DISH -VS- VOOM - A Settlement has been reached!

[dangue]

now we are here years later, and found out 100% Dish did in fact breach the contract wrongly, not Voom, so Dish had to settle anyway.

I'd be highly surprised if the settlement contained any sort of admission of guilt. And since this never got to the jury (heck, Dish never even presented their side of the argument) breach was never determined.

No one ever has to settle, they choose to do so for a variety of reasons. We aren't privy to the carriage portion of the settlement, but the monetary portion is not as favorable to AMC as has been predicted for months. Given the estimated cost of future carriage of Voom in terms of money and bandwidth and what Dish had to actually pay out, this is a big business win for Dish.

 

[jacmyoung]

I forgot nothing. Charlie demanded that (it was 5 channels I believe) after he already had pulled the channels off of Dish, and Voom was panicking, and simply demanded he adhere to the contract he signed. It was a negotiation point, and Charlie didn't agree.

I'm done talking about this, jacmyoung asked the question, and I simply answered what I believe to be true. It's still upsetting too many people. Dish was in the wrong, Voom was proven to be in the right, as proven by the court battle results. No more from me, this is my final word on it.

VOOM wasn't in the right by any measure either. There was no programming at the end of the carriage on Dish, they were offered a 5-channel deal, a deal no other provider, including DirecTV would even consider valuable, but VOOM rejected it. Continued to carry VOOM would be throwing money down a money pit, only to benefit VOOM, and maybe a few VOOM fanatics like you, but the cost would have been absorbed by all the subs, the vast majority of them didn't even know what VOOM was.

Now Dish has to pay to settle, but at a much lower cost, not to mention the transponders saved for other more useful programming to keep them competitive at that time. IMO Dish had no choice but play hardball to cut the loss.

I do think a lot of those cases are the result of reckless behaviors. Many could have been avoided or reduced had Dish been more thoughtful in the executions. But when you try to be on the cutting edge, sometimes you assume the extra risk. Keep in mind both the VOOM service, as well as the DVRs using TiVo technologies, they went back many years, at the time they were all unknown, few dared to commit resources to those ventures. Dish dived in on both, in the case of VOOM, committed too much, in the case of DVR technologies, refused to give TiVo anything

A lot of providers waited for the dust to settle and played safe. But without the "bad guys" like Charlie, it would not have been as exciting as we are today.

 

[navychop]

Very well put.

 

[thechaz05]

I agree, well put.

Sent from my phone using SatelliteGuys sweet app

 

[david_jr]

I don't know, following the contract as it was written maybe, if there was a negotiation point? Bare minimum, he could have sat down with them and discussed whatever he felt was wrong, and that he wanted them to change some things. Perhaps they would have negotiated in some way if it was done nicely, but we'll never know now. Instead, he arbitrarily removed their channels, THEN apparently he said "My way, or the highway". They then chose to hold him to the contract, he said "no way", and now we are here years later, and found out 100% Dish did in fact breach the contract wrongly, not Voom, so Dish had to settle anyway.

Now we are without Voom, and a few of the channels at least would be nice to still have.

This happens all the time in sports. Holding out for a better deal. Essentially what Charlie did was hold out for a better deal. Turned out DISH was fine without VOOM, but VOOM was toast without DISH. Now if Charlie did "100% in fact breach the contract wrongly" then why was the settlement done so quickly and for so much less than what was expected by all the prognosticators?

 

[navychop]

Lets limit the personal attacks, please.

 

[dare2be]

There are both reasonable posts in this thread, and unreasonable ones. It doesn't take much to figure out which is which. Ad hominems never are.

 

[PTVC]

Now if Charlie did "100% in fact breach the contract wrongly" then why was the settlement done so quickly and for so much less than what was expected by all the prognosticators?

I wouldn't call a 4 year legal battle settling quickly.

 

[KAB]

I wouldn't call a 4 year legal battle settling quickly.

Overall, (not regarding Dish), pretty quick in the corporate world.

 

[david_jr]

In the middle of the trial in a weekend is what I was referring to as quickly especially after it seemed DISH was doomed based on reports from the trial. In the grand scheme of the whole ordeal maybe not. But from reports we were getting I wouldn't have thought VOOM would settle at all and if so for a lot more is all I was saying.

 

[Mochuf]

In the middle of the trial in a weekend is what I was referring to as quickly especially after it seemed DISH was doomed based on reports from the trial. In the grand scheme of the whole ordeal maybe not. But from reports we were getting I wouldn't have thought VOOM would settle at all and if so for a lot more is all I was saying.

I think the thing that made AMC settle was the new channel agreement. All of the missing channels were put into lower tiers (more subscriber fees) and Fuse was added back. While we don't know what AMC is receiving in payments for those channels. I'm sure they are getting more money now from Dish that they were before the last contract ended.

