DBSTalk Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Dish FSN (Sinclair owned) dispute - Channels Down

20K views 119 replies 36 participants last post by  tsmacro 
#1 ·
#2 ·
#10 ·
Yea all this "cord cutting " and broadcasting disputes are getting out of hand

Even DirecTV in a fight with CBS and Nexstar

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
I think Dish, Direct, cable all need to come to some compromise, in regard to pricing. If the service wants to raise the price, try to get the best deal without dropping the channel(s). If they cannot, give in a just up the price for the package. No one wants to pay more, but we do all of the time anyway. Dropping channels just ticks off customers, and with so many streaming, satellite, cable options, the consumer can go anywhere and many are. Who knows how many subs Dish lost with the HBO/Cinemax thing? I know of a few that moved to Direct TV around here. This dropping channels is a lose lose situation. The viewer is sick of it.
 
#7 ·
Affected:
Fox Sports Arizona
Fox Sports Carolinas
Fox Sports Detroit
Fox Sports Florida
Fox Sports Indiana
Fox Sports Kansas City
Fox Sports Midwest
Fox Sports New Orleans
Fox Sports North
Fox Sports Ohio
Fox Sports Oklahoma
Fox Sports Prime Ticket
Fox Sports San Diego
Fox Sports South
Fox Sports Southeast
Fox Sports Southwest
Fox Sports Sun
Fox Sports Tennessee
Fox Sports West
Fox Sports Wisconsin
SportsTime Ohio
 
#11 ·
"These networks, which were sold to Walt Disney by the former 21st Century Fox as part of a larger deal and are slated to be sold to other parties in the next few months, are under Disney's control at present, but are slated to be transferred to various buyers in coming weeks, and an interim group is overseeing carriage negotiations, according to a person familiar with the matter."

I wonder who the interim group is? I'd expect them to be more closely tied to the new owners than the old since ABC/Disney will be giving control of most of the channels Sinclair in the next few weeks. The YES renewal is interesting since it is currently carried on Sling TV but not DISH satellite.

Every contract comes up for renewal from time to time. Most renewals are negotiated and approved with no public "dispute". Sometimes the only way we know a channel is renewed is because of an announcement.

ABC/Disney's negotiations over FX and Nat Geo may include ACC. If it means getting the new network at a reasonable price that could be good ... but if it means holding FX and Nat Geo hostage until DISH pays extortion it could be bad.

The other Fox contract renewal (O&O stations and FNC/FBC/FS1) could be a problem. The networks continue to want more for their broadcast stations. But deals have been reached in the past.
 
#14 ·
That is the trouble. If ABC/ESPN/Disney says $40 is reasonable and DISH says $4 is reasonable who is right? Neither party? Then where is the price set? $22 since that is the average? A negotiation tactic where a provider "never drops a channel" quickly turns in to paying whatever the channel asks to avoid contract expiration.

If ESPN entered the negotiation with a "never be dropped" policy then DISH would have the upper hand. Accept $2 per month or we'll drop your channels. ESPN would need to be deathly afraid of losing subscriber count to accept that offer ... so they would not enter the room with a "never be dropped" policy. Just like DISH does not enters the room with a "never drops a channel" policy. Neither policy works.

$40 is an exaggeration ... but what about $20 or $10? At some point the ask price will be too much to continue carriage of the channel. Yes, there must be a compromise - but who is to say that it will be met by the end of the current contract? It is frustrating to have brief outages - sometimes more frustrating then the longer outages. With a short outage the thought is "couldn't they come to an agreement a week or two earlier and avoided the brief outage?" But with a longer outage it is more obvious that the parties were further apart.

DISH vs Univision was a longer outage which was eventually resolved with the restoration of the channels. Details not disclosed (of course) but either a) DISH lost too many Latino package subscribers and needed the content back or b) Univision saw the value in DISH distribution and needed the subscriber count. Either way the compromise came months later.

DISH vs HBO ended in a stalemate. AT&T|HBO threw down the gauntlet and told DISH to try to run their service without HBO - or pay HBO for a minimum number of subscribers that was higher than the number of customers willing to pay for HBO. DISH called --- and over the past few months (including the all important GoT airings and Veep final season) DISH got to find out if they could run their service without HBO. Apparently, they can. And HBO seems to be doing OK without the money they would have collected via DISH.

