A 14% chance of Dish losing more then half of the $5.6 billion it has on hand would be painful to say the least. But hey, what's $3.5 billion to a corporation who just had a net loss of 111,000 subscribers, a potential 15% loss in stock value, not to mention loss in credibility and all the credit and Roku giveaways?
DISH -VS- VOOM - A Settlement has been reached!
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PTVC said:
I sure hope from now on the judge does not complain if there is any delay of a day or two because Dish's attorney did some incredibly evil thing that needed special investigation.
If you are bitter because you migrated to VOOM and Dish removed it later, I presume you also remember by that time you had watched the same VOOM shows the 100th time.
Look when VOOM refused to make the service work better for its partner, because they thought they could stick it to Dish because Dish signed a bad contract, then they cannot now complain Dish refuses to pay for some of their AMC channels.
As far as who is to be tought a lesson, I am sure Charlie had learned many things from the past, and will continue to do so. It is his money to play, whatever he sees fit. I am not going to feel the least bit bad if he losses a couple of billions. The guy had lost his shirts several times in the past, without him there would not be so much real life courtroom entertainment.
Your personal bitterness pales, I mean seriously, pales in comparison.
As the World Churns...
- Well, it looks as though Carolyn Crawford will be back in court Monday...this time to apologize for her odd behavior. Lawyers for Dish asked permission for Missus Double-Delete to address the court, Orin Snyder (Voom's lead counsel) and his father. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/dish_exec_mea_culpa_expected_Irr9LrVFfFqTDNNd5v86SO
- Regarding Judge Lowe's recent decision to preclude Dish's damages expert from presenting testimony. I was correct...he did preclude one of Dish's damages experts back in August...just turns out they submitted more than one. "Dish, which originally hoped to present testimony from three damages experts, will have no damages experts as a result of Lowe's decision." http://www.fiercecable.com/story/di...ks-voom-trial-against-amc-networks/2012-10-16
- April Lenhart and her 14-year-old son discovered something was missing Sunday as they flipped through their television channels. The Penn Township woman switched to Dish Network one month ago -- and, evidently, picked up an outdated channel guide. AMC wasn't there. "We didn't even know we didn't have the channel," said Lenhart, 37. "We watched seasons one and two, so we were really excited." Timi Stump, 34, resorted to customer complaints to AMC. They referred her to the online streaming of the first episode of "The Walking Dead." When she moves out -- which should be soon, she said -- she's calling Comcast. "As much as I'd like Dish, I won't get it," she said. "You pay a lot to not get your channels." http://www.ydr.com/business/ci_21796798/dish-network-subscribers-miss-walking-dead-season-premiere
- Elsewhere, FiOS TV added another 119K net subscribers giving them 4.6M total video customers. I suspect Dish will be shedding an equal number of customer during 3Q given the Voom/AMC squabble. We shall see. http://www22.verizon.com/idc/groups/public/documents/adacct/3q12_earnings_release_slides.pdf
Anyway, it would appear that a lot of people are just now discovering they can't watch The Walking Dead since AMC is gone fro their channel lineup. A lot of them could stream the season premiere online, for free, but this won't be available this Sunday. It should be interesting to see what pressure the increased churn and cost of issuing credits puts on Dish.
- Well, it looks as though Carolyn Crawford will be back in court Monday...this time to apologize for her odd behavior. Lawyers for Dish asked permission for Missus Double-Delete to address the court, Orin Snyder (Voom's lead counsel) and his father. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/dish_exec_mea_culpa_expected_Irr9LrVFfFqTDNNd5v86SO
- Regarding Judge Lowe's recent decision to preclude Dish's damages expert from presenting testimony. I was correct...he did preclude one of Dish's damages experts back in August...just turns out they submitted more than one. "Dish, which originally hoped to present testimony from three damages experts, will have no damages experts as a result of Lowe's decision." http://www.fiercecable.com/story/di...ks-voom-trial-against-amc-networks/2012-10-16
- April Lenhart and her 14-year-old son discovered something was missing Sunday as they flipped through their television channels. The Penn Township woman switched to Dish Network one month ago -- and, evidently, picked up an outdated channel guide. AMC wasn't there. "We didn't even know we didn't have the channel," said Lenhart, 37. "We watched seasons one and two, so we were really excited." Timi Stump, 34, resorted to customer complaints to AMC. They referred her to the online streaming of the first episode of "The Walking Dead." When she moves out -- which should be soon, she said -- she's calling Comcast. "As much as I'd like Dish, I won't get it," she said. "You pay a lot to not get your channels." http://www.ydr.com/business/ci_21796798/dish-network-subscribers-miss-walking-dead-season-premiere
- Elsewhere, FiOS TV added another 119K net subscribers giving them 4.6M total video customers. I suspect Dish will be shedding an equal number of customer during 3Q given the Voom/AMC squabble. We shall see. http://www22.verizon.com/idc/groups/public/documents/adacct/3q12_earnings_release_slides.pdf
Anyway, it would appear that a lot of people are just now discovering they can't watch The Walking Dead since AMC is gone fro their channel lineup. A lot of them could stream the season premiere online, for free, but this won't be available this Sunday. It should be interesting to see what pressure the increased churn and cost of issuing credits puts on Dish.
