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I hate the Yankees and I hate News Corp (Parent company of FOX News), so, in my universe, this match makes a perverse sort of sense. It's like one of those special comic books where all the super-villians team up with each other to wreck havoc on the universe. Personally, I wish them both nothing but bad.

Having said that, putting myself in the shoes of a New York sports fan living in the New York area, it would be hard to see subscribing to Dish in that type of situation. I wouldn't care about the behind the scenes dynamics, I'd just not want to put up a good chunk of money every month and not get to watch my teams. I'd go to cable, Directv, FIOS (if available), or even nothing sooner than accept that scenario. It's got to be costing Dish a lot of customers up there. They can't even be the provider for Mets fans, because they don't carry the channel that shows that team either.

Even sitting here in a different area as a fan of local teams who's networks Dish does carry, seeing what keeps happening with with Dish and RSNs will make it hard for me to enter into another two-year contract with them. Making that commitment knowing that I could have the programming I'm paying for yanked at any time and still have to pay (Thus preventing me from switching and seeing my teams on cable) is a tough pill to swallow. Since Dish refused to give me HD equipment and free HD for life when I signed up due to not liking the results of a credit check, it puts me in a double bind, because I'm not going to want to sit here with SD service forever, and they'll probably want an equipment charge plus a new contractual commitment to upgrade- or I can switch to cable at some point and get free HD equipment with no credit check, no commitment, and a promotional rate.

Not something I'll be doing tomorrow, but in the long run, it seems like Dish doesn't seem to worry much about retaining certain classes of customers. Sports fans? Eh (Even though cable generally does a good job with keeping RSNs on the air). People who don't have great credit (Sometimes just because they can't *get* credit to establish it, and not because they don't pay everything on-time)? Meh (Even though cable will have an offer for you). People who don't want to sign a contract? Fine if you want to pay for your own equipment and not get any promotional rate breaks (Even though cable will provide equipment and a rate break).

I don't know, just seems like Dish could do better in some areas (As could cable in other areas).

If you still are blind to the Sports carriage problem, yet another article.

"Some estimates peg sports programming as accounting for half of a typical pay-TV bill"

[url]http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/tvbizwire/2012/11/liberty-chairman-john-malone-c.php




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Tampa8 said:

If you still are blind to the Sports carriage problem, yet another article.

"Some estimates peg sports programming as accounting for half of a typical pay-TV bill

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I think at least half of families who subscribe to pay tv probably have at least one sports fan in the family. And sports fans are the ones least likely to "cut the cord", so they are your core pay tv viewers of the future. Movie and television drama lovers could decide to simply get a Roku box, subscribe to Netflix and/or Hulu streaming, and rent DVDs in some manner to fill the gaps, and do so far cheaper. The future of pay television is in things that people can only watch on television and only want to watch live- sports, news, etc..

I also think sports fans drove the adoption of cable and satellite in the first place, in large measure.

Frankly, if you take sports out of the mix, I'd only be willing to pay about $10 a month for what remains on cable or satellite. Beyond sports and MSNBC, there is little I watch that I can't get some other way for less and in a more convenient way (At least given my lack of a DVR).

HanoverPretzel said:

I hate the Yankees and I hate News Corp (Parent company of FOX News), so, in my universe, this match makes a perverse sort of sense. It's like one of those special comic books where all the super-villians team up with each other to wreck havoc on the universe. Personally, I wish them both nothing but bad.

Having said that, putting myself in the shoes of a New York sports fan living in the New York area, it would be hard to see subscribing to Dish in that type of situation. I wouldn't care about the behind the scenes dynamics, I'd just not want to put up a good chunk of money every month and not get to watch my teams. I'd go to cable, Directv, FIOS (if available), or even nothing sooner than accept that scenario. It's got to be costing Dish a lot of customers up there. They can't even be the provider for Mets fans, because they don't carry the channel that shows that team either.

Even sitting here in a different area as a fan of local teams who's networks Dish does carry, seeing what keeps happening with with Dish and RSNs will make it hard for me to enter into another two-year contract with them. Making that commitment knowing that I could have the programming I'm paying for yanked at any time and still have to pay (Thus preventing me from switching and seeing my teams on cable) is a tough pill to swallow. Since Dish refused to give me HD equipment and free HD for life when I signed up due to not liking the results of a credit check, it puts me in a double bind, because I'm not going to want to sit here with SD service forever, and they'll probably want an equipment charge plus a new contractual commitment to upgrade- or I can switch to cable at some point and get free HD equipment with no credit check, no commitment, and a promotional rate.