 

[Gobucks]

I think the thing that made AMC settle was the new channel agreement. All of the missing channels were put into lower tiers (more subscriber fees) and Fuse was added back. While we don't know what AMC is receiving in payments for those channels. I'm sure they are getting more money now from Dish that they were before the last contract ended.

That's what I was thinking. They must have a real good deal with their channels in lower packages now. Can't we all just be happy now? Hell I was so happy when they added AMC back. Now I'll be a Dish subscriber come Sunday when they do the install. It's over so let it go and enjoy The Walking dead!!!!

I checked out the "other" satellite forum and I have to tell you there are some really rude and sad people there. People that never watched AMC state they didn't care about the channel but would put people down that do. It was really sad. I haven't seen anything like that over here yet and I hope I don't.

 

[Mochuf]

I checked out the "other" satellite forum and I have to tell you there are some really rude and sad people there. People that never watched AMC state they didn't care about the channel but would put people down that do. It was really sad. I haven't seen anything like that over here yet and I hope I don't.

I have to agree with you. I discovered that "other" site before I came here. There are some people there that are complete a-holes (like the person you mentioned) who are allowed to troll by the mods. I rarely go there now because of that.

 

[PTVC]

I think the thing that made AMC settle was the new channel agreement. All of the missing channels were put into lower tiers (more subscriber fees) and Fuse was added back. While we don't know what AMC is receiving in payments for those channels. I'm sure they are getting more money now from Dish that they were before the last contract ended.

A multi-year AMC deal with more subscribers probably sealed the deal.

 

[Mojo Jojo]

A multi-year AMC deal with more subscribers probably sealed the deal.

We and AMC do not appear to be in the Welcome Pack, though.

 

[PTVC]

We and AMC do not appear to be in the Welcome Pack, though.

Well, the multi-year carrier agreement was for only for AMC anyway. AMC did pick up the extra subscribers now that the agreement includes the top 120 package, and although an assumption on my part, I'd think that the majority of the almost 14 million Dish subscribers now have AMC. I don't recall if IFC, Fuse or We were included in the top 120, but now AMC has (the potential of) more eyes on 4 of their 5 networks.

 

[bonesindecay]

That's what I was thinking. They must have a real good deal with their channels in lower packages now. Can't we all just be happy now? Hell I was so happy when they added AMC back. Now I'll be a Dish subscriber come Sunday when they do the install. It's over so let it go and enjoy The Walking dead!!!!

I checked out the "other" satellite forum and I have to tell you there are some really rude and sad people there. People that never watched AMC state they didn't care about the channel but would put people down that do. It was really sad. I haven't seen anything like that over here yet and I hope I don't.

AMC is a good channel. They show a variety of movies with good HD quality. I haven't seen those forums, but it's probably related to Direct TV users. DTV is more expensive with the channel lineup vs Dish and DTV's equipment is not as good. What a bunch of Kooks!

 

[riffjim4069]

Just some tidbits...

Today the court ruled on eight pending motions as "Motion moot - case settled" and closed the case. Another interesting read is an article in which Ergen opined on the case. In a nutshell, he didn't want this dispute to continuing through the courts (on appeal) for more years since it was obvious they were going to lose and it was a distraction from business operations. He also stated that he wished they had settled the Tivo case years earlier. Perhaps this signals a change in their "Litigate First" strategy. We shall see.

Source

Decisions by the judge gave Dish Network very little chance to win its lawsuit against AMC Networks and its Voom HD programming venture, leading to last month's $700 million settlement, Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen said.

Answering questions during Dish's third-quarter earnings call, Ergen said Tuesday Dish probably wouldn't have lost as much money as Voom was seeking-about $2.4 billion-if the case had gone to the jury.

But even after a verdict, the case would have gone on to appeal for another three or four years, and Ergen wanted to avoid that expense and distraction.

"Based on our experience in TiVo, we ended up with TiVo where we probably could have ended up five years earlier," Ergen said, referring to a $500 million settlement Dish made with TiVo after five years of legal wrangling. "And we wasted a lot of time for lawyers and management time on something that probably could have been settled."

As part of the settlement, Dish agreed to a new distribution deal with AMC which had been taken down over the summer. With AMC's networks off the satellite service, Dish lost subscribers during the quarter. Without the AMC dispute, it might have gained subscribers, Ergen said.

Analysts believe Dish paid AMC a bigger subscriber fee that it would have if it weren't for the lawsuit.

"If AMC continues to produce shows like Walking Dead, which is kind of off the charts in terms of people viewing it, then that will be a fair deal for us. If they stub their toe, then we probably paid too much for their programming going forward,"

Full Article

 

[KAB]

Wait for it. Wait for it.......

 

[Teehar]

Who says ya can't teach an old Charlie new tricks.