intended), with 300 little compartments, most of which have some sort of boiled vegetable. A sea of green beans, peas, corn, mashed potatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, hot-ass-too-hot-to-eat-apple cobbler, squash, succotash, sprinkled with something that makes you say "Yay!" (South Park, Iron Chef) are like something actually friggin' palatable - meatloaf (not my choice, but hey), fried chicken, tamales, poultry nugget, but each have a significant drawback. Commercials/crap programming as compared to bones/no meat/mushy/tasteless, but otherwise appealing to look at in comparison to the sea of overcooked vegetables.
How'd you like to build your own 15-compartment TV dinner, closer to a reasonable price, as opposed to the more-than-you-want and not-really-all-that-great-to-begin-with and OVERPRICED at that TV dinner?
I would, and I *DESPISE* TV.
If all the cable and dish companies caved to Viacom then the other networks will also want in on the action (NBC ABC etc.) and it will escalate and we, the viewers, will all pay for it in the end. Cable and dish prices already outpace inflation this will make it worse!
To switch to a different carrier because of this is to punish Dish for standing up to the big content provider. By switching carriers you would be helping Viacom manipulate the industry by forcing the carriers to add programming that they don't want simply to allow them to maintain the rights to other stations. In my opinion this is extortion, and I applaud Dish for refusing to give in to it.
Sigs are for the weak.
Does it now?
-BK
Chemical Blog
What sort of fudged up consumer (I won't use the word citizen for such as you) anyway? A corporate entity gets a hint of a spine and actually goes to bat for their customers and you go and betray them over missing a rerun of South Park? Ok, maybe if it were later in the month when the new episodes were running, but now?
Democrat delenda est
I am an installer for Dish Network & DirecTV. The fact that our government allows cable companies to own television stations is very troubling. The same thing is going to happen to DirecTV as soon as it's contract runs out. Comcast is trying to buy Disney (who owns ABC/ESPN as well as a host of others). If both comcast and viacomm own a large portion of all television stations and are allowed to screw the satellite companies by WAY overcharging it could put the satellite co.s out of business and then the Cable Co.s would be an even bigger monopoly.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
It needs to happen on both ends. I have a Dish system, and for the most part I love it, but I really have paying ~60 bucks a month for the "100" channel package when 75 of those channels are either Home Shopping crap, or spanish/mexican/illegal immigrant crap et al. I don't watch either type or programming, which of course doesn't mean that other people don't watch it. If no one watched it, it wouldn't be on, what bugs me is that I have to pay for it. I agree that channel bundling is crap, but Dish and DirecTV need to stop with the practice as much as Viacom, Disney and Time Warner. Of course all of the really stupid networks like "QVC for narcoleptic hemopheliacs" and "Oh! my God this station blows" would go under because NOT ENOUGH people want their content, but I really don't care, they can cry me a river right after the guy who invented the solar flashlight is done.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
This is why they need to restore the restrictions on ownership of broadcast stations. This wouldn't be an issue if Viacom wasn't allowed to actually OWN these 16 broadcast stations. It's ridiculous that they should be allowed to require payment for Dish Network to rebroadcast a local channel that is freely available over the public airwaves as long as they're restricting it to the channel's actual target market.
As for Viacom's cable channels? The only one that has any redeeming qualities is Noggin. The fact that Viacom wants to FORCE everyone who wants to watch any of their channels to subscribe to ALL of their channels is just wrong.
Even worse, they're using their powers as a media juggernaut to deceive the public. You know that story they keep telling about how Dish Network just raised its rates by $3 per month for no reason and yet refuse to pay an extra 6 cents per month for Viacom's programming? It's an outright lie.
First, not all Dish Network subscribers had their rates raised AT ALL... and many of those who did see a rate increase saw a much lower increase than $3.
Second, the programming fee increase that Viacom is asking for is substantially more than 6 cents over the course of the contract. 6 cents per month is just the first year. Think "Columbia House"... those first few CDs may only cost you one cent, but then you're stuck buying a few dozen more at $20 a piece.
Third, they are also trying to force Dish Network to carry additional channel(s) that they don't want to carry. This also adds additional costs as they need to add equipment and manpower to support the additional feeds as well as using up additional bandwidth on their satellites.
Finally, Viacom is trying to claim that since they've successfully negotiated contracts with all of the cable providers and DirecTV that this is Dish Network's fault. What they neglect to mention is that the terms of their contracts with the cable companies and DirecTV are SIGNIFICANTLY more favorable than what they're offering Dish Network... especially the cable companies. That's due in part to Federal laws that set forth specific rules for how much local broadcasters can charge cable companies for rebroadcasting their signals. These regulations don't apply to satellite providers and so the local broadcasters take the satellite companies to the cleaners.
