Regional sports channels removed

They did, when they broke out the RSN fees. If Fox sports was still there, folks in those areas would be paying more for the broken out RSN fees.
Yup. That’s what pays for the RSNs. Separate from the regular channels.
I have had this argument before. Do you really think that the extra $1 or so being charged in some areas covers the entire cost of their RSN (or in some cases, multiple RSN's)? It is much more likely that the bulk of the cost for the RSN's is already included in the base package price, and is spread out across the entire country, whether you are receiving your market's RSN's or not. Then, the areas with the more expensive RSN's (or that still have RSN's at all) get hit with the extra fee to finish covering the "extra" cost associated with continued carriage of those channels. It still doesn't change the fact that subscribers across the rest of the country are still paying a rate that includes an extra cost for channels that are no longer being received, even if they are still being charged at the "old" (pre-removal) rate, rather than whatever new rate would be required to actually carry the channels. These disputes have been going on long enough that the new rates (reflecting the RSN removal) should have been factored into the 2020 rates, instead of making us wait until 2021. Instead of getting a smaller than normal rate increase as would otherwise be expected, we got hit with an increase of the same amount as previous years when the RSN's were still being carried. It is just that areas with RSN's got another small increase on top of that, due to the new fee. This is further compounded by the overall lack of live sports programming in general this year. So, even if the RSN's had continued to be carried (and further fantasy, if they had continued to be carried at the old rates) then the price would still be a rip-off.
 
My main grip is my home RSN is Fox Sports Southwest which is fine you would get the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros. However during baseball the Saint Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals are considered a Home Team even thought they play on Fox Sports Midwest. To me that should be considered out of market but it’s not. However the Saint Louis Blues is considered out of market. This is what happens when you let government make decisions on blackouts. The viewer should be able to pay the extra fee if they want the programming no blackouts. I know that will never happen just venting.


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............... It is much more likely that the bulk of the cost for the RSN's is already included in the base package price, and is spread out across the entire country, whether you are receiving your market's RSN's or not. Then, the areas with the more expensive RSN's (or that still have RSN's at all) get hit with the extra fee to finish covering the "extra" cost associated with continued carriage of those channels.
Yes.
 
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My main grip is my home RSN is Fox Sports Southwest which is fine you would get the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros. However during baseball the Saint Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals are considered a Home Team even thought they play on Fox Sports Midwest. To me that should be considered out of market but it’s not. However the Saint Louis Blues is considered out of market. This is what happens when you let government make decisions on blackouts. The viewer should be able to pay the extra fee if they want the programming no blackouts. I know that will never happen just venting.


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These blackouts are NOT government decisions. The RSNs buy exclusive rights to the team broadcasts within the home market and then the blackout is by contract. The home market is determined in the contract NOT by the government. For example in hockey since Fox Sports North is available in Madison WI, the contract states that Madison WI is in the blackout area for the Minnesota Wild and not available live on NHL.TV and since NBC Sports Chicago is not available in Madison WI the Blackhawks are not blacked out on NHL.TV package. Even though Madison is quite a bit closer to Chicago than Minneapolis.

NFL blackouts used to have some government mandates, but that had to do with not being to blackout a home game if it sold out 48 hours before game time.
 
These blackouts are NOT government decisions. The RSNs buy exclusive rights to the team broadcasts within the home market and then the blackout is by contract. The home market is determined in the contract NOT by the government. For example in hockey since Fox Sports North is available in Madison WI, the contract states that Madison WI is in the blackout area for the Minnesota Wild and not available live on NHL.TV and since NBC Sports Chicago is not available in Madison WI the Blackhawks are not blacked out on NHL.TV package. Even though Madison is quite a bit closer to Chicago than Minneapolis.

NFL blackouts used to have some government mandates, but that had to do with not being to blackout a home game if it sold out 48 hours before game time.
What about teams that own their own RSN?
 
My main grip is my home RSN is Fox Sports Southwest which is fine you would get the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros. However during baseball the Saint Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals are considered a Home Team even thought they play on Fox Sports Midwest. To me that should be considered out of market but it’s not. However the Saint Louis Blues is considered out of market. ...
It was a similar situation here in North Central Ohio, while the RSN's were still being carried. Even worse, the out-of-market RSN's necessary to receive all of the "Home" teams are not always included in the base package. In baseball, we could get Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds, and Detroit Tigers games in the clear, regardless of which (nearby) RSN was showing them. Fortunately, Fox Sports Cincinnati was included in any base package that included RSN's here. (This is likely due to Fox Sports Cincinnati and Fox Sports Ohio both being co-branded as "Fox Sports Ohio." FS Cincinnati had its own separate full-time channel, but was really just an alternate programming feed of FS Ohio.) Also, the Reds territory is so large that they also had alternate feeds on several other RSN's, such as Fox Sports Midwest and Fox Sports South. With Dish's Sports Alternate channels in the guide, we could also watch the Reds games on those feeds, and get to see different commercials from other parts of the country.

