I enjoy MNF and Ncaa football/basketball on ESPN but they are way out of control with their price demands.The legal system is seriously flawed too he with the most money and highest paid special interests always seems to win.No common sense ever seems to be applied.
Dish HD vs Disney (DISH sort of won...)
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We may be close to an era in which not every carrier can afford to provide all the channels out there. They will try for as long as they can but ultimately consumer push-back on pricing may drive the change to programming specific service choices. It already is that way to a small extent. You want sports? Your choice is DirecTV. You want movies and/or cheap general interest packs? Your choice is Dish. You want convenience and a limited general selection? Cable is for you, perhaps supplemented by one of the satellite providers. Market fragmentation will be a sign that the end is near for the traditional video distribution business model IMHO. Disney's stance is only going to accelerate the change. The industry will be hard pressed to survive in its current form with these kind of drastic annual increases.
Dish you lost your case so pay the piper and get ESPNU and espnews turned on in HD! If you want to turn on the HD version of the other HD disney channels that would be nice also!!!!
Just thinking out loud here...but what real damage to Dish would it do if they just told Disney to "Screw off!" and dropped their programming all together? Couldn't Dish market it at a way to stay "the low cost leader"? And if Disney is going to go after Directv and cablecos, then those carriers would have to raise their subs rates to support Disney's added cost. I guess the main wrench in that plan would be ABC and it's affiliates. I doubt anyone would want to give up one of the big four channels, even to save some money. Something needs to be done about ending transmission of SD signals for all carriers.
Ghpr13
Ghpr13
They lost a local NY lawsuit. They won a federal lawsuit. Many of us do not want to pay twice for the same programming. Is this hard to understand?
Just thinking out loud here...but what real damage to Dish would it do if they just told Disney to "Screw off!" and dropped their programming all together? Couldn't Dish market it at a way to stay "the low cost leader"? And if Disney is going to go after Directv and cablecos, then those carriers would have to raise their subs rates to support Disney's added cost. I guess the main wrench in that plan would be ABC and it's affiliates. I doubt anyone would want to give up one of the big four channels, even to save some money. Something needs to be done about ending transmission of SD signals for all carriers.
Ghpr13
I think only the ABC owned and operated would be affected. The locally owned ABC affiliates have their own individual or broadcast group contracts for carriage. I think ABC would be inviting the wrath of regulators if they refused to sell carriage of their O&Os at the same rates they ask from D* or cablecos.
As much as I'd like to say "screw 'em", losing ESPN would be very risky. Dish would need to reward their customers in a rather large way if they dropped the Disney channels, via a noticeable drop in the bill. I think most people would survive without Disney, Disney XD, ABC Family, but the ESPN channels are a huge deal. That is a good deal of college football, basketball, pro basketball, MNF, etc... to lose.
Yeah, I tend to forget about ESPN cause I'm not into sports much. I need to remember that there's a lot of people who are avid ESPN watchers.
Ghpr13
I'd bet 90% of my customers would drop Dish if Dish dropped ESPN. Hell, I'd have to switch if that happened. I don't think dish could survive that amount of subscriber loss.
You do realize that if Dish pays the piper then the customers will also pay the piper?Its been said many times but gonna say it one more time...ESPN/Disney should be ala/carte.Problem is they won't do business that way,they demand the most money and demand to be in the lowest package tiers.I would bet money that if ala/carte ever happens ESPN/Disney would have to stop raising their prices and be more judicious when bidding for NFL MLB etc etc.
The Disney/Dish dispute is clearly one of the worst disputes with a provider and a media company. looks like we won't get these channels back soon, why, because Dish is fighting Disney real hard, and they may not give up, they could just sue again in a higher level then New York (which may had been pro-Disney, due to Dish removing New York RSNs, and the possibility of Disney being in bed with the judge and jury). So if Dish files another lawsuit against Disney, expect it to be with the Supreme Court and possibly get some politicians involved leading to some changes in carriage laws for paid providers in the future. I bet the FCC could use this dispute and past disputes as an reason to change the rules on carriage disputes to prevent customers being left in the dark.
Disney, you may have one this round, but this isn't over yet, not by a long shot, sadly, this dispute could last for years if both sides keep suing each other. And i think it's time for the FCC or Congress/senate to step in and fix this carriage dispute epidemic. even if you like it or not, i know some don't want the government to get involved, but maybe they could find a way to solved this epidemic. Carriage disputes have been going way too far the last 5 years.
Disney, you may have one this round, but this isn't over yet, not by a long shot, sadly, this dispute could last for years if both sides keep suing each other. And i think it's time for the FCC or Congress/senate to step in and fix this carriage dispute epidemic. even if you like it or not, i know some don't want the government to get involved, but maybe they could find a way to solved this epidemic. Carriage disputes have been going way too far the last 5 years.
I understand what you are saying but then that would let the FCC in for all kind of regulation that they don't have now.
It sure looks like Dish/Disney had a long term contract and Disney wanted to change the terms, but of course they had a contract. They figured out a way around the terms and get a price increase was to claim that identical programming on SD/HD were two different channels and needed to be paid separately. Of course it probably took a team of lawyers to parse the contract that way, but they managed to convince a jury of it.
But, now a group of judges will look at it in appeals. The jury could be overrulled. Dish did well in Federal court because it was a judge not a jury...
But, now a group of judges will look at it in appeals. The jury could be overrulled. Dish did well in Federal court because it was a judge not a jury...
That will happen some day when the supplier says the SD is a waste. There is precidence for paying for both SD and HD. Dish did that with broadcasters when there was analog for sd and digital for HD (whether it was in digital SD or digital HD). THe broadcasters demanded seperate payment for the digital per subscriber than the already existing analog. Same program.
Are kidding me? What could they replace ESPN with? There is nothing out there that could do it. Too much basketball and football (primarily college), Monday Night Football (which some people can't live without), etc... That isn't replaceable as ESPN has the rights to that stuff. The only solution I could see would be eliminating Disney channels and then giving everyone the Sports Pack and Versus, a dropping the bill. That may not be enough.... though there is an alternative from another source, as I note below.
I may not watch much in sports these days, other than Soccer. College Football to me is a pyramid scheme. I switched off ESPN with the change to Latino Dos. Oddly enough, I have survived, but losing ESPN was a sacrifice, but my bill dropped substantially as part of that drop.
Most people also have access to ESPN3... which would give people access to a bunch of games not even offered on the ESPN's. Of course, it'd be difficult for Dish to say, hey... just load up ESPN3 and get your games that way.
It is complicated, but certainly I wouldn't want to pay even more to watch maybe a game here and there on ESPN because I'm paying for SD and HD broadcasts.