Not something I'll be doing tomorrow, but in the long run, it seems like Dish doesn't seem to worry much about retaining certain classes of customers. Sports fans? Eh (Even though cable generally does a good job with keeping RSNs on the air). People who don't have great credit (Sometimes just because they can't *get* credit to establish it, and not because they don't pay everything on-time)? Meh (Even though cable will have an offer for you). People who don't want to sign a contract? Fine if you want to pay for your own equipment and not get any promotional rate breaks (Even though cable will provide equipment and a rate break).

I don't know, just seems like Dish could do better in some areas (As could cable in other areas).

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Who asked for your opinions on the Yankees and Newscorp?
Just discuss the issue at hand. Post your opinions on politics on another site. Post your opinion on a sports team in the Sports Zone on this here site.

dishcomm said:

Who asked for your opinions on the Yankees and Newscorp?
Just discuss the issue at hand. Post your opinions on politics on another site. Post your opinion on a sports team in the Sports Zone on this here site.

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Who asked for your off-topic opinions on my off-topic aside? Isn't there some sort of off-topic complaints about off-topic asides sub-forum for you to post that kind of thing on?

HanoverPretzel said:

I hate the Yankees and I hate News Corp (Parent company of FOX News), so, in my universe, this match makes a perverse sort of sense. It's like one of those special comic books where all the super-villians team up with each other to wreck havoc on the universe. Personally, I wish them both nothing but bad.

Having said that, putting myself in the shoes of a New York sports fan living in the New York area, it would be hard to see subscribing to Dish in that type of situation. I wouldn't care about the behind the scenes dynamics, I'd just not want to put up a good chunk of money every month and not get to watch my teams. I'd go to cable, Directv, FIOS (if available), or even nothing sooner than accept that scenario. It's got to be costing Dish a lot of customers up there. They can't even be the provider for Mets fans, because they don't carry the channel that shows that team either.

Even sitting here in a different area as a fan of local teams who's networks Dish does carry, seeing what keeps happening with with Dish and RSNs will make it hard for me to enter into another two-year contract with them. Making that commitment knowing that I could have the programming I'm paying for yanked at any time and still have to pay (Thus preventing me from switching and seeing my teams on cable) is a tough pill to swallow. Since Dish refused to give me HD equipment and free HD for life when I signed up due to not liking the results of a credit check, it puts me in a double bind, because I'm not going to want to sit here with SD service forever, and they'll probably want an equipment charge plus a new contractual commitment to upgrade- or I can switch to cable at some point and get free HD equipment with no credit check, no commitment, and a promotional rate.

Not something I'll be doing tomorrow, but in the long run, it seems like Dish doesn't seem to worry much about retaining certain classes of customers. Sports fans? Eh (Even though cable generally does a good job with keeping RSNs on the air). People who don't have great credit (Sometimes just because they can't *get* credit to establish it, and not because they don't pay everything on-time)? Meh (Even though cable will have an offer for you). People who don't want to sign a contract? Fine if you want to pay for your own equipment and not get any promotional rate breaks (Even though cable will provide equipment and a rate break).

I don't know, just seems like Dish could do better in some areas (As could cable in other areas).

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What the hell does you credit have to do with the subject matter of this thread?

HanoverPretzel said:

I think at least half of families who subscribe to pay tv probably have at least one sports fan in the family. And sports fans are the ones least likely to "cut the cord", so they are your core pay tv viewers of the future. Movie and television drama lovers could decide to simply get a Roku box, subscribe to Netflix and/or Hulu streaming, and rent DVDs in some manner to fill the gaps, and do so far cheaper. The future of pay television is in things that people can only watch on television and only want to watch live- sports, news, etc..