Viacom is urging people to call and cancel their Dish Network service. Dish Network is urging customers to call and complain to Viacom (and their advertisers... good idea) but what EVERYONE needs to do... whether you're a Dish Network subscriber or not is call your lawmakers and get them to start paying attention to the damage caused by companies like Viacom who are allowed to control such a significant chunk of the media without any effective controls placed on them.
One of the channels being pulled is Comedy Central, I just canceled my Dish Membership today because of that.
...and that's why media companies, the RIAA, the MPAA, and their ilk have so much sway over our country. They can do whatever they want and people will still crawl over each other to get to their content.
NO CARRIER
" That said however, CBS has CSI and Survivor, for most people $1/month is nowhere near good enough."
Depends on how one does the math. If you have lots of channels, and the ones that disappeared are less than 1/30th of the total channels, then to a bean counter it's not so unreasonable.
I agree that it sucks, but if they were to deduct like $5, then you'd expect that 1/6th of the channels were gone, or something like that.
"Derp de derp."
I sell Echostar's services for a living and really don't have any illusions about who the good guy is here. There is no good guy. This argument is born entirely of greed and the consumer is nothing but a little circle connected to the much larger Echostar circle with a thick black arrow marked 'income' on the easy to comprehend powerpoint presentation I'm sure is by now doing the rounds at Echostar's orbital death star. Having said that, The Dish Network product that Echostar offers seriously aims to offer a very high value for money proposition. They understand that the psychological barriers involved in switching to their product from cable are very strong. Those ads Comcast ran recently representing the disadvantages of satellite over cable really represent fears the average consumer has; unreliability, bulkiness, and long term contracts worry them. It's mostly FUD, but do not underestimate the power of it.
With that in mind, Echostar has done away with a lot of these issues. They've dropped long term contracts and hardware lease fees, they've developed respectably advanced hardware that minimizes the number of receivers you need in order to watch TV in multiple rooms, and they've added service options for people who seriously think they need professionals to climb up on their roof and nudge their dish every few weeks. In short, they've invested hundreds of millions trying to create a quality proposition to compete with cable. Bearing that in mind, I have no problem believing that a 7 cents per consumer increase in programming price would result in a measurable, if not significant, decrease in Echostar's operating profit.
Of course, as long as we're forced to pay for programs we don't watch in spite of the fact that we all have technology in our home that would empower us to only watch the channels we're interested in and pay the content providers who produce something worthwhile, we'll all have to put up with this crap in one form or another. Whether it's having to miss your Star Trek reruns because the company that ones the network that broadcasts the reruns that you want to see wants the company that allows you to receive those transmissions to force you to receive a cartoon channel that aforementioned company also happens to own and to pay seven cents for the privilige or something a simple as having television that's worthwhile being pulled off the air because ratings measure average viewing habits of incredibly average people with a below average degree of reliability, and executives multiply that by how much money they think they can suck out of these poor average people and equate the resulting dollar value to the word 'good' doesn't really matter. The only people actually being screwed are us, the consumers. If we're not being screwed, they're not doing their job. This whole discussion comes down to nothing more than 'who has the right to screw us more?'
I want the fire back.
You're the reason that companies like Viacom are who they are. Your action makes it easier for them to use tactics like this to base pricing and content on what they, not the consumer wants. Imagine the day when all Viacom has to do to kill a competitor for their cable business off is to make it so others simply can't afford to broadcast it.
Actions like this are the reason that Content providers should NOT be in the business of owning the delivery mehcanism as well. Customers like you are the reason that this happens.
They're clearly saving more than $1 per customer by not paying Viacom. If they quit paying Viacom now and pissed off customers can't cancel until the next month, they're still going to make a lot of extra dough this month. Even if pissed off customers could cancel immediatly, many won't.
I see a "1.., 2.., and 3. Sell Stock & Profit!" coming..
Luckily, I'm not in one of the markets affected by the CBS blackout. It's the only one of the Viacom channels that's watched in my home and even it is rarely watched.
A dollar off the bill for channels I don't watch? Works for me...
By the way, DirectTV does not have some of the channels, I do watch, so it's not really a better deal. The posts yesterday and today almost have the tone of a DirectTV salesman...
Fucktard..
Charlie can't unbundle because the content providers won't unbundle.. that's the entire reason for this contract fight...
Geeeze
DirecTV doesn't have these problems, Dish.
