DISH Drops AMC Networks (AMC Back on DISH channel 131)

I am fortunately through with my Dish contract. In my neighborhood we have Bright House, Comcast and AT&T Uverse available so I have penty of options to chose from. Bright House and Comcast even have FEARnet HD which I have been asking Dish to add for 2 years. If the AMC channels are really dropped I will be going back to cable.
i have been asking for FEARnet for awhile myself.
 
Even though Dish has said that isn't the real reason, I think deep down inside we know that this is true. Personally, I think it's foolish to run a company based on your personal emotions. I would hope that Dish has done it's homework and calculated that losses from dropping AMC Networks won't hurt them very much. But I think the long-term message it sends to potential customers is wrong. Why sign a contract with a provider that is willing to drop channels, maybe your favorite channel(s)? Dish had good customer growth last quarter. Why risk that with a "personal vendeta"?
Good post and I got to admit I keep asking the same question myself.
 
I am fortunately through with my Dish contract. In my neighborhood we have Bright House, Comcast and AT&T Uverse available so I have penty of options to chose from. Bright House and Comcast even have FEARnet HD which I have been asking Dish to add for 2 years. If the AMC channels are really dropped I will be going back to cable.
Alright, gpollock, your ruse to create a new account to put your plug in for FEARnet won't work. ;) :D
 
I personally wouldnt care if these Newtworks are Dropped.I only watch AMC once in a while,but too many commercials .I might miss IFC,but not that muchNever watched WE.But Dish should lower are bills or replace with new channels..
 
If you follow the Dish Network Facebook page, hundreds of members have been asking the Dish customer service folks what's going on with this and threatning to leave Dish and none of them have replied. They are staying unusually quiet on the subject. They are responding to all other inquires though. I hope it gets worked out but if it doesn't there will be many people leaving Dish.
 
I'm not worried yet. This seems very much like a negotiating tactic. I'd imagine that Charlie's dilution of value argument will be a common theme with contract renewals going forward. Some ask why make this argument about AMC and not all the other channels that do the same; the simple answer is that AMC networks are up for renewal and the other channels are not at this time.

I generally side with Dish on price disputes, but the recent court ruling against them casts a shadow of a doubt over this dispute. Then again, the contract expires on a set date that was independent of the ruling; so it's possible that the timing is just an unfortunate coincidence.

I think ideally, many would like to see Dish get this deal done and in the process secure the HD rights to the additional channels. I currently only watch AMC because I can't stand SD movies. There are simply too many other HD content options to suffer through SD channels. The only thing I really watch on AMC is the Walking Dead, and I tend to only watch that as a marathon once the entire half season is saved, so a dispute wouldn't really negatively impact me for quite a while.

However, for the sake of those that view these channels more frequently, I hope that an agreement is reached and the temporary or permanent removal of channels is avoided.

At this point, it's much too early to tell. There are 53 days between now and the expiration of the existing deal. Plenty of time for a deal to be worked out. Maybe my current good mood is clouding my judgment with too much optimism on this, but I am hopeful that this will all be resolved in a relatively timely fashion such that no one misses new broadcasts of their favorite AMC original programming.
 
If you follow the Dish Network Facebook page, hundreds of members have been asking the Dish customer service folks what's going on with this and threatning to leave Dish and none of them have replied. They are staying unusually quiet on the subject. They are responding to all other inquires though. I hope it gets worked out but if it doesn't there will be many people leaving Dish.
I don't know why you would expect any reply. They know as much, if not less than we do. Dish has not made any official statement.
 
If you follow the Dish Network Facebook page, hundreds of members have been asking the Dish customer service folks what's going on with this and threatning to leave Dish and none of them have replied. They are staying unusually quiet on the subject. They are responding to all other inquires though. I hope it gets worked out but if it doesn't there will be many people leaving Dish.

