Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network off Dish due to contract dispute

[cablewithaview]

so while I was asleep it went from 7% to 76% ? WTF!! anyhow Lifetime is strong arming Dish to air Real Women so they can have a reason to distribute yet another channel with now more reruns and paid advertisement to boot. keep it simple with more content on one channel with no paid advertisement. other than that, there is always cable.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Ummmm did him alot of good with OLN. I see everyone takeing him seriouly now.

It would be silly to think that one example would be sufficient.

This scenario is going to repeat itself many times over the years.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

People keep bringing up that "Dish just announced a rate increase" and "now they are pulling channels." Like these are a contradiction.

They might not be. One scenario would be that Dish is working to hold the rate increases down and by holding firm with Lifetime they were able to keep the rate increase down to 4%. Just like I might turn my thermostat down a degree this winter and yet still pay a higher natural gas bill.

 

[mitchflorida]

Charlie Ergen
Chief Executive Officer
DISH Network
In the meantime, DISH Network is offering its customers a free preview of Women's Entertainment Network (WE), a channel which provides similar content to that on Lifetime.


A "free" preview? What's free about it? You are still billing me every month, Charlie!



How do we get a $10 refund?? Sounds good to me!

 

[Stargazer]

This will hurt Lifetime in more ways than one. Not only did they lose a good bit of revenue from the subs but they also lost some viewership. This will cause their ratings to drop in which will cause the advertisers to not want to pay as much for each commercial. It is a double whammy for Lifetime. Dish Network probably picked up WE for less than what Lifetime cost so Dish probably profited from this. They could lose some subs and still make money off of it.

 

[Chris Walker]

Seriously, can Charlie not get along with ANYONE? Shouldn't he resolve one battle (OLN) before starting another? Stuff like this makes me pretty confident that E* will always be under Charlie's control, it's his personal play toy. I think he gets off on picking fights and trying to get a better deal on something.

 

[Chris Walker]

Ummmm did him alot of good with OLN. I see everyone takeing him seriouly now.

No one really cares about OLN though, it's a bunch of bullriding and fishing shows. Lifetime is a different story, this will not last long.

 

[goaliebob99]

Seriously, can Charlie not get along with ANYONE? Shouldn't he resolve one battle (OLN) before starting another? Stuff like this makes me pretty confident that E* will always be under Charlie's control, it's his personal play toy. I think he gets off on picking fights and trying to get a better deal on something.

It looks like That battle was resolved It was hinted at in the uplink thread a couple of weeks ago that OLN is back up on the bird allthough in test mode

 

[Chris Walker]

Charlie Ergen
Chief Executive Officer
DISH Network
In the meantime, DISH Network is offering its customers a free preview of Women's Entertainment Network (WE), a channel which provides similar content to that on Lifetime.
A "free" preview? What's free about it? You are still billing me every month, Charlie!
How do we get a $10 refund?? Sounds good to me!

I am pretty sure i am already paying for this crappy "WE" channel.. That'd be like pulling CNN and mirroring FOX News in it's place and saying "here's a free preview of FOX News". Hey Charlie you genious, I already get FOX News and I will not enjoy your "preview"

 

[Chris Walker]

It looks like That battle was resolved It was hinted at in the uplink thread a couple of weeks ago that OLN is back up on the bird allthough in test mode

Until it's back active, they are still fueding. Really bad timing on Charlie's part to pull this stunt, he'll have a really hard time explaining the price increase he had planned now. They may have to push it back to let people cool off.

 

[riffjim4069]

Reading both sides how can you pick a side to be on? There is no real way to know who is telling the truth.

That's true...but my wife took it to the next level this morning. She had a lengthy chat with two gentlemen at EchoStar's Executive Services and quickly cornered both in a lie or being completely misinformed (propaganda puppet-heads). We have the cell phone number to one of Lifetime Networks' Senior Technical Specialists (long story) and my wife spoke to him shortly after discovering her channels were yanked by E*. Simply stated, Dish Networks story does not jive with the information we were provided by our trusted source at Lifetime Networks, nor did it match what Mr. Ergens posted on fairsatellite.com. In fact, we had to e-mail EchoStar's Executive Service representatives a copy of Mr. Ergen's reply to Lifetime Networks regarding this matter since they were unaware of its existence.

To sum it up, we've heard both sides of the story and the tale Mr. Ergen is telling is misleading, untrue, and lacks credibility. You are free to make up your own minds.

 

[DWS44]

To sum it up, we've heard both sides of the story and the tale Mr. Ergen is telling is misleading, untrue, and lacks credibility. You are free to make up your own minds.

Well...color me shocked!

So...now that every time channels have to be re-negotiated, we seem to lose them...anyone know which other channels are up for renewal anytime soon?

Maybe SatGuys should start tracking when each channels contract renewal is near, same as we've been tracking HD resolutions and uplink reports. That way these "outages" wouldnt sneak up on us like this one did.