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Sports fans are equally likely to "cut the cord"...just as you say, "simply get a Roku box, subscribe to" MLB.tv, NHL GameCenter Live and/or NBA League Pass for less than the cost of a full pay tv subscription. You also get access to archives of those games, like a free DVR. Movie and tv drama lovers, as you point out, can do the same, but for far cheaper than those sports league subscriptions. My point about sports being the brunt of the transmission costs has been made, thank you. Live news? You can get more up-to-date breaking news by following twitter feeds of the established news outlets, without being confined to your pay-tv outlet, DVR, or sling adapter.

HanoverPretzel said:

I also think sports fans drove the adoption of cable and satellite in the first place, in large measure.

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That's ancient history, and has no bearing now on the state of the market or technology today. But to go on with your thought, I do agree that they drove the prices of cable and satellite to what they are today, in large measure.

HanoverPretzel said:

Frankly, if you take sports out of the mix, I'd only be willing to pay about $10 a month for what remains on cable or satellite. Beyond sports and MSNBC, there is little I watch that I can't get some other way for less and in a more convenient way (At least given my lack of a DVR).

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So, you are saying you are willing to pay $40 dollars a month on your sports and MSNBC? (Assuming that you have AT120+ at $49.99 minus the $10 you're willing to pay for the rest of the channels - could be higher if you have a higher package).

HanoverPretzel said:

Who asked for your off-topic opinions on my off-topic aside? Isn't there some sort of off-topic complaints about off-topic asides sub-forum for you to post that kind of thing on?

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You do a good job of making me think, agree or not with you....

dishcomm said:

What the hell does you credit have to do with the subject matter of this thread?

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dishcomm said:

Discriminatory practices? How did Dish( Yes I realize this may open a can of worms) discriminate against you?
The company has credit standards that are not ambiguous. Put simply most creditors look at over all FICO score or they may use their own rating system.
Typically one can have a decent FICO or even a TU or Equifax score that is middle of the road. The one thing companies look at is on time/not on time payment history. So if one habitually makes late payments. their credit will get dinged. If you don't own a home, you can get a ding

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You're turning a small aside here into a whole separate line of discussion, which is fine by me, but you're the one who's getting upset that things are going off-topic. The best way to keep them on-topic if off-topic stuff is annoying you? Ignore the small asides from other posters and focus on the issue at hand. That's been my personal experience anyway.

Anyhow, basically, one major definition of discrimination is "the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually". That's what Dish is clearly doing- offering one class of people a better deal than another class of people. To be fair, Directv and a lot of cell phone companies and such do the same thing. I'm not accusing them of racial bias or anything (I'm white), but I am accusing them of, well, dividing people into groups and treating people differently when they are in one group than in another. It's hard to deny that they're doing that when it comes to credit scores, even if you approve of the practice.

You've got to remember, too, that you can get poor or unestablished credit without not paying your bills or paying your bills late. I think I've pretty much paid every bill in full and on-time for like a decade now. They just don't like that I'm poor and can't get credit established because I can't get stuff that positively reports when I pay it without some sort of secured card scheme where they want to borrow money from me that I can't afford in the hopes that might establish better credit, with no guarantees that people won't just turn around and say "You're stilll beneath a minimum income threshold, sorry, but thanks for scraping together the money you couldn't afford to give us the big bank a big loan. Hope you enjoyed all those ramen noodles you had to eat some so you could help one of our executives could buy their 11th home.". I really hate the credit system in this country, and it's become less tolerable now that it applies to so many everyday things and not just buying a house or a new car. I know this is off-topic and I'm sorry if it's bothering folks, but someone asked.

dare2be said:

Sports fans are equally likely to "cut the cord"...just as you say, "simply get a Roku box, subscribe to" MLB.tv, NHL GameCenter Live and/or NBA League Pass for less than the cost of a full pay tv subscription. You also get access to archives of those games, like a free DVR.

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Things like MLB.tv, NHL GameCenter, and NBA League Pass black out live games from the teams who claim your local region. They are fine if you're a Lakers fan living in Kentucky, but not if you're a Lakers fan living in Los Angeles. If you're an Orioles fan in south-central Pennsylvania or Virginia, you don't get live Orioles games or Nationals games on MLB.tv (And probably not Phillies games or Pirates games either in south-central PA example), just games not involving the teams that claim they are local to you. It only works for out of way out of town fans, or fans who don't have a favorite team and just want a bunch of games. I specifically want the Orioles and the Capitals, and couldn't get them from those streaming packages because I live too close to their home cities- the streaming package has to black out those games live because the local rights are owned by the regional sports networks, who paid big bucks for them, and the regional sports networks you get through cable or satellite. And of course NFL is a whole different weird expensive ball of wax that is tough to explain, but that's still best to get through cable or satellite that carry all the big OTA networks and ESPN and NFLN if you like a home team and not a far away team.

