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AT&T Blacks Out HBO, Cinemax For Dish, Sling TV Users Over Carriage Dispute (telecompaper.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Telecompaper: AT&T has blocked its HBO and Cinemax channels for Dish and Sling TV customers over a carriage dispute. This is the first channel blackout for HBO in its 40 years of operation. Pay-TV provider Dish and OTT services Sling TV said AT&T is making "untenable demands designed specifically to harm customers, particularly those in rural areas, as well as damage competing pay-TV providers" and that at the time of the merger, no guidelines were set in place to ensure AT&T "played fair" for HBO and Cinemax subscribers, regardless of their pay-TV provider.
Dish said AT&T is demanding it pay for a guaranteed number of subscribers, regardless of how many people actually want to subscribe to HBO. The company noted that during the arbitration process, AT&T will have to restore its channels to Dish customers. The company and Sling TV will credit customers on their bill for the time they do not receive either HBO or Cinemax. Dish added that it is also offering customers a free preview of HDNET Movies. An HBO spokesperson said in a statement: "During our forty-plus years of operation, HBO has always been able to reach agreement with our valued distributors and our services have never been taken down or made unavailable to subscribers due to an inability to conclude a deal. Unfortunately, Dish is making it extremely difficult, responding to our good faith attempts with unreasonable terms. Past behavior shows that removing services from their customers is becoming all too common a negotiating tactic for them. We hope the situation with Dish changes soon but, in the meantime, our valued customers should take advantage of the other ways to access an HBO subscription so they can continue to enjoy our acclaimed programming."
Dish said AT&T is demanding it pay for a guaranteed number of subscribers, regardless of how many people actually want to subscribe to HBO. The company noted that during the arbitration process, AT&T will have to restore its channels to Dish customers. The company and Sling TV will credit customers on their bill for the time they do not receive either HBO or Cinemax. Dish added that it is also offering customers a free preview of HDNET Movies. An HBO spokesperson said in a statement: "During our forty-plus years of operation, HBO has always been able to reach agreement with our valued distributors and our services have never been taken down or made unavailable to subscribers due to an inability to conclude a deal. Unfortunately, Dish is making it extremely difficult, responding to our good faith attempts with unreasonable terms. Past behavior shows that removing services from their customers is becoming all too common a negotiating tactic for them. We hope the situation with Dish changes soon but, in the meantime, our valued customers should take advantage of the other ways to access an HBO subscription so they can continue to enjoy our acclaimed programming."
We cut the cord, switched to an antenna and Netflix, and now we're about to drop the latter. Turns out there are other things to do than watch TV. Who knew?
at$t is looking out for their property, directv. I guess they are going to make their competition pay a premium for the service.
NO GOT
NO westworld
NO Berry
NO curb your enthusiasm
and on
Exactly why AT&T shouldn't be able to control both content and distribution as a matter of anti-trust (same for Comcast et. al.). At one time they had a very cozy relationship including combined billing with Dish, as Dish although a distribution channel, was effectively content for consumers.
AT&T is playing hardball because they would rather take $15 direct while making extra cash on the backend providing consumer bandwidth necessary for the service. No reason to let Dish charge $15 or $20 and only give them $10. Plus getting people off Dish only serves to get more people on AT&T U-verse / DSL as well as convincing customers to kick their bandwidth package up a notch to handle multiple people streaming instead of getting HBO or Cinemax over satellite.
Equally so, we can be assured that 4k and 8k content streaming are going to be pushed by AT&T and Comcast through their content networks as a way to make consumers pay for bigger bandwidth and usage packages. Zero rate native content against caps, but choke the bandwidth until they get better than base internet speed.
Dish says AT&T is blocking the channels.
AT&T is saying Dish has decided to not broadcast as a negotiating tool. Which seems stupid as it only hurts Dish when their customers get angry.
If you believe AT&T, Dish is basically saying "Hey AT&T, we're going to fuck over our own customers and give them discounts and other free services, in the hope they don't cancel their subscriptions with us and switch to your wholly owned competitor, DirectTV until you agree to our terms. TAKE THAT!"
If you believe Dish, AT&T is saying "We're going to block the content your customers pay you for, until you agree to our terms, while your customers switch to our other business that directly competes with you"
I'm inclined to believe Dish here.
As most peeps here know, trying to get customer to pay for content on website is near-impossible, and customer hates the ads etc. This makes sense, I'm the same kind of cheapskate :)
Where I get confused is TV. People are paying Dish, ATT, Sling, whoever, big bucks...this fight is over food chain of all that loot. But said customers are providing the loot to spend their time watching ads these properties are shoving hard 24/7 - and customer is paying for this, PAYING FOR ADS.
Why people so different from one medium to the next? I really don't get it.
We have bikes in this town! ...
What, you still don't realize HDTV signals are free and you can get like 150+ of them in any major city? Next thing you know, you'll tell me you don't realize they broadcast in a higher resolution than cable provides ...
And you can sub to them on the web if you need them, they are required to provide low-income 40 Mbps service for around $30 in most cities.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I would think voters could sort this out even if they held the debate. If someone is just going to win because it's a shoe-in, then why don't they pretend to play fair and be above board instead of passing new laws to make it harder to vote, skipping debates, recusing himself from overseeing the election, etc? Or are shenanigans ok as long as it's your preferred candidate who does them? Or is disenfranchisement such a common habit that they do it even when it's not necessary to win?