The thing about it is that unless 100k customers leave it does not really matter to Dish. Losing 1000 customers in protest is nothing. I doubt 100k customers would have the energy (or be off contract) to leave because of this dispute. Dish probably comes out ahead if less than a few hundred thousand quit... Profits lost overall vs payments to AMC. If they are paying lets say 3 million a month to AMC for the programming, they would have to lose 429 thousand subs to lose 3 million in profit (at their recent average of $7/sub/month).

This is the real reason Dish will do the disputes. They really do not lose money because some leave in protest.
 
I must say ifc has gone down the tubes. It was grate 10 years ago. Now you have ads during movies and malcom in the midlle. It was such a grate channel when it started. All i see on we tv is fraiser and golden girls. The bridal shows on sunday are good like bridezilla. But i can get most on netflix any way and i can watch golden girls on hallmark
 
I must say ifc has gone down the tubes. It was grate 10 years ago. Now you have ads during movies and malcom in the midlle. It was such a grate channel when it started. All i see on we tv is fraiser and golden girls. The bridal shows on sunday are good like bridezilla. But i can get most on netflix any way and i can watch golden girls on hallmark
i watch IFC quite a bit. watched a movie called shivers a few weeks ago i had never seen.
 
IFC is another example of a channel that has strayed away from its namesake. Funny how now episodes of The Three Stooges are on IFC. They were produced by Columbia Pictures and never independent. By the way anyone who would miss the stooges can catch them on WSBK in the superstation package. And I'm sure other channels in their local DMA. Also, funny how IFC was created as an answer to Sundance Channel, and now they are both owned by the same company. In my opinion IFC and WE can be dropped and aren't of any value.
 
I don't know why you would expect any reply. They know as much, if not less than we do. Dish has not made any official statement.

When it comes from Charlies lips, you can kind of take that as "semi-official", wouldn't you say?

Not that CSR's would have that info...............
 
IFC is another example of a channel that has strayed away from its namesake. Funny how now episodes of The Three Stooges are on IFC. They were produced by Columbia Pictures and never independent. By the way anyone who would miss the stooges can catch them on WSBK in the superstation package. And I'm sure other channels in their local DMA. Also, funny how IFC was created as an answer to Sundance Channel, and now they are both owned by the same company. In my opinion IFC and WE can be dropped and aren't of any value.

Both IFC and Sundance were great channels when they focused on their original mission. Now.....................
 
yaz96 said:
When it comes from Charlies lips, you can kind of take that as "semi-official", wouldn't you say?

Not that CSR's would have that info...............

Exactly, it's not value, it's Charlie trying to prove a point. Quite frankly AMC is a legacy channel. People expect it to be part of their channel lineup.
 
The Fat Man said:
Exactly, it's not value, it's Charlie trying to prove a point. Quite frankly AMC is a legacy channel. People expect it to be part of their channel lineup.

The local cable company has AMC (although it was added around the mid to late 90s around the time it started airing commercials...go figure) and has never carried We, IFC, or Sundance. Of course, this cable company also had Turner Classic Movies in the Cinemax package for quite a while although I never understood why. It was moved much later to the digital tier.

When I would visit my uncle in the city, they had AMC, too. However, IFC was a premium and "scrambled" on the superbasic lineup although HBO East was available without subscription until a few tears ago.
 
This is the real reason Dish will do the disputes. They really do not lose money because some leave in protest.

But it does give them a reputation as a service where people's favorite channels can disappear at any time and they have no recourse because they are under contract. Granted, cable and Directv have the same sort of programming disputes sometimes, but they seem a lot more frequent with Dish, and a lot more likely to continue indefinitely. I mean, there are some local RSNs that have been missing from Dish for several years now. I've never heard of anything like that happening with cable or Directv (Well, apart from one weird situation in southwest Virginia that eventually got resolved, I think). Disputes that go till the last minute? Yup. Sometimes even losing a channel for a week or two? Sure. But not losing a channel for years at a time with no end in site.
 

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