They would, except Dish's contract came up before DirecTVs. If DirecTV doesn't have these problems when their contract comes up, it'll probably be because the standard terms have already been worked out by Dish Network, in the same way that the UAW works out the year's contract with one automaker and then says "OK, this is the deal" to the others.
I'd love to see a carte blanche system but it will never in our lifetime. Still, something where there are like 20 5-channel groups for me to pick out my channels would be awesome. They could charge me 3$-5$ per group and we'd all be happy.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
He also threw in 4 stations which were formerly on higher package deals. Boomerang(a 24 cartoon network of classic toons), WAM another offshoot of encore Fellowship of the ring was on tonight. toon disney and FUSE. Unfortunatly for me I already had toon disney and FUSE on my line-up. But people on the cheapest bracket may have lucked out a bit.
dude, you're on the internet. why on earth are you paying for porn?
Somebody has to capture and encode all of those DivX movies we download.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Firstly, we need to see the FCC step in and tell CBS that they cant place any restrictions on the rebroadcast of CBS content
Packaging wouldnt be so bad if the channels that were packaged were related.
For example, buy the "Disney" package and get all the disney channels in the one package.
Buy the "HBO" package and get all the HBO channels in one package.
Buy "ESPN" and get all the ESPN channels in one package.
Buy "Fox Sports" and get all the fox sports channels in one package.
etc.
I have no problem with being forced to take MTV2 with MTV1 (or whatever), its that if you want any nickelodian channels, you have to take MTV and other crap as well.
'CSI' and 'Survivor'??? What about NCAA Men's Basketball?
This has got to be a college basketball fan's worst nightmare. March Madness is about to start, and no hoops on the telly. Well, if they thought up a bit (perhaps this is too much to expect of the average hoops fan), they could get a pair of rabbit ears and just watch March Madness (and CSI and Survivor, for that matter) the old fashioned way -- through the airwaves.
Yes, it is a stopgap solution. But rabbit ears are cheap, and it's important to support Dish Network because they are making a stand which opposes a decrease in consumer choice.
And if you can't get CBS through the airwaves, there's still the NIT carried by ESPN. (National Invitational Tournament, the quest to determine the 66th best team in the nation. This explanation provided free of charge for the convenience of those of you who are not sports fans/degenerate gamblers.)
You'll still miss out on Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, Showtime, et alii, but really, is that so much of a loss? Those channels all suck scabby dog nuts, and there are DVD box sets for those of you who just can't live without your "Queer as Folk" fix.
For those of you wanting to give Viacom a piece of your mind, here is the contact information for the CEO
You are a hypocrite and a coward. You publish the private phone number of a CEO you disagree with, but you do it from an account with a hidden email address and no meaningful contact information.
It's the mob that anonymously attacks selected individuals. Today's internet, with its spammers and virus writers, slashdotters and pirates, is a modern day mob. Go ahead and throw rocks at SCO, Microsoft, Gates, Linus, Jobs, or anyone else with the balls stand up and make a difference - good or bad. But please, don't hide behind your electronic mask.
Dave
P.S. This is another reason why internet voting is a bad idea.
DirecTV and Dish Network both have a comparable number of channels--Dish has more non-English channels and DirecTV has more sports channels.
With this in mind, does it matter if Dish has more capacity if they do not actually use it?
Interestingly, Dish and DirecTV share several satellites at the 110 and 119 positions. Oddly, the programming is duplicated (that is, they do not share the same streams--there are two CNNs, two SciFi channels). Perhaps it is impractical to modify streams to turn DirecTV commercials into Dish Network commercials and vice-versa.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Might as well complain about the root problem instead of the symptoms.
You're kidding right? The Daily Show is a COMEDY SHOW, it's just an extended version of the SNL Weekend Update. It's very funny, but in no way a bastion of "fair and balanced" news reporting. They consantly photoshop images and edit videos for laughs. You never know what they are making up and what actually happened.
It's pure entertainment, there are no journalistic obligations to present an unbasised view or any view at all for that matter. That would take all the fun out of the show.
If you want to laugh watch the Daily Show, if you want real news watch the BBC or something...
I think it is a bit hypocritical of Dish Network to complain about bundling when that is exactly what they do with their "Packages." It's not like I can choose not to get QVG, HSN, Oxygen, etc. I have to get a dozen crappy channels just to get the few that I want. If the Dish Network let me pick the channels I wanted, I would be more sympathetic to their complaints about Viacom.
Jens Wessling
Maybe it's time to ask congress to pass a law saying every channel needs to be sold independently, until everyone learns to play nice.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
and since I'm a DirecTV subscriber, I can sit back and enjoy the fireworks without being personally affected. :-)
At least until DirecTV's contract negotiation comes up...
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF