FCC needs to get involved now

they do such a great job of running that
maybe someone else should take over :eek:

Yeah, my payment drops into my account the second Wednesday of every month, without fail. It's doing fine just the way it is, thank you very much! :)
 
A couple of things:

1) Be careful what you wish for. Arbitration is almost always a BAD substitute for a free market. Take Baseball salaries. Most observers agree that Arbitration is the main reason for salary escalation. Not Free Agency. If you want to see salaries drop (on average), make everyone a Free Agent and watch the fun.

2) I don't think the government would intervene on the FX-NG-RSN issue. It's just not big enough.

3) If nuclear war breaks out between Dish and Fox over local affiliates, and it lasts BEYOND november 7, THE GOVERNMENT WILL INTERVENE. This is a big enough issue that you could see Charlie and Rupert summoned to Washington for a "Come to Jesus" meeting in the Oval Office Monday morning November 8. Barack is a Bears fan.

4) How would the alliance between Dish and GoogleTV affect this? Fox Programming is available on Hulu. If Hulu were available on GoogleTV, what would this do to Dish negotiations with Fox? If there is no deal between GoogleTV and Hulu, does this then make Dish the enemy of Fox (following "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic?

Interesting.
 
A couple of things:

1) Be careful what you wish for. Arbitration is almost always a BAD substitute for a free market. Take Baseball salaries. Most observers agree that Arbitration is the main reason for salary escalation. Not Free Agency. If you want to see salaries drop (on average), make everyone a Free Agent and watch the fun.

2) I don't think the government would intervene on the FX-NG-RSN issue. It's just not big enough.

3) If nuclear war breaks out between Dish and Fox over local affiliates, and it lasts BEYOND november 7, THE GOVERNMENT WILL INTERVENE. This is a big enough issue that you could see Charlie and Rupert summoned to Washington for a "Come to Jesus" meeting in the Oval Office Monday morning November 8. Barack is a Bears fan.

4) How would the alliance between Dish and GoogleTV affect this? Fox Programming is available on Hulu. If Hulu were available on GoogleTV, what would this do to Dish negotiations with Fox? If there is no deal between GoogleTV and Hulu, does this then make Dish the enemy of Fox (following "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic?

Interesting.

well sat tv was originally intended to target people who could not get cable.
many of those people still cannot get it, or high speed internet. so it wont have the impact your thinking of.
at least imho
 
i'm not sure "free market" in this case isn't equivalent to a "steaming load of crap". laws were set up to prevent monopolies but not for corps. that pay for exemptions. If Ford, GM, Dodge, Toyota and Honda etc. all got had a conference, and then said "to buy a new truck you also are required to pay for a new car and a mini van, you don't have to drive it, you don't even have to pick it up, but...you have to pay for it cause that's the way we're going to do business from now on." how many of you would say "OK. that's fair it's just the free market"
 
Absolutely you do NOT want the FCC involved here. That would set precedent. Do you see companies clammering to the Feds when Wal-Mart won't carry a product anymore because Wal-mart doesn't like the bulk price point?

This is business. Yes the subscribers loose out, but it is what it is. The companies are just doing what they do best, beat each other up for the wal-mart price. Eventually one of the two will cave and make it happen. Either you get to pay more for sports channels, or you switch providers to someone who will carry it. It's really that simple.

As for why the programming providers "getting greedy", how much do you suppose Fox Sports paid for broadcast rights to all the teams and leagues? How much is satellite uplink time? How much equipment is required to do all the broadcasts? How much man power does it take? I'm guessing it's not exactly cheap. They're just passing costs down the line, the end user in the long run will end up paying it. Remember the Comcast/ESPN fiasco a few years ago? Same thing.

But saying the Gov't has to get involved in a private business deal is just plain asinine.
 
Dish needs to file for chapter 411 bankruptcy.

Dish fails as a whole.

They made over 3 billion in net profit last year. I don't think bankruptcy is on the table.

A couple of things:

3) If nuclear war breaks out between Dish and Fox over local affiliates, and it lasts BEYOND november 7, THE GOVERNMENT WILL INTERVENE. This is a big enough issue that you could see Charlie and Rupert summoned to Washington for a "Come to Jesus" meeting in the Oval Office Monday morning November 8. Barack is a Bears fan.

4) How would the alliance between Dish and GoogleTV affect this? Fox Programming is available on Hulu. If Hulu were available on GoogleTV, what would this do to Dish negotiations with Fox? If there is no deal between GoogleTV and Hulu, does this then make Dish the enemy of Fox (following "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic?

If people in FOX O&O markets miss the world series on FOX then DISH will see subscribers dumping their service in record numbers. Also I wonder when their contract with FOX News is up?

The other point you made: only certain programming from FOX is available on HULU. Most notably absent are their NFL games.
 
I think sports has a specific exception to the anti-monopoly laws.

Baseball does. This has to do with the exclusivity of teams (i.e. your town cannot start a team and force MLB to put it in its schedule).

But, the monopoly exemption would not extend to Fox who essentially bought up the RSNs to have a big block of negotiating power.
 
If the government gets involved then I want them to force all providers to sell me every channel on a la carte basis, then I don't have to pay fo programming I don't watch like ESPN and ESPN is free to charge whatever their market will support.
 
Baseball does. This has to do with the exclusivity of teams (i.e. your town cannot start a team and force MLB to put it in its schedule).

But, the monopoly exemption would not extend to Fox who essentially bought up the RSNs to have a big block of negotiating power.

That is correct only baseball has that exemption
 
I calculate that if everything was a la carte my dish & directv bills would go from $120 down to about $60 together.

I get my locals over the air and don't believe in paying for them.

Here is what I am willing to pay a la carte:

KTLA 2.00
TV Globo 20.00
E! .50
weather 1.00
CNN 1.00
MSNBC 1.00
TruTV .50
CNN en espanol 1.00
world LINK .50
ABC family 1.00
Food network 1.00
Disney 3.00
Nick 2.00
MHZ worldview .50

total $35.00 + additional receivers and DVR service would be about $60 or half what I pay now! Don't care about HD unless and until it is free with no commitment, everything I watch in HD comes free from OTA broadcast networks anyway. The market and the consumers willingness to be forced into packages and commitments has absolutely allowed and encouraged all these disputes. When a programmer like dish or directv has a sub locked into a commitment they have nothing to loose. That is why I tell everyone not to lease and to own.
 
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Not sure why we want the government involved. These companies are free to sell their products for the price they want. You are free to buy the products if you feel the price is right. Sure, I would like more stability in the channels, but if you think getting the government involved is going to make things better I doubt that it will.
I agree...to an extent - in this case, the government should step in and do three things to promote video competition and consumer choice:

1. A la carte all channels. People can still buy programming package and mega-bundles...just don't force people to buy 250 channels in order to receive the 10-15 they actually watch.

2. Programmers who sell advertising are prohibited from accepting subscription feeds. MVPD's (Cable, DBS, Telcos) are free to retransmit all the broadcast networks and cable favorites...if they accept ad dollars.

3. Subscriptions for commercial free programming channels are paid directly by the consumers (it's the law of supply and demand).

4. MVPDs are permitted to charge a reasonable service fee for uplink, transmittion and other overhead costs. Plus, they are fee to charge for other value-added services.

Programming squabbles go away; consumers pay for content they truly want; programming fees are established by the law of suppy and demand; and dozens of useless subsidized channels/programming (many being forced down consumers throats by the current business model) go away and free up value cable bandwidth and satellite transponders for other purposes. It's simple and it makes sense...that's why it will never, ever happen.
 
...
2. Programmers who sell advertising are prohibited from accepting subscription feeds. MVPD's (Cable, DBS, Telcos) are free to retransmit all the broadcast networks and cable favorites...if they accept ad dollars.
...