(just a thought)

 

[Stargazer]

The average sub just sees a loss in channels then an announcement in rate increases then they are wondering what the heck is wrong with Dish Network since cable and DirecTv does not have these issues. That is what a lot of people on the forums are now wondering. Does DirecTv have more leverage because they have more customers and get a better deal per sub or what?

 

[posdish]

This is great

This is great -- Dish Network has now guaranteed themselves a mass exodus with this one. In a family household, it's often the woman who literally pays the bills -- and who certainly has a large bit of veto power over the monthly expenditures. With two of the most popular women's channels now gone -- many women will probably take their business (or pressure their husbands to) elsewhere.

I really hope Dish gets burned with this one -- I am so, so tired of everything I have had to put up with since becoming a subscriber just over 3 months ago. With Lifetime and LMN gone, I'm not too popular with the wife now.

Here's wishing Dish all the worst that this huge mistake will bring them ... they deserve it all!

 

[long_time_DNC]

If it's a "free preview", then why should anyone have to call a clueless CSR (or 2 or 3) and argue for a $10 credit? It should just be automatic.

That would be proper business practices. Oh, wait...what am I saying!

 

[Texanmutt]

While I can see Charlie's pint of view, I think that this is satellite suicide to pull this channel. I imagine that i will be getting calls from some people i have sold dish to about this. Some were women and some were men in house holds were their wife's wear the pants. I agree with the underlying reason for this dispute, i think the tactics are very childish and only makes it harder to satisfy my customers. This might cause allot of charge backs for my boss.

 

[gutter]

Hey...I enjoy Lifetime and I am a guy. True it is for the Golden Girls which I think is still the funnest and most creative comedy in the last 25 years. However, Lifetime should not be forcing carrage of another channel as a requirement to carry the other two. RIFFJIM, did your wife check out if this part is true or not. Did Lifetime require DISH to carry the additional channel? I agree that all the channels should be al-a-cart. Then the marginal ones will go away and there will be less problems with bandwith. There are some channels that should depart.

 

[gdarwin]

I really hope Dish gets burned with this one -- I am so, so tired of everything I have had to put up with since becoming a subscriber just over 3 months ago. With Lifetime and LMN gone, I'm not too popular with the wife now.

Here's wishing Dish all the worst that this huge mistake will bring them ... they deserve it all!

About 2% ... I doubt it.. As you can tell - I could care less...

This whole thing is blown way out of proportion...

G.

 

[Stargazer]

I wonder if Lifetime is going to be in Dish Network's new family package. I think not. Neither will ESPN. I would think that the new family pack would be cheaper than AT60 or the same price if they offered enough channels to make it comparable to AT60. They could probably charge $5-10 less and make the same amount or not much less considering how fewer channels would be in the package that they would not have to pay for. I wonder what the channel owners would think about having such a package available without their channel not being in it. Would a lot of the channels suddenly threaten to shut their signal off completely if their channel is not offered in that package. Some would probably ask why their family oriented channel is not offered while the other ones are.

 

[bookwalk]

This is SUCH a bunch of bologna with DISH. I went through this with C-Band when they were losing Lifetime. I mounted a concerted effort for everyone to call/email Lifetime Network. FINALLY, NPS started carrying it as a Digital channel and is still on C-band that way, as far as I know. Now, NPS is a very low-budget satelite provider these days, as there are very, very few C-band subscribers anymore. So, those few, however, seemed to have enough "power" to iinfluence NPS to carry it, as well as LIfetime to negotiate with them.

Now, here's DISH with millions more subscribers and this little Lifetime channel is supposedly causing them so much grief? Don't believe it. Email the CEO and don't put up with this AT all.

Threaten to get an old C-band dish -- which most of you can get for a song and dance and set it to point at the ONE satellite that provides Lifetime--you can probably get a $200 Mpeg receiver and find it, too, but if you want C-band,you need to invest $400 in a 4DTV 922, BUT that can also be used to receive HD.

Well, ok--you don't want to do that, but what else CAN you do? Switch to Direct - TV--well, maybe. But, again, with that 3rd Satelite Provider, VOOM gone, this is just going to continue happening.

C-band did give us credit for the lost channel--DISH ought to do the same--there ought to be a credit on our next bill for every day that it is gone.

Even though I've invested $200 in the 942, I may just wait till Direct-TV gets HD and in good quality and see what type of deal they have OR revert to C-band.

Yes, I am the lady of the house and I do make programming decisions for our household. I think this is very chauvinistic to remove this channel or "threaten" us with rate increases.

If I listed all the channels on DISH that are guy-oriented, they would far outnumber the "chick" channels and wonder why--I think we women actually outnumber the guys, not only in numbers, but in hours watching the tube.

So, women could exert their power and cancel subscriptions AND, as I did with C-band, call Lifetime and threaten to boycott the sponsors of certain programs we like and then DO it--contact the sponsors and threaten to boycott their product if they continue to advertise on LIFETIME, since it, along with DISH are double-dealing us!