I hope that the Fox negotiation goes well but the deadline is approaching. Perhaps a "short term" deal can be reached considering the pending transfer of ownership. We'll see.
 
#16 ·
Maybe I'm missing something but, for example, doesn't CBS and NBC etc charge say Geiko and General Motors and McDonald's etc for the commercial advertising? I assume that there is a substantial profit there. Of course perhaps they are showing these commercials at a loss and need to make it up by raising rates to satellite and cable companies. Isn't the main goal to get programming as well as commercials in front of the customer? You know, the folks that actually might buy that product? You know, the reason that you actually exist. FWIW, I get all of my locals off my antenna for free. Go figure.
 
#17 ·
Broadcasters charge any way they can. Do you think CBS is charging advertisers less since their O&O channels (and a couple others) are not on DIRECTV? They are still collecting their advertising money. And they are probably downplaying the impact of losing DIRECTV distribution - correctly noting that the majority of viewers can still watch OTA or via other subscription services. What CBS is losing is the $ per DIRECTV subscriber. They are still getting their advertising and affiliation revenue.
 
#19 ·
The point is that CBS has plenty of viewers without DIRECTV. Being off of DIRECTV isn't a huge effect on the bottom line. They are no where near the "no viewers" line by not being on DIRECTV.

Slippery slope that argument and claim that CBS will pull their channels off of all subscription services other than the ones they own. Perhaps they will some day. If they do it will be because they make more money distributing the content themselves than through other distributors. But that is not today's plan.

Pay viewers to watch? What are you drinking and are you sharing?
 
#20 ·
When you say that CBS has plenty of viewers you are going down the slippery slope. Unless you have some inside information on what CBS considers plenty of viewers then you are imposing what you consider plenty of viewers on CBS. I would think that losing tens of millions of viewers might mean something to the advertisers that spend millions of dollars advertising with CBS.
 
#21 ·
I would think that losing tens of millions of viewers might mean something to the advertisers that spend millions of dollars advertising with CBS.
Where do you get the idea that CBS has "tens of millions" of viewers via DIRECTV? That is where you are in error. We are talking about CBS O&O stations, not the full DIRECTV subscriber base but only subscribers in certain markets. And those markets are cities where most of the population has alternatives such as OTA readily available.

CBS is not dependent on DIRECTV for all of its viewership. I think you know that.
 
#22 ·
One small thing to keep in mind att (DirecTV and u verse ) is the largest tv provider in the USA . So combined millions are affected.


I think most o&o stations are in huge metro areas (nyc, philly, la etc )

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
#23 ·
I don't know how many customers are affected but I would guess it's a substantial number considering the populations of the cities involved. Miami, SanFrancisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Denver, Chicago, Philly, Detroit, Dallas, Seattle, Boston, Tampa, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. Maybe not tens of millions but certainly a certainly a large chunk of viewers.
 
#24 ·
What people seem to be forgetting is that the CBS outage does not cover every DIRECTV or UVERSE customer. The CBS broadcast network did not lose "25 million" viewers when they left DIRECTV.
 
#26 ·
#30 ·
I believe Disney had 90 days to divest. The Sinclair deal was announced May 3th. I'd say it is a matter of weeks before Sinclair takes over.
 
#31 ·
I believe we are in a transition period where a network like CBS is not going to give in to Directv, DISH. As more people are willing to stream, CBS is set and ready for that to be a prominent way to watch them. Not everyone has the ability to stream and do depend on Satellite for TV. But I don't think the numbers are enough for CBS to worry, it's becoming DISH and Directv who need them more to keep customers. The four Networks are still the most watched TV in prime time.
Remember, their model is if you watch CBS all access you are watching your own local CBS, ads and all.
 
#33 ·
Sinclair is acquiring the following RSNs: for 10.6 Billion dollars beating out Liberty media for Fox Sports Arizona, Fox Sports Detroit, Fox Sports Florida, Fox Sports Sun, Fox Sports North, Fox Sports Wisconsin, Fox Sports Ohio, SportsTime Ohio, Fox Sports South, Fox Sports Carolina, Fox Sports Tennessee, Fox Sports Southeast, Fox Sports Southwest, Fox Sports Oklahoma, Fox Sports New Orleans, Fox Sports Midwest, Fox Sports Kansas City, Fox Sports Indiana, Fox Sports San Diego, Fox Sports West, and Prime Ticket.
 
#37 ·
The goal is to deliver the correct station for the location. The execution can be lacking.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top