Dish Dropping MASN

zippyfrog

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On the Dish Promise page, they are saying that the NBC Sports RSN's won't be available (which we knew) and lets us know they are dropping MASN as well on 4/1.

So that will leave only NESN and AT&T Sports Networks left as the only RSN's that Dish still carries.
 
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While I understand the fundamental brokenness of the RSN model, I'm not sure what the value proposition of satellite and cable is at this point. If the content these distribution methods excel at (live/local sports/news) is being dropped in favor of retaining content that streaming is better at (non-live content, reruns), what is the point of DBS?
 
What about big10 and sec?
You might as well include ACC, Longhorn Network, and Pac-12 in that list. Coincidentally (?) Dish is now actually using the Pac-12 alternate channels to carry more live games from the other Pac-12 regional channels, that otherwise would not be broadcast on the national Pac-12 feed. So, as Dish is dropping most professional sports content from California teams (along with having already dropped most of the RSN's in the rest of the Pac-12 territory) Dish is doubling down on offering more college sports content. It is all a shell game, to give Dish some positive publicity that makes it look like they still care about sports, while they are in fact continuing to drop more sports channels.
 
The only reason Dish is dropping Sports channels, that they are so expensive. If Dish wants to keep sports, they would have to sell them in a package or packages on a sliding scale. If their fees go up, they are moved on to the subscriber. That way the people that want them, they still have access to them.
 
I don't see the SEC Network, ACC Network, PAC12 or Big 10 being dropped unless their fees skyrocket. In essence, although they are "regional", they do function as national networks and don't have blackouts. There are also many teams sharing these networks - and multiply that by the number of sports they show - there is some decent value in it. But I think the biggest thing though going for them is the fees they charge.

This is the only article I have been able to find post pandemic - Hotline investigation: Future of Pac-12 Networks in doubt as sports media world threatens to leave conference behind

It says that the Pac12 National network carriage rate is 13 cents per subscriber per month. SEC and Big10 are north of 50 cents (I believe I read that SEC Network and Big10 are about $1.50 within the region but 30 cents out of the region). You see the rates of all the PAC12 regionals, which I am guessing Dish cut a deal to pay a part of that for just the live games (yet we get them all on the app). And I read that Longhorn Network is about 29 cents per month for a carriage fee.

Contrast that with the cost of the RSN's in a region - Sinclair Makes $10B Play For Fox’s Sports Nets The small list that this site gives from 2019 puts Fox Sports Detroit at $6.09 per subscriber, Fox Sports Arizona at $5.05 per subscriber per month. Even if SEC Network or Big10 have increased and were $2.00 per subscriber in region, it is still significantly less than any of the RSNs that carry professional sports.

With that, I don't see Dish dropping those college sports networks by themselves. Dish has advertised itself as the satellite service that allows you to see all the major Division I football games and promote college sports.
 
Dish has advertised itself as the satellite service that allows you to see all the major Division I football games and promote college sports.
The key word there being "has" (past tense). Aren't some of the college football games still on the (now former) Fox Sports Nets, which Dish no longer carries? It was funny when I was doing beta testing for Dish shortly after those Fox Sports Net channels were dropped. As part of the testing, they would insert old outdated Dish ads that wouldn't show up on a normal subscriber's receiver. So, I would almost constantly see that advertising claim about being able to see "all major Division I football games." In my feedback, I pointed out to Dish that this claim was no longer true. Eventually, they switched to using different ads for testing purposes. The "all major Division I football games" ad and the false ad in the GameFinder app that still listed Multi-Sport as having "over 35 channels" were two of my biggest pet peeves. As far as I know, both of those problems eventually got fixed. In the meantime, I am sure that I annoyed someone at Dish, by constantly reporting the problems with those ads.
 
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While I understand the fundamental brokenness of the RSN model, I'm not sure what the value proposition of satellite and cable is at this point. If the content these distribution methods excel at (live/local sports/news) is being dropped in favor of retaining content that streaming is better at (non-live content, reruns), what is the point of DBS?
The point is that 40% (FCC data) of the country does not have access to high speed Internet therefore streaming is a moot point for those people. In many (most?) cases their only option is DBS. Don't assume broadband is universally available, it isn't.
 
The point is that 40% (FCC data) of the country does not have access to high speed Internet therefore streaming is a moot point for those people. In many (most?) cases their only option is DBS. Don't assume broadband is universally available, it isn't.
And that 40% is likely an underestimate. The problem with the FCC data is that if any address in the neighborhood has high speed internet access, then the entire neighborhood gets reported as having access, whether or not every house is actually wired for high speed cable internet.
 
The key word there being "has" (past tense). Aren't some of the college football games still on the (now former) Fox Sports Nets, which Dish no longer carries? It was funny when I was doing beta testing for Dish shortly after those Fox Sports Net channels were dropped. As part of the testing, they would insert old outdated Dish ads that wouldn't show up on a normal subscriber's receiver. So, I would almost constantly see that advertising claim about being able to see "all major Division I football games." In my feedback, I pointed out to Dish that this claim was no longer true. Eventually, they switched to using different ads for testing purposes. The "all major Division I football games" ad and the false ad in the GameFinder app that still listed Multi-Sport as having "over 35 channels" were two of my biggest pet peeves. As far as I know, both of those problems eventually got fixed. In the meantime, I am sure that I annoyed someone at Dish, by constantly reporting the problems with those ads.

