Dish to drop WLNS?

[Stargazer]

In baton rouge, La. the abc affiliate has been off of dish for about a year. Now the nbc, fox and cw (same ownership) is threatening to pull out jan 1st if they dont get an increase from dish. They are asking for 2 cents per sub per day.
That would leave Baton rouge with only the cbs SD local
(no hd yet ).Well see what happens

These local stations know the importance of needing these channels in order to compete against cable. Without them they lose subscribers. They also know what Dish Network is getting from their subscribers for these stations, $5 per month. They want a larger piece of that $5. If Directv agrees to pay the larger fees then they won't budge on the price because they know that those subscribers will switch from Dish Network to Directv/cable. By dropping their price to Dish Network they would also have to lower the amount they get from Directv/cable and they would make more by keeping the price inflated.

In other words, say goodbye to the rest of the locals other than your cbs in the Baton Rouge, LA market. Dish Network would probably rather use the space on their satellite to add a market less greedy that DirecTv does not offer than one that they are going to not make the money on.

Dish Network does not want to give in because the stations in other markets will see this and will also want more money creating a snowball effect.

 

[Stargazer]

Fox played hardball here with E* a few years ago and got to the point where they went dark on E*. At that point, E* threatened to put up a Fox network from about 100 miles away and supposedly was ready to send out mailers to all of the local Fox network's advertisers that now X-number of E* subscribers were not receiving the local broadcast and should renegotiate their advertising fees accordingly. The local Fox was back up on E* the next day. So while it's fun to call Charlie the bad guy, especially on this board, E* does do a good job at keeping their costs low so they don't have to pass huge jumps on to subscribers. I have been with E* for 6 years and my bill has gone up less than it did with our local cable company in the 9 months prior to dumping those crooks!

You do not hear about DirecTv having all of these issues so they probably pay what they want but they don't increase your bill. Dish Network playing hardball is for their benefit, not ours, so that they can keep more money in their pockets. They do have to keep prices in check. That yearly increase we have on our bill should also be covering part of the increase we see with local channels.

 

[Stargazer]

Is DirecTV poisoning the water or what? They must be paying these bribes from these local TV outlets... and that's what they are, BRIBES! If the cable companies, DirecTV and the telcos would stop paying the bribes, these stations would either stop trying to take advantage of consumers (because that IS what they're doing .... Dish would just pass the cost along to us) or go belly up.

When it goes dark on Dish Network, that bribe will pay off when those Dish Network customers switch to Directv. People will switch in droves costing Dish Network more than they would save.

 

[Stargazer]

Are they down yet?

 

[wizard10000]

Not as of 4:15 local this morning.

 

[gopherscot]

As of 5:30 am Central time here in Davenport, IA (KWQC) it is still on ... hmmm!

 

[jcrandall]

I guess they may have reached an agreement, or at least a temporary stay while they continue negotation.

The "dish may drop" message is still on many stations homepage from Young, so no real indication yet other than that the stations are still on Dish.

 

[tjwgrr]

Grand Rapids also doesn't have CBS, although we have the SD version, just no HD. It is another example of Charlie looking out for his customers ... Think Lansing will get a discount on the $5 local fee now that CBS is gone???

Exactly why I'll keep my OTA setup when (if) I convert to the Eastern Arc setup to get Grand Rapids locals on HD.

 

[RSNovi]

At 7:30am today, WLNS was scrolling the message about not being able to agree with Dish and to find their channel on other sources.

 

[GravelChan]

KELO has a website note that they have agreed to an extension until 4:00pm today (Dec. 11), and will give us further info at that time.

 

[barnie]

discrimination

I see this as a discrimination issue.
If you think of a satellite dish as an antenna ( which it is), then these local stations are discriminating against the folks with one type of reception antenna vs another type.
I support Charlie on this issue...and like some other poster mentioned, Dish should be paid for relaying the stations message to the masses, and the bigger the masses the bigger the revenue.

 

[Butcha]

I agree with barnie. The locals are getting the revenue from the advertisers. The more viewers they reach, the happier the advertisers should be and as they take away viewers, the more upset the advertisers will be. I sent an email to KELO but got no response. I told them that they were causing the inconveniance, not Dish.

 

[dishMIKE]

4:02 WLNS still on. Mike

 

[dishMIKE]

Scroll now says some progress has been made. Extension till 7pm. Mike

 

[dishMIKE]

Dish just took WLNS OFF Mike

 

[RSNovi]

Yeap, gone. Makes me mad. Seems like Dish is always screwing around with this stuff and I never saw it with cable or other dish services.

 

[mldsmith100]

Our local channel six (ABC) of Knoxville, TN -- went out this evening at 7pm.. The station is owned by Young Broadcasting. Here in the Smoky Mountains - thru the air reception is either non very good, or not at all. - new member, marty smith

 

[HDRoberts]

Yeap, gone. Makes me mad. Seems like Dish is always screwing around with this stuff and I never saw it with cable or other dish services.

DirecTV and many cable outlets have pulled locals. Dish has it a little more often, but it happens elsewhere.

Sucks to be in one of these DMAs, but I'm always on Dish's side for LiL deals. It's extortion what the locals are doing.

 

[Stargazer]

Once it goes down, someone is going to play hardball even more, since it is down already. My guess is that it is going to hurt that local station more than it will Charlie and I doubt Charlie will give in.

 

[RSNovi]

If it stays like this, can I get $1.20 off per month since I am now only getting 4 of the 5 locals?