However, to get the Tigers games on Fox Sports Detroit, it required the Multi-Sport Pack, even though we are in the Tigers "Home" territory. (I think the reason we are considered a Home territory for the Tigers is due to their minor-league affiliate in Toledo, the Mud Hens.) Other Detroit teams on Fox Sports Detroit (such as the Red Wings and Pistons) were blacked-out though, due to each league having different rules for determining each team's territory. I think the Pistons blackouts on Fox Sports Detroit may have varied from year-to-year. I remember some times we could get those games in the clear, and other times they were blacked out.
 
Not since ATt and Directv went half on Roots out of bankruptcy.

Actually, even before that. In 2013 the Astros moved to the American League with a new owner. That year, they also created their own TV network with the Rockets and left Fox Sports SW. Later, that network joined Roots, I think. In any case, the poster above who thinks you can get them on FSSW is mistaken.
 
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Actually, even before that. In 2013 the Astros moved to the American League with a new owner. That year, they also created their own TV network with the Rockets and left Fox Sports SW. Later, that network joined Roots, I think. In any case, the poster above who thinks you can get them on FSSW is mistaken.
Old habits die hard. Recently, somebody posted about the Indians being on Fox Sports Ohio, even though they have been on SportsTime Ohio ever since that network was created in 2006. (I may be wrong on the year, but it was sometime around then.) It doesn't make much difference as far as this dispute, since SportsTime Ohio now has the same owner as Fox Sports Ohio. The point is, people get used to the old names of the RSN's (or the name of the RSN where the team previously appeared) and continue to use that name when referring to the team's TV coverage. I even made that mistake in a recent post here, mistakenly saying CSN Chicago instead of NBC Sports Chicago.
 
Pure FWIW. We had satellite since 1995, either Directv or Dish. When the Hopper 3 system came out I switched to Dish from the Genie system (we have 3 TVs) and never looked back, the Dish interface and Hopper 3 system was so superior it was a no brainer. We really liked the PQ and sound and overall interface a lot. Price was a bit high but we were always able to negotiate a decent deal every two years.

Had a forced move cross country and had to be in an apartment until we bought a new house and moved in, so I canceled Dish (total tangent, but the online chat person for Dish was surprisingly poor, I usually get good service that way but when I tried to discuss options for pausing my service this person basically cut and pasted some things some of which had nothing to do with what I was asking, so I gave up and just cancelled.) We got Youtube TV and Philo to fill our interim needs. Covered all of the channels we want and month to month and instant-on. The idea was that this would be interim.

Well, we've moved into a new house. I still really miss the Dish/Hopper 3 interface, I think the YTTV interface is a train wreck. But I was hoping Dish would have the RSNs back by now. They don't and it sounds like these are another set of channels that Charlie has decided I don't need. That's fine, his business decisions, but since it appears his mode is finding channels to get rid of, we're just not real interested in signing another 2 year contract. I never saw my bills go down when he got rid of other channels and frankly, that's not the issue: I'm willing to pay to watch the TV I want to watch, but not pay $130+ a month and "learn to live without" channels as he decides they aren't needed and he can make more money without them. I don't mean that as a personal attack on him, as Don Corleone would say, it's just business. I think it just means I am probably not the type of customer he's interested in keeping.
 
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Pure FWIW. We had satellite since 1995, either Directv or Dish. When the Hopper 3 system came out I switched to Dish from the Genie system (we have 3 TVs) and never looked back, the Dish interface and Hopper 3 system was so superior it was a no brainer. We really liked the PQ and sound and overall interface a lot. Price was a bit high but we were always able to negotiate a decent deal every two years.

Had a forced move cross country and had to be in an apartment until we bought a new house and moved in, so I canceled Dish (total tangent, but the online chat person for Dish was surprisingly poor, I usually get good service that way but when I tried to discuss options for pausing my service this person basically cut and pasted some things some of which had nothing to do with what I was asking, so I gave up and just cancelled.) We got Youtube TV and Philo to fill our interim needs. Covered all of the channels we want and month to month and instant-on. The idea was that this would be interim.