One exception is some college sports. I've actually found a lot of University of Maryland games are available streaming, some only available streaming, but that will probably change when they move from the ACC to the Big10, since the Big10 has it's own network it probably wants you to watch on cable or satellite (That's an assumption, I haven't yet looked into that, because the chance doesn't happen until like the fall of 2014).

Live news? You can get more up-to-date breaking news by following twitter feeds of the established news outlets, without being confined to your pay-tv outlet, DVR, or sling adapter.

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True, and I do that and read a lot of news articles online, but sometimes it's not a total substitute for the live event television coverage with my favorite analysts giving their perspectives and commentary with audio and video. I think part of that may be that I'm just old enough to remember when I could only get that on television and it's psychologically hard to not have that available.

So, you are saying you are willing to pay $40 dollars a month on your sports and MSNBC? (Assuming that you have AT120+ at $49.99 minus the $10 you're willing to pay for the rest of the channels - could be higher if you have a higher package).

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Yeah, I would be willing to pay that- assuming I also get all the sports on the non-sports stations, like the MLB playoffs on TBS or the NFL on CBS and so on and so forth. I don't think they'd be able to negotiate that in practice, but, yeah, if you could give me an "all the sports" plus MSNBC package with no requisites for more than $10 off (Remember, I did say I'd be willing to pay $10 for everything else), I'd take it, assuming there wasn't some sort of weird issue with it like "We're raising prices $10 for everyone, sports fan can opt out and pay the same as they pay now, but be missing a bunch of channels".

HanoverPretzel said:

Things like MLB.tv, NHL GameCenter, and NBA League Pass black out live games from the teams who claim your local region. They are fine if you're a Lakers fan living in Kentucky, but not if you're a Lakers fan living in Los Angeles. If you're an Orioles fan in south-central Pennsylvania or Virginia, you don't get live Orioles games or Nationals games on MLB.tv (And probably not Phillies games or Pirates games either in south-central PA example), just games not involving the teams that claim they are local to you. It only works for out of way out of town fans, or fans who don't have a favorite team and just want a bunch of games. I specifically want the Orioles and the Capitals, and couldn't get them from those streaming packages because I live too close to their home cities- the streaming package has to black out those games live because the local rights are owned by the regional sports networks, who paid big bucks for them, and the regional sports networks you get through cable or satellite. And of course NFL is a whole different weird expensive ball of wax that is tough to explain, but that's still best to get through cable or satellite that carry all the big OTA networks and ESPN and NFLN if you like a home team and not a far away team.

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Local blackouts are another old-school outdated system designed to protect local advertising revenue, and are now used by national and regional networks as a draconian measure to control the revenue stream, and not just necessarily in the local area. Are you familiar with the Fox Saturday afternoon MLB contract this year, where they had all the other MLB games blacked out on all other networks and RSNs in that timeframe, whether the games were being aired by Fox or not? If the home team didn't move the game time outside of that Saturday afternoon time window, then NO ONE got to see the game televised. Ridiculous.

The NFL is an entire different animal, as you point out, but I don't know about where you live, but my NFL local team is always shown OTA, even when they are on ESPN MNF or NFLN...one of the local channels simulcasts the game so that those without subscription TV can still see the game.

I agree with a previous poster who points out that live major sports broadcasts bring in a ton of ad revenue and helps subsidize non-live sports programming. What makes no sense about that situation is that if the ad revenue is such a cash cow, then why do the channels' subscription fees have to be 5-10x higher than average non-sports channels? The answer? The spending and out-bidding on exclusive contracts is out of control and not being kept in check compared to ad revenue. They do it because they can, and know the average sports fan will continue to pay. Some of us have had enough and see the writing on the wall. The only way to change a corrupt system is to not keep feeding into it, or let the die-hards who don't care how expensive it really is getting to pay for it themselves.

dare2be said:

Local blackouts are another old-school outdated system designed to protect local advertising revenue, and are now used by national and regional networks as a draconian measure to control the revenue stream, and not just necessarily in the local area. Are you familiar with the Fox Saturday afternoon MLB contract this year, where they had all the other MLB games blacked out on all other networks and RSNs in that timeframe, whether the games were being aired by Fox or not? If the home team didn't move the game time outside of that Saturday afternoon time window, then NO ONE got to see the game televised. Ridiculous.