And the one that gets me - still being advertised on Dish's website for the multi-sports pack - is the line "Multi-Sport Pack includes a ton of Regional Sports Networks that give you local sports coverage from outside your local market." On 4/1, there will be a total of 3 RSN's that are in the multi-sports pack (AT&T Pitt, AT&T RM, and Root Sports Northwest) and 4 RSN's total (as NESN is not available to those who add multi-sports pack)
 
And the one that gets me - still being advertised on Dish's website for the multi-sports pack - is the line "Multi-Sport Pack includes a ton of Regional Sports Networks that give you local sports coverage from outside your local market." On 4/1, there will be a total of 3 RSN's that are in the multi-sports pack (AT&T Pitt, AT&T RM, and Root Sports Northwest) and 4 RSN's total (as NESN is not available to those who add multi-sports pack)
That line is still totally accurate. As the regional sports networks continue to get heavier, it now takes a lot fewer of them to add up to "a ton." :biggrin :oldlaugh
 
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That line is still totally accurate. As the regional sports networks continue to get heavier, it now takes a lot fewer of them to add up to "a ton." :biggrin :oldlaugh
Dish has chosen a direction to go without the RSN's unless they are add-ons like premium channels, and they are sticking to it. By my count, by Thursday they will have dropped 27 RSN's over the past 20 months and the last 4 RSN days are numbered as part of the base packages. This does add 3 questions that we will all get to ponder over the next year:

1) What will happen with Sinclair this summer? Will Sinclair go the route NBC did and renew the locals and allow Dish to not renew locals, or will Sinclair pull the RSN's with the locals and play hardball?

2) What happens with AT120+? When the next price increase comes into play, will AT120+ be folded into AT120 and NFL Network/College Sports Networks/whatever other channels are contracted for 120+ be added to 120?

3) How long will it take to remove all the ALT sports channels from 440-454 that are currently there. No more alternate feeds for RSN's will be needed.
 
Dish has chosen a direction to go without the RSN's unless they are add-ons like premium channels, and they are sticking to it. By my count, by Thursday they will have dropped 27 RSN's over the past 20 months and the last 4 RSN days are numbered as part of the base packages. This does add 3 questions that we will all get to ponder over the next year:

1) What will happen with Sinclair this summer? Will Sinclair go the route NBC did and renew the locals and allow Dish to not renew locals, or will Sinclair pull the RSN's with the locals and play hardball?

2) What happens with AT120+? When the next price increase comes into play, will AT120+ be folded into AT120 and NFL Network/College Sports Networks/whatever other channels are contracted for 120+ be added to 120?

3) How long will it take to remove all the ALT sports channels from 440-454 that are currently there. No more alternate feeds for RSN's will be needed.
2) would be counter-intuitive. Dish is making this whole stance of "We don't want our customers to be forced to pay for sports" and then they turn around and voluntarily make the decision to force more sports channels (that are still being carried) into their most popular and most well-advertised base package? I could see the packages remaining just as they are, programming-wise. The price for the + package going forward is an interesting point to debate, though, with so many fewer sports channels in it.
 
The point is that 40% (FCC data) of the country does not have access to high speed Internet therefore streaming is a moot point for those people. In many (most?) cases their only option is DBS. Don't assume broadband is universally available, it isn't.
High Speed internet is available via satellite in the majority of the country. I am not sure how good it is, but it has improved greatly through the years. Also high speed is available via cel phone towers. So it is out there in some form for most Americans. But many do not have the money or want to spend it. Here, we have only Spectrum, other than cel tower or satellite and for 100 down & phone, the bill is in the $85 range. That is a lot of money for some. I think it isn't the access to high speed, but affordable high speed. These new low lying satellites that are going up are supposed to deliver that for about $50 a month.
 
For ACC fans who are Dish customers, having MASN was nice because, during this school year, MASN was picking up ACC broadcasts for regional sports networks. I hope this is temporary but I'm quite sure it isn't.
 
Seeing how Dish is dropping the sports channels I think they will be changing their name to The New Orby... except the high prices won't change
 
The point is that 40% (FCC data) of the country does not have access to high speed Internet therefore streaming is a moot point for those people. In many (most?) cases their only option is DBS. Don't assume broadband is universally available, it isn't.

Understood but what's the value proposition for the 60% of the rest of us? If Dish wants to be a entertainment provider of last resort, that's their prerogative, but I don't see how that appeals to the rest of us.
 
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It makes this free multi sport for the spring and summer so odd. Did anyone get one of these emails or is it a scam?

There won't be any RSN's to watch. Strike Zone for free seems to be the only thing here. I'm dropping DISH after having them for 20 years cuz of this.
It makes perfect sense to me. Dish is offering whatever sports channels they still have, in an effort to make up for the removal of most of the remaining RSN's. Just like the recent addition of the Draft Kings app and the return of actual content to the Pac-12 alternate channels, this Multi-Sport offer gives Dish some positive publicity about offering more sports content, while they are in fact removing sports channels. The number of channels advertised as being in Multi-Sport (15+) in that ad also gave us a heads-up that more RSN's would be disappearing. (The previous advertised channel count for Multi-Sport was 20+.) The timing of this offer may also give us a heads-up about when the ATT/Root and NESN contracts expire, if that new 15+ number also reflects the removal of those channels. If so, then I would expect all of the remaining RSN's to be gone by the time those five free months end.
 
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I complained and was able to get the sports pack free for three months. My programming level doesn't include MLB Network, and this gives me that channel as well as the Strike Zone Channel. I still have ZERO options to see Orioles and Nationals games, though.
 
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