Well, we've moved into a new house. I still really miss the Dish/Hopper 3 interface, I think the YTTV interface is a train wreck. But I was hoping Dish would have the RSNs back by now. They don't and it sounds like these are another set of channels that Charlie has decided I don't need. That's fine, his business decisions, but since it appears his mode is finding channels to get rid of, we're just not real interested in signing another 2 year contract. I never saw my bills go down when he got rid of other channels and frankly, that's not the issue: I'm willing to pay to watch the TV I want to watch, but not pay $130+ a month and "learn to live without" channels as he decides they aren't needed and he can make more money without them. I don't mean that as a personal attack on him, as Don Corleone would say, it's just business. I think it just means I am probably not the type of customer he's interested in keeping.
This is a fair assessment. I like how you do not take a business decision as personal, and understand that there may be a different target audience.
 
Pure FWIW. We had satellite since 1995, either Directv or Dish. When the Hopper 3 system came out I switched to Dish from the Genie system (we have 3 TVs) and never looked back, the Dish interface and Hopper 3 system was so superior it was a no brainer. We really liked the PQ and sound and overall interface a lot. Price was a bit high but we were always able to negotiate a decent deal every two years.

Had a forced move cross country and had to be in an apartment until we bought a new house and moved in, so I canceled Dish (total tangent, but the online chat person for Dish was surprisingly poor, I usually get good service that way but when I tried to discuss options for pausing my service this person basically cut and pasted some things some of which had nothing to do with what I was asking, so I gave up and just cancelled.) We got Youtube TV and Philo to fill our interim needs. Covered all of the channels we want and month to month and instant-on. The idea was that this would be interim.

Well, we've moved into a new house. I still really miss the Dish/Hopper 3 interface, I think the YTTV interface is a train wreck. But I was hoping Dish would have the RSNs back by now. They don't and it sounds like these are another set of channels that Charlie has decided I don't need. That's fine, his business decisions, but since it appears his mode is finding channels to get rid of, we're just not real interested in signing another 2 year contract. I never saw my bills go down when he got rid of other channels and frankly, that's not the issue: I'm willing to pay to watch the TV I want to watch, but not pay $130+ a month and "learn to live without" channels as he decides they aren't needed and he can make more money without them. I don't mean that as a personal attack on him, as Don Corleone would say, it's just business. I think it just means I am probably not the type of customer he's interested in keeping.
I have been with Dish since the late 90s. My college team is in the Big 12 and they are seen on the RSNs dish got rid of. So I reduced Dish to one receiver(H3) ( sent 3 Joeys back) to see my 3 external hard drives and switched my programming (250, Showtime, Starz, Dish Movie Pack) to the welcome pack to keep locals and Prime time anytime. I use the H3 supported Netflix and Amazon Prime with added channels Acorn and Britbox. I reduced my bill by over $120 per month. I used that money to get Directv with the HBO/Cinemax, NFL and RSNs. with a HR54, 2 wireless minis and a 4k mini.
 
It was only a matter of time before the RSN's were gone. My question now is what does Dish do next? Do they continue to let other sports-related channels (Fox Sports, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, MLB Network, NHL Network, etc.) go as their contracts come up, assuming that the hardcore sports fans have already left? Or do they need to do a balancing act and maintain some level of sports programming to satisfy the mainstream consumers? And even bigger yet, what will happen when the ESPN contract comes up next time? I certainly will be gone by that time, but maybe they can fill a niche as the cheaper alternative for the segment of the population that doesn't care about sports whatsoever.
 
It was only a matter of time before the RSN's were gone. My question now is what does Dish do next? Do they continue to let other sports-related channels (Fox Sports, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, MLB Network, NHL Network, etc.) go as their contracts come up, assuming that the hardcore sports fans have already left? Or do they need to do a balancing act and maintain some level of sports programming to satisfy the mainstream consumers? And even bigger yet, what will happen when the ESPN contract comes up next time? I certainly will be gone by that time, but maybe they can fill a niche as the cheaper alternative for the segment of the population that doesn't care about sports whatsoever.
Well, Dish has already stopped advertising for the Multi-Sport Pack. (Or at least, they are not as obnoxious about advertising for it, since they removed the Multi-Sport ad from the Game Finder app.) I would like to see the remaining sports channels become available as an add-on that is available to those of us with lower-tier packages such as Welcome Pack. It no longer makes sense to require a much larger package to get the sports channels, since even with that upper-tier package you still would not get all of the sports channels. Of course, it may not be worth the effort to create such an add-on package, if Dish is just going to let those channels drop as each contract expires. :(
 
It was only a matter of time before the RSN's were gone. My question now is what does Dish do next? Do they continue to let other sports-related channels (Fox Sports, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, MLB Network, NHL Network, etc.) go as their contracts come up, assuming that the hardcore sports fans have already left? Or do they need to do a balancing act and maintain some level of sports programming to satisfy the mainstream consumers? And even bigger yet, what will happen when the ESPN contract comes up next time? I certainly will be gone by that time, but maybe they can fill a niche as the cheaper alternative for the segment of the population that doesn't care about sports whatsoever.