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I sat down to catch the end of an Orioles game this summer when they'd moved the FOX block to the evening. The local FOX affiliate decided to put on a Phillies game instead. I was pretty livid and e-mailed the station to complain and they said they'd think about it more closely next time, but couldn't promise to go with the O's over the Phillies if a similar situation arose. I live much closer to Baltimore (and Washington, for that matter) than Philly, but across a state line, so various stations pull crap like that all the time on the "regional national" type games with various sports, drives me up a wall. It's at the point where I kind of hope the Orioles and Capitals *don't* play in national/regional games, so I can just watch them on their RSNs (Despite the lesser production quality and exposure for the franchises) and don't have to worry if the local FOX or NBC affiliate is going to randomly decide that my market doesn't want to see my team's game on a given night.

The NFL is an entire different animal, as you point out, but I don't know about where you live, but my NFL local team is always shown OTA, even when they are on ESPN MNF or NFLN...one of the local channels simulcasts the game so that those without subscription TV can still see the game.

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The problem is that only holds true if you live in the *primary* market. I'm in a secondary market. Thus, I need ESPN and NFLN for those games. The league only allows the NFL to simulcast the cable broadcast to a single OTA station in a single city per team. Even if you're clearly in the team's "territory", and it's the closest major city, you're out of luck if you're in a different DMA and don't literally get, for example, the Baltimore station.

They do usually pick the Ravens for the CBS regional game when they're on, but if they're supposed to be on FOX, the FOX affiliate often picks the Eagles. Occasionally the CBS affiliate will even pick the Steelers over the Eagles- their general manager had the nerve to write a letter apologizing to Steelers fans for being forced to carry Ravens road games over Steelers games- as a Ravens fan living an hour from Baltimore and like four hours from Pittsburgh, that letter didn't sit well with me. If I went back to cable, I could get the Baltimore CBS as a significantly viewed channel in addition to my local CBS, which would help some, but the FOX issue would still be there, because the Baltimore FOX isn't available with any television provider locally.

I agree with a previous poster who points out that live major sports broadcasts bring in a ton of ad revenue and helps subsidize non-live sports programming. What makes no sense about that situation is that if the ad revenue is such a cash cow, then why do the channels' subscription fees have to be 5-10x higher than average non-sports channels? The answer? The spending and out-bidding on exclusive contracts is out of control and not being kept in check compared to ad revenue. They do it because they can, and know the average sports fan will continue to pay. Some of us have had enough and see the writing on the wall. The only way to change a corrupt system is to not keep feeding into it, or let the die-hards who don't care how expensive it really is getting to pay for it themselves.

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I get what you're saying, but some of us live pretty crummy lives and have to fight too much stuff too often. If I make everything a battle when it doesn't have to be, I'll want to jump off a bridge or something before long. I don't like that cable and satellite raise rates any more than you do, probably less because I probably have less money to spend than you do, but I'm not going to take some weird stand that means I won't get to see my teams' games when I otherwise could. I might switch providers to get promos or keep stations I need to keep to follow my teams, but I'm going to do whatever I have to do within reason to have those games available to me. They're good entertainment. Besides, you're asking for group action, and I don't see it happening- a few stubborn people will refuse to pay, others will not pay because they can't find a way to afford it (I may fall into that category soon); but most will just do what they've always done, rendering token protest actions irrelevant and only really hurting the protesters. Live is too short to miss games and seasons of games over something that in the end will not benefit me.

Sports stations will continue to ask for a lot of money per subscriber whether I have pay tv or don't. And if Dish Network decided not to pay them, they won't get my money. I don't want a service that won't broadcast my teams' games (Or at least most of them). It's not worth it. I can and will switch if that happens. And if ultimately I can't find a way to afford a service that includes my local RSNs and such, I'll pay nobody for television and maybe expand my Netflix subscription to include streaming or get more gas for car or other things I need or want.