I've thought this for years, starting back when they started scrambling the C-Band signals. If it's on the airwaves, and includes advertising, let the ads pay for the content.
 
i'm not sure "free market" in this case isn't equivalent to a "steaming load of crap". laws were set up to prevent monopolies but not for corps. that pay for exemptions. If Ford, GM, Dodge, Toyota and Honda etc. all got had a conference, and then said "to buy a new truck you also are required to pay for a new car and a mini van, you don't have to drive it, you don't even have to pick it up, but...you have to pay for it cause that's the way we're going to do business from now on." how many of you would say "OK. that's fair it's just the free market"

Actually, in a way, this is already the case. The auto manufacturers are already forcing you to buy options bundled. Try to order a base car (any manufacturer) that doesn't have say cruise control and tell the salesman you want factory installed CC. Nope, won't happen. If you want factory installed CC, you have to buy the option pkg that also includes 5 CD disk changer, upgraded radio and speakers and paddle shifters on the steering wheel and by the way, CC. :rant:
...and I don't like that either.
 
Haven't you heard?

The government is taking over all TV program distribution.

We all get NBC, MSNBC and Bravo, the only channels left!!
 
Even though I don't agree with the disputes and it is true that the consumer is the loser, this is also the free market at its best.

I dont want the government getting involved forcing any company to carry channels they may or may not want.

FX and Nat Geo lost 14 million subscribers that is going to cause a big loss of ad revenue for them. Both them and DISH will meet in the middle somewhere.

Did Dish and YES and MLB meet in the middle somewhere?
 
Just a thought if Dish, Directv, and the television cable companies would all get together and tell Fox or any other television provider when they try to raise their rates will not carry you and all the services dropped them at once. See how fast they would offer a reasonable price .. OF course most of the cable companies own content channels themselves. Maybe that is where the ones that dont need to put their foot down. Or maybe that is where the government needs to stop allowing these companies such as Comcast to own content. Maybe the start would be not allowing Comcast to buy NBC Universal.
 
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Just a thought if Dish, Directv, and the television cable companies would all get together and tell Fox or any other television provider when they try to raise their rates will not carry you and all the services dropped them at once. See how fast they would offer a reasonable price .. OF course most of the cable companies own content channels themselves. Maybe that is where the ones that dont need to put their foot down. Or maybe that is where the government needs to stop allowing these companies such as Comcast to own content. Maybe the start would be not allowing Comcast to buy NBC Universal.

never work
one company would carry them, and be the only one
then fox would tell the others if they wanted to carry them too it was gonna cost em.
basically you want to turn the providers into a union, bad things would happen
 
navychop said:
I think sports has a specific exception to the anti-monopoly laws.
mike123abc said:
Baseball does. This has to do with the exclusivity of teams (i.e. your town cannot start a team and force MLB to put it in its schedule).

But, the monopoly exemption would not extend to Fox who essentially bought up the RSNs to have a big block of negotiating power.
Geronimo said:
That is correct only baseball has that exemption
It isn't that sports has a specific exemption. As it goes, baseball has an exemption, but not because of laws. Baseball's exemption comes from a ruling by Judge Landis regarding the Federal League, the "third" major league back in 1914-1915. Judge Landis ruled that baseball is a sport, not a business, and thus is exempt from the Sherman Anti-Trust Acts.

And by 1920, Judge Landis was the first commissioner of Major League Baseball.

Pro football received an anti-trust exemption, as well. Think about it. In 1967, there were two competing leagues. How does one allow two healthily competing leagues to become a pro-fooball monopoly? Congress passed a bill and the President signed it into law, allowing the monopoly to be created. The new NFL was given the right to negotiate television contracts for every member team. That is how all sports operate now; it is a part of anti-trust law that made all sports leagues exempt from that part of it.
clydesam said:
Just a thought if Dish, Directv, and the television cable companies would all get together and tell Fox or any other television provider when they try to raise their rates will not carry you and all the services dropped them at once. See how fast they would offer a reasonable price ..
Does DirecTV have a contract with Fox to show these channels? If DirecTV agreed to "join in the fight", they'd be violating their contract with Fox. And if DirecTV agreed to "join in the fight", they'd be violating price-fixing and anti-trust laws, because two or more parties cannot collude against another party in order to set a price. It is VERY illegal.
 
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