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While everyone is entitled to do what they want to do, if I am reading this right that will be one heck of an EFT, may want to look roku or something of that sort...but oh well
I disagree. He is playing with Dish/SATS shareholder money so he has a fiduciary responsiliby not to be reckless with investors money, even though some of it is his. He should not be playing a dangerous game of blind man's bluff. I'm sure investors would not be happy having to pay Voom a couple billion dollars in this case.
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Actually, this even further proves Charlie's point that aside from 3 shows, AMC is hardly watched. I mean, AMC has been gone for months, as they just no notice that it's gone?
That same argument can be made for other channels...I don't watch TNT for months and months when The Closer (aka Major Crimes) is on hiatus, and I rarely watch USA unless Burn Notice is playing, etc. Most people would not know if their channels disappeared unless they follow industry news. Sure, people may channel surf and stop on a certain channel if they see My Cousin Vinny, Back to the Future or Raiders or the Lost Arc playing (movies that draw you in again and again) but they probably aren't even aware of the channel they're watching. I'm sure most people:
- Have their shows set to record via season pass
- Primarily surf ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC (and the pay premium channels they subscribe to)
- Occasionally surf a smattering of cable favorites like TNT, TBS, USA, ESPNs, and a few others that fit their tastes (Lifetime, FX, etc.)
- Rarely surf the other 85% of the channels they don't routinely watch
Anyway, as pointed out by Judge Lowe, Dish does not have any crediblity. They were caught lying numerous times in this case. Heck, just this past week they were caught deleting emails, making false statements about their understanding of 'service' expenses toward the 100M spend requirement, double-deleting emails, and then grossly under-reporting their HD subscriber numbers.
Based on their upstanding profile, we're now to believe that AMC is hardly watched based on their good word? Just like Dish said their decision not to renew the AMC Networks contract had nothing to do with Voom? Sure! Oh, and just like the "nobody is watching the Voom channels" crappola they forwarded and Scott posted while they were in the process of smearing Voom and illegally terminating the affiliation agreement (common knowledge by now...we're just waiting for the jury to confirm and award damages).
Sorry Charlie, but Dish got caught in several lies, and I'm sure they told several more whoppers to cover these and other lies. I'm not much into conspiracy nonsense, but seriously, this was a coordinated effort by Dish to smear Voom, illegally fabricate reasons for terminating their business relationship (if Voom didn't agree to suck up 500M in losses in order to get paid peanuts), provide knowingly false statements and delete evidence, etc.
So you still believe:
- Almost nobody watched the Voom channels?
- Voom violated the Section 10 spend requirement? (they also claimed they violated Section 4 and 5 requirements, but they couldn't concoct a way out of the contract on these provisions since there was a cure provision)
- Hardly anyone watches AMC? (despite having some of the highest rated shows and the only cable programmer to win the best show Emmy 4 years straight)
- Dropping AMC has nothing to do with the Voom case?
- Dish did not delete evidence?
- Dish did not lie about their understanding of the spend requirement?
- Dish execs did not double-delete emails related to the audit?
- Dish did not alter elements in the audit report?
- Dish did not grossly under-report HD subscriber numbers?
So yes, Charlie is full of shite until an independent auditor says otherwise.
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riffjim4069 said:
The same old argument carried over from TiVo case again.
First, Dish investors know full well what they get into, their quarterly statements have all the risks for them to read.
Second, after you brought this point up over and over last time, at the end of the TiVo case, Dish investors were rewarded, not much for TiVo investors.
To some extent, Charlie was again correct in investing in wireless spectrum when he saw the traditional cable delivery fading, online streaming gaining. This case proves that, when AMC introduces their online service to those Dish subs, after AMC was gone from Dish.
His mistake in this case was back then he had too much trust in the Dolans and too caught up in that VOOM thing. He lost that bet way back when he signed the agreement.
That's how he does it, taking risky bets, if you can't deal with the heat, don't invest in Dish.
