My interaction with our local affiliate:
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Bill,
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I do appreciate fair market values and LIN's right to ask whatever fees they want for rebroadcast of their programming.
I live in Pojoaque, and cable is not available, and I cannot get your signal OTA at my house. I've been a Dish Network subscriber around 15 years, and have no inclination to switch over to DirectTV. Therefore, if/when this contract expires I will not be getting KASA or KRQE.
Also, what bugs me about this, is that certainly, LIN has the right to charge what they want, however, Dish Network is NOT allowed to offer alternative FOX/CBS from East Coast/West Coast, or even Denver. It seems to me that the "fair market" is not so fair. The consumers are the real losers in this battle.
I suppose I could investigate getting my FOX/CBS programming via the Internet...
Again, thanks for your response Bill.
--Daniel Pruitt
On 3/3/2011 9:05 AM, Bill Anderson wrote:
> I hate these stupid messages too Daniel. We tried to avoid this, we had gotten DISH to agree that if there were not a deal imminent we would spare you all of this by simpling extending the current contract 30 days so we could keep talking. No one would ever know the difference. They broke that promise and walked away last Thursday. And we had 5 days to reach you with messages before we were cut off and the only message you would see, we theirs.
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> Here's some more info I've shared with others Daniel,
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> __________________________
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> Thank you for writing. I've heard about the responses that DISH is giving their customers and how DISH is using 140% as a public relations scare tactic. The fact is we are asking for pennies a day per subscriber. Any increase in pennies is going to result in a large percentage. For instance, if you go from 1 cent to 2 cents, that is a 100% increase. We are only asking for fair value, again pennies a day per subscriber, which is far less than what DISH is paying for cable channels that you may never even watch. You might ask them, “what does my subscription fee pay for exactly?” Let me give you a few facts that they have failed to mention:
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> First of all, they broke of negotiations last week to go skiinig. We offered to extend the contract by 30 days to keep talking and they declined to meet over the weekend and now here we are.
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> More importantly, Dish (and DirectTV, Comcast; etc.) have each made a business out of picking up the free over-the-air programming that local stations like ours (and KOAT, KOB, etc.) pay for and produce, and then they sell us to you . It's been a good business for them, in fact local stations account for most of the viewing of their satellite customers. What they are not telling you however, is that they not only make money off your subscription fees, they also derive revenues from selling advertising, and then they use these profits to go buy hundreds of niche networks that very few viewers will ever watch (did you notice you were paying for KBS World, the Korean broadcast network with english subtitles in your basic package? How much would you be paying if you paid for what you actually watch?) What they do not want you to know is that you are subsidizing the purchase of other networks, some of which they compensate multiple times the amount they pay local stations. And they compensate other small, niche networks catering to only a handful of viewers. They pay for these networks but then they threaten to raise your subscription fees and blame local broadcasters for increases in your subscriptions. Does that make sense to you? This has been a problem for some time, so agreeing with broadcaster's right to fair compensation, Congress gave broadcasters the right to negotiate with these guys for fair value for our programming. That was the meeting that Dish walked out of. We are a company that has invested heavily here in New Mexico, being a local business and a steady employer. And they are everything but that. Which is why you can make contact with me today, but you have to speak to a 1-800 operator with Dish.
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> I sincerely apologize for this, I know it may seem to you like greedy businesses just bumping heads. It's a more principled disagreement than that. One of us has taken great financial risk creating all of this programming, and one of us is hoping to benefit from that obscenely. If you want to pay for what you watch, and do not want to subsidize the University of California Channel (that's in your basic package too) let them know that, and I think you'll find they have plenty of other opportunities to be profitable without cheating us or raising your fees.
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> Thanks for writing.
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> From: Daniel Pruitt [mailto:dp@cruzito.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:33 PM
> To:
keepKASAonDISH@kasa.com;
ceo@dishnetwork.com
> Subject: Thanks, but...
>
> KASA:
> Thanks for the alert, but do you really need to put American Idol into SD and run this banner?
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> KASA/DISH NETWORK:
> I suspect most consumers don't care how/who/why LIN's contract with Dish is settled... only that it is done.
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> If this negotiation is not settled and your stations are pulled off of DISH Network, then it is not only DISH's failure but also LIN's... You both LOSE! That this negotiation has come down to the final days before the existing contract expires is irresponsible on everyone's part.
>
> Fix it!