DISH quietly renews deals with CSN

[Scott Greczkowski]

Dish quietly renews deal for Comcast RSNs; Fox's Carry calls Dish model 'antiquated'

December 22, 2014 | By Daniel Frankel

As its carriage impasse over Fox News rhetorically boiled over, Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) quietly announced over the weekend that it came to terms on a long-term deal with Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) for four regional sports networks.

The long-term agreement with NBC Sports Group covers CSN Chicago, CSN Mid-Atlantic, CSN Bay Area and CSN California.

For more details please see http://www.fiercecable.com/story/di.../2014-12-22?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

 

[zippyfrog]

As its carriage impasse over Fox News rhetorically boiled over, Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) quietly announced over the weekend that it came to terms on a long-term deal with Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) for four regional sports networks.The long-term agreement with NBC Sports Group covers CSN Chicago, CSN Mid-Atlantic, CSN Bay Area and CSN California.

Scott - does this surprise you considering how DISH, specifically Charlie, at one of the previous earnings calls, has talked about not going with RSN's due to combination of price and low % of subs that view RSN's? When I saw that CSN New England was dropped in Aug, I thought as other RSN deals expired they would be dropped and Dish would be the RSN'less provider.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I does not surprise me at all, Charlie likes to talk and his talking normally gets him what he wants. Its all a game of poker to him.

 

[Santinelli]

Hmmm... Maybe we will see the Celtics this year? No? :-(

 

[calrich]

Hmmm... Maybe we will see the Celtics this year? No? :-(

Do you want to watch this year's Celtics?

 

[Santinelli]

Of course! I always stick by my home teams.

 

[hpman247]

Excellent news. CSN MA is about the only channel, besides the ESPN Family and MSNBC that I care about getting.

 

[Santinelli]

Has there been any movement or news about getting comcast new england back? Last time I talked to a csr they said that the channel is not available any longer....

 

[Tampa8]

To my knowledge there are no negotiations on bringing it back. I don't think they will be carried by DISH unless CSNNE decides to go with whatever the DISH terms are.

 

[DishSubLA]

Comcast has to play NICE if it wants TWC. That's all this is about. I think Comcast is starting to feel the cold air in DC, especially with the new FCC definition of "broadband" Comcast needs Dish more at this moment than the other way around. This how Comcast wants to demonstrate to DC that it really will behave with "good faith" with other MVPD's when it comes to channels Comcast/NBC owns, and that it won't keep its content exclusive to Comcast. Comcast is desperate. For the first time, I really feel like the Comcast/TWC merger actually has a chance of NOT being approved. Well, it should not. However, I would (only because our govt. created the mega-beast Comcast/NBC) be OK with a Charter/TWC merger because Charter is small and that merge would bring it closer to a competitor to Comcast and would most likely result in IMPROVEMENTS to many Charter customers--far more than a TWC/Comcast merge.

 

[Tampa8]

Certainly hard to predict but it does seem at this moment the merger is going nowhere fast.

 

[GaryPen]

Certainly hard to predict but it does seem at this moment the merger is going nowhere fast.

I hope so.

 

[ChadT41]

I hope so.

I agree. I do not want this or the DTV buyout to happen. Let two giants get bigger... AT&T has never done any wrong in the past....

 

[AZ.]

This is great news for me......Being 1700 miles away and a 922 back at old house.....Go Hawks, White Sox........lol....that's about it....Doh...

 

[jrbdmb]

Comcast has to play NICE if it wants TWC. That's all this is about. I think Comcast is starting to feel the cold air in DC, especially with the new FCC definition of "broadband" Comcast needs Dish more at this moment than the other way around. This how Comcast wants to demonstrate to DC that it really will behave with "good faith" with other MVPD's when it comes to channels Comcast/NBC owns, and that it won't keep its content exclusive to Comcast. Comcast is desperate. For the first time, I really feel like the Comcast/TWC merger actually has a chance of NOT being approved. Well, it should not. However, I would (only because our govt. created the mega-beast Comcast/NBC) be OK with a Charter/TWC merger because Charter is small and that merge would bring it closer to a competitor to Comcast and would most likely result in IMPROVEMENTS to many Charter customers--far more than a TWC/Comcast merge.

Apparently not desperate enough to be willing to negotiate CSN/Philly. The loophole that Comcast used to keep CSN/Philly off of satellite was closed years ago, and yet neither Dish or DirecTV have it yet. As far as I'm concerned that issue should torpedo any merger talk involving Comcast.

 

[jssp8s]

What about CSN Houston?

 

[ChadT41]

CSN Houston no longer exists. It went bankrupt and got bought by DTV and ATT.

 

[jssp8s]

WOW, so no way to watch the Astros.

 

[Willh699]

WOW, so no way to watch the Astros.

you could just switch to DirecTV or AT&T orComcast to get that channel. because we all know Dish isn't the leader in sports.

 

[jrbdmb]

you could just switch to DirecTV or AT&T orComcast to get that channel. because we all know Dish isn't the leader in sports.

I'll take the Pac-12 Network on Dish over a few DTV RSNs I can't watch anyways.