My opinion is that Dish will drop the remaining RSN's - NESN, MASN, AT&T Sportsnets, etc. I think there are 7 or 8 RSN's left whose contracts have not yet expired and those will go.

I then see Dish keeping all the other sports channels and bringing back NFL Network. The other sports cable channels are relatively cheap compared to the RSN's. The last time I can find mass amounts of data from when SNL Kagan released their report of per subscriber channel costs (back in March 2018) had NFL Network at $1.48, Fox Sports 1 at 64 cents, NHL Network at 34 cents, NBC Sports at 34 cents, MLB Network at 29 cents, and CBS Sports at 28 cents. That is $3.37 for those channels, and for argument sake, lets say the cost of all those channels has doubled since then to $7.74 - still cheaper than ESPN alone.

The real interesting one will be Disney - Dish's contract with Disney for ESPN expires in 2022, and according to S&P Global, ESPN alone in 2022 will be costing each subscriber $11.08. Then there are all the other Disney owned channels (Freeform, Disney Channel, FX, etc.) Would Disney allow Dish to not have ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/ESPNews but have everything else? My guess is no. (This retrans project also has projected costs of RSN's and Fox Sports Detroit is almost $7 per subscriber!)

It would be a risk for Dish to drop the ESPN suite, but could they justify that their subscriber base would still get to see the biggest games on OTA tv and have their highlight shows and talk from each league owned network? I can't see that.

 
Then the blackout is normally in those areas where the RSN is available as the primary RSN, the contract is between the RSN and the carrying broadcaster not the team and the carrying broadcaster.
The Mets own their own RSN...the Yankees used to

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The Mets own their own RSN...the Yankees used to
So did the Indians, before they sold it to Fox Sports. Now, Indians fans who are also Dish subscribers must really resent that sale. When the Indians still owned SportsTime Ohio, there was one threat of removing the channel from Dish, but the channel was not actually pulled at that time. (I think that was the first time the contract was renewed, after Dish started carrying SportsTime Ohio.) Of course now, it just gets lumped in with all of the other Fox Sports Nets, and got pulled at the same time.

It is interesting keeping up with Dish's uplinks involving the RSN's (especially SportsTime Ohio) and speculating what they might mean. Many months ago (maybe last year? My, how time flies) the guide info for the RSN's temporarily returned to the RSN's, replacing the dispute message. (The actual content of the channels remained the dispute video, obviously.) SportsTime Ohio was one of the few RSN's that did not get the guide info back. That led me to speculate that Dish was about to make a deal to bring back most of the Fox Sports Nets, but exclude SportsTime Ohio.

Then more recently, when the RSN placeholder channels were finally removed, it looked like Dish kept placeholder channels in their system for a select few RSN's, but simply hid them from customers. A couple of those channels that remained in the system made sense (NBC Sports Chicago and Altitude) since those are part of separate disputes. So, Dish may still need those channels in the system if they are still negotiating to bring them back. The other channel that remained in the system was (wait for it) SportsTime Ohio. So now, this leads me to speculate that Dish may be negotiating to bring back only SportsTime Ohio, and exclude the rest of the Fox Sports Nets.

Either way, it seems that perhaps SportsTime Ohio is separable from the rest of the Fox Sports Nets in some kind of deal. Or perhaps I am just reading too much into the few tea leaves that Dish is providing us. It is still fun to speculate, though.
 
Then more recently, when the RSN placeholder channels were finally removed, it looked like Dish kept placeholder channels in their system for a select few RSN's, but simply hid them from customers. A couple of those channels that remained in the system made sense (NBC Sports Chicago and Altitude) since those are part of separate disputes. So, Dish may still need those channels in the system if they are still negotiating to bring them back. The other channel that remained in the system was (wait for it) SportsTime Ohio. So now, this leads me to speculate that Dish may be negotiating to bring back only SportsTime Ohio, and exclude the rest of the Fox Sports Nets.

Either way, it seems that perhaps SportsTime Ohio is separable from the rest of the Fox Sports Nets in some kind of deal. Or perhaps I am just reading too much into the few tea leaves that Dish is providing us. It is still fun to speculate, though.

I love the speculating! I think Dish has all the RSN's that they used to carry still on the satellite and just turns them on for the out of market packages. If you visit James Long's listings for the 110 satellite and 129 satellite, specifically transponder 14 on 110 and transponder 26 on 129, all the FOX RSN's have an info channel in the 25000's. For example, 25436 is on 129 TP 26, and Fox Sports North used to be channel 436 and come from 129 TP 26.
 
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