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Dish Network & Viacom Settle Their Differences
weshart writes "I haven't yet seen anyone mention the fact that CBS and other Viacom channels are back on DishNetwork. They've been unavailable for the past day and a half, as was reported earlier. No word on the details of the agreement; and the DishNetwork announcement doesn't say anything about whether or not they'll be raising their rates."
It would be nice to see Dish stand up to Viacom and leave them out of the most basic package. I believe it is only around $1 for the programming but I don't like the fact that Viacom thinks that they can just raise their rates arbitrarily and remain in basic packages.
Besides, MTV is evil.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
settle their differences. They rely on each other too much.
It's just a darned shame they had to wage their petty little feud on our TV screens. Like little children...
--
I'm robSlimo, the username is a
product of frustration after losing the pwd to RatOmeter.
I think ALL of us understand this... It's what makes it entertaining. Was Seinfeld funny? How about George Costanza? I sure think he was funny because he was always cheated, humilated, and in general being screwed with.
After a few nights of "Off line - Press Info" on a host of Viacom-owned channels in my lineup, I've realized how little I cared for those channels anyway. I almost never watched VH1 or Nickelodeon or CBS, but I kept them in my channel list on the off chance a decent show popped up.
Now, I think I can safely remove them from my favorites list and reduce the scrolling in the guide between useful channels.
There's nothing like being deprived of something to learn how little you needed it in the first place.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Viacom, I explained, wants Dish to buy a whole package of stations, even though Dish thinks some of the channels aren't worth it. Dish wants to pick and choose the stations they buy.
Fair enough. Except I realized that when I signed up for Dish, I also thought some of the channels aren't worth paying for. But in this case, Dish sees things differently:Apparently, Dish wants it both ways. Packages are a great idea when Dish forces them on me, but not acceptable when Viacom forces them on them.
The aforementioned 8-year-old got it right: "They're just fighting like 3-year-olds over a toy, aren't they?" And picking which side to root for is about as silly.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Viacom may have got their rate hike on the existing channels, but they did not get any new channels added to the lowest-level America's Top 60 package that competes as being the cheapest pay-TV package anybody can buy. Nicktoons was forced into the more expensive America's Top 180 package.
Viacom was claiming that Dish network raised prices on their packages up to $3... but those who have the low-level package and their locals only had a one cent increase, and those who do not have their locals available saw no increase at all on the low-level package. It should be noticed that it's in this low level package that nearly all of the disputed channels are in.
It may be that Dish succeeded in getting all of the increases on the rates of the few channels that are in the higher packages, thus protecting the cost of the low-level package.
The cash credits will cost the company at least $15 million, and allowing for the fact that some of the coupons will be unused the PPV movie offer should cost the company about $10-15 million. Ironic, because $25-30 million is about the total price increase Viacom was seeking.
You might pay a big price to win a battle if it wins you the entire war. If EchoStar had given in to Viacom, it would have showed a weakness that Viacom would then try to exploit every time their contract came under negotiation, not to mention all the other content providers that would try the same underhanded tactics.
Plus, the way things turned out, customers get a break in pricing for a minor inconvenience. The rates as a whole should stay flat. If Viacom succeeded, rates would likely go up. If that happened, EchoStar would likely lose a number of subscribers to other, cheaper alternatives. The money they paid was paid in order to keep and gain subscribers, rather than lose them.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
Yes, you've got it exactly right. I work for a (not-to-be-named-top-tier) cable company. It is simply not possible for us to offer channels on an individual basis because of the media conglomerates, like Viacom, forcing us to offer their channels in all-or-none blocks. The best we can really do is three tiers: (1) basic cable, which is the local networks which are (usually) independently owned, (2) expanded basic, which has those plus the aforementioned blocks from the various conglomerates, and (3) digital, which has the other channels plus all the REALLY crappy ones that we were able to negotiate out of expanded basic, plus various indepdendent networks. It's really quite ridiculous. Every time we renegotiate a deal, there are always a bunch of crap channels that we end up having to add, which nobody watches and which force us to raise rates. Believe me, nobody would like total a la carte programming more than the cable companies--our profits would increase tremendously if we could sell the networks individually, at a reasonable profit, rather than taking a tiny profit on package deal for a dozen crap networks. We've gotten LOTS of feedback over the years--there are MANY customers who would love to pay $40/month for 40 individually selected channels over $100/month for 200 forced channels. And we would turn a much higher profit in the $40/month case. But it's simply not possible, due to precisely the reason you mentioned.