Absolutely. I have no doubt that most of the voom channels were mostly unwatched. Monsters, World Sport, and Equator may have been exceptions, but I'm sure hardly anyone watched most of the channels. I have no doubt the Dish receivers we had could report back out viewing habits. I seem to recall someone at Dish even showing Scott the data, with one channel having viewership as low as two dozen people over an hour.
At the very least the spirit of the agreement. I believe Voom stated to devalue the service by inflating its overhead, funneling AMC overhead to Voom, and overpaying for programming. Anyone who watched Voom has to admit in 2007, the programming got progressively worse (except for perhaps Monsters) even as Voom continued to spend the same amount. Wasting money is the only logical explanation.
Didn't say that hardly anyone watches. Just that hardly anyone watches outside of those top 3 shows, which as Charlie accurately points out, appeals to the urban demographic that Dish has fewer of. And certainly you realized critically acclaimed does not mean high rated and that everyone watches it.
When did I say it didn't? Of course it does. But that does not mean that Charlie didn't do his due diligence to make sure he would alienate too many subscribers.
Yes, they did, but I expect almost all of it was just due to their retention policy, not malicious. If it was malicious, they did a pisspoor job of it, given the emails from 2005 that have been recovered.
I think they chose a poor way of arguing the case. Yes, Dish realized typical overhead was included. But the overhead Voom charged, well conforming to accounting standards, was not part of the Dish understanding. Charlie is a bit of a handshake deal kind of guy. He just let Voom's lawyers write a bad deal that didn't reflect Charlie's understanding of the overhead to be included.
What the heck does double delete mean, anyway? That they moved it to the deleted items box, then emptied it? Big deal. And they were perfectly allowed to delete emails in 2005. That was long before there needed to be any litigation hold.
Huh? This is the first I've heard an allegation that they altered the report. There may have been changes to a draft version, but Voom needs some strong evidence to convince me they changed the report.
Like I said, there is a great deal of nuance to the numbers. Should it count those with HD from locals and/or premiums, but not a base pack? For a time I subscribed only to the Welcome Pack plus locals. The locals were in HD. Was I an HD subscriber? I don't think so, but I bet Voom would count me. Or what about people with HD boxes, but no HDTV. Like I said, my parents get HD of the EA, but have no HDTV to watch. Are they an HD sub? I don't think so, but I bet Voom would count them.
Plus, given the length of time this has been in the courts, does the count have the same datum? The Dish number could easily be just an old number
So yes, Charlie is full of shite until an independent auditor says otherwise.
Innocent until proven guilty is what I prefer to go with.
And even with a $2B settlement, it's not a hard argument to make they are better off than if they had kept Voom under the contract as it was. The mistake was in agreeing to the contract terms to begin with. I'd have to add some of the dumb stunts since the suit to the mistake column as well.
Breaking the contract once Voom apparently did not want to entertain renegotiating was the only decision that made since.
ScottChez said:
Have not followed this one, I don't know why he wants a fight here. Personally I don't see much benefit of removing ads, have not found anyone who is bothered by the 30-sec skips.
...which I consider to be prudent and sage advice for any CEO to follow. Besides, who talking Tivo? Tivo won that case, as I recall.
Again, nobody cares about the Tivo case...but they did win their case and received a half-billion dollars from Dish.
That's true...it's not like Charlie to sign such a bad agreement skewed against him - he's usually on the favorable end of contracts. That's probably why Sahl and Schwimmer (aka The Architects of Voom Doom) were shown the door.
Not a sentence in any of the vision or mission statements I have ever read.
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riffjim4069 said:...which I consider to be prudent and sage advice for any CEO to follow. Besides, who talking Tivo? Tivo won that case, as I recall.
Again, nobody cares about the Tivo case...but they did win their case and received a half-billion dollars from Dish.
That's true...it's not like Charlie to sign such a bad agreement skewed against him - he's usually on the favorable end of contracts. That's probably why Sahl and Schwimmer (aka The Architects of Voom Doom) were shown the door.
Not a sentence in any of the vision or mission statements I have ever read.
Of course you don't want to talk about TiVo. But as long as we are discussing a CEO's responsibility to his shareholders, it is good to point out, the Dish investors got a better deal than the TiVo shareholders at the end of the TiVo case. As an investor, which would you rather have, the belief that your CEO "won" the case, even though less money in your pocket, or your CEO "lost" the case, but you get to take more money to the bank?
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If one show on a channel is important enough for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of subs to switch carriers, then all that channel needs is one show.
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VOOM was in no position to renegotiate since they shot themselves in the foot by not getting into any other carriage agreements. Dish was basically their only revenue source. So they skirted by on bare minimum expenditures by the letter of the contract (but not the spirit of the agreement) to maximize/maintain their profits and basically forced Dish's hand in making the decision they made.
