Who won, Who Lost?

[MrDRC]

Hard to really tell with the back slapping and hand shaking going on but someone compromised. Who was it and is there anyway to really know?

 

[Curtis0620]

Yes, Charlie lost. He didn't want additional channels tied to the agreement. He didn't want Nicktoons. He didn't want Spike, CMT, and TVLand included in the new agreement. So what did he get? He got too many subs calling to cancel so he had to settle fast.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

We will never know exactly who won and who lost.

Viacoms stock was getting hammered, and Dish was doing ok.

As I said the other day Both will claim Victory, and neither will claim defeat.

 

[Tampa8]

Yes, Charlie lost. He didn't want additional channels tied to the agreement. He didn't want Nicktoons. He didn't want Spike, CMT, and TVLand included in the new agreement. So what did he get? He got too many subs calling to cancel so he had to settle fast.

And you read the details about the agreement and the cost to Charlie where???????

 

[Mr Tony]

Who cares who won & who lost?

We got our channels back
We still get a credit on this month (either $1 or $2)
We get a free PPV coupon

So, I make 4.99 for not having CBS for less than 2 days (or 8 hours I'm actually home)

 

[talk000]

You may be ahead for now, but let's wait until the next price increase to see what the real cost of the settlement to us subscribers is.

 

[mboy]

Yes, Charlie lost. He didn't want additional channels tied to the agreement. He didn't want Nicktoons. He didn't want Spike, CMT, and TVLand included in the new agreement. So what did he get? He got too many subs calling to cancel so he had to settle fast.

I wouldn't bet on that.

 

[Curtis0620]

And you read the details about the agreement and the cost to Charlie where???????

He specifially said he didn't want new channels tied to this agreement. He ended up getting Nicktoons, Spike, CMT and TVLand all included in this agreement. Plus now the SEC is investigating E* for accounting issues.

 

[Mr Tony]

You may be ahead for now, but let's wait until the next price increase to see what the real cost of the settlement to us subscribers is.

Unless Charlie raises the price for locals, I don't get a price increase. Got just locals & distant FOX.

 

[TBarclay]

I didn't see anything where Spike, TVLand, and CMT were bundled into this agreement. I'm sure both sides gave a little. Viacom probably wanted NickToons in AT60, Charlie didn't want it at all, it's in AT180. The bottom line, the issue was settled in 2 days (I predicted 3).

 

[maddawg]

My response: Who cares!!

 

[Inside]

No doubt Viacom were the biggest looser, they lost 9.5 million customers in the first minute, not small beer!

 

[bcshields]

CNN is still making Dish look like a careless bully.. even with the settlement. I say Dish capitolize on this.. run ads with "Don't feed the cable pig, come to Dishnetwork, where we will fight to keep your costs low."

 

[Mr Tony]

CNN is still making Dish look like a careless bully.. even with the settlement. I say Dish capitolize on this.. run ads with "Don't feed the cable pig, come to Dishnetwork, where we will fight to keep your costs low."

I like that idea.....Dish is already doing that (the cable pig ad), but the last line would make it even better!

 

[bryan92]

CNN is still making Dish look like a careless bully.. even with the settlement. I say Dish capitolize on this.. run ads with "Don't feed the cable pig, come to Dishnetwork, where we will fight to keep your costs low."

They did take a risk and seem to have got aleast a little of what they wanted. Charlie might have bigger balls than Bush.

 

[TheForce]

As per Charlie- the issue of carrying the other new Nicktoons channels was not that big a deal but what was a big disagreement was the cost and the tieing in of public broadcast stations CBS O&O's to a pay channel package.

"Here is what I posted in the AVS forum:



I watched a rebroadcast of CC last evening before the settlement and found it an unusual plethora of insider cost information from CE.

The squabble differences were said to be Viacom's claim that the cost increase was only 6 cents per Dish subscriber. Charlie said that was not what was in the contract. Charlie had invited COO of Viacom to come on the show and defend his advertisements but Viacom COO declined. Charlie called Viacom the "school yard bully" among other derogatory names. Then he said sometimes the negotiations have to get ugly to get better. Watching CE, I wondered how ugly it would get.
Charlie also said that by their calculations, the cost per subscriber would be closer to $6.00 per subscriber, not 6 cents.

A caller asked about the recent $3 increase and Charlie divulged that was due to an increase, primarily from the sports channels they carry, in particularly ESPN. He said that their polling indicates most of their subscribers watch ESPN and other sports channels and felt justified in spreading those sports costs over the entire subscribership. The cartoon and music channels (Viacom), however, appeal to a much smaller percentage of the DishNet group and represent a significantly smaller cost factor. In addition, the programming cost for MTV etc is free as it is supplied to those channels by the record companies, unlike sports and ESPN that has to pay huge sums for the rights to air sports. Again, Charlie felt the Viacom "contract rate" was excessive. The tie-in with CBS O&O's and the threat of pulling the specific broadcast of the Superbowl, was (in Charlie's opinion), a violation of the public trust, considering these channels are carried by DishNetwork based on FCC regulations as set by Congress. Unfortunately, a 1999 law passed required Dish to have a retransmission agreement to do so and based on this Viacom was able to pull the CBS O&O's. Pulling the Superbowl threat was overturned by a Federal Judge TRO which was broadened to cover all CBS airings until This past Monday when the TRO expired.
Charlie requested we all contact our congressmen and request they revisit these regulations and pass a law that forbids bundling a public licensed broadcast station where the broadcast rights are owned by the citizens and used by CBS for FREE to a non- public collection of channels( of music and cartoon channels ) available for pay TV only negotiation. In essence, this was another disagreement in the negotiations that Charlie didn't like, i.e. the tieing in of the CBS broadcast channels with the Viacom pay TV channels.

Finally, Charlie made a promise and a commitment to continue to negotiate with Viacom to settle AND if Viacom agreed to state that their ad claim of only 6 cents per subscriber be put in the contract, he would sign it immediatly and carry the Nicktoons channel as well. He will immediately put up all the channels taken down as soon as Viacom agreed to do that.

A few hours later after the public airing of that Tuesday special Charlie Chat on Wednesday the Viacom deal was signed at the lower rate, and the channels were back up. Charlie released a statement thanking all for our support and promised to give the $1 credit anyway and issue a free PPV coupon as well. All in under 48 hours.


So, how many of you caved in that 48 hour time period? How many of you kissed the back side of Viacom's COO, the "school yard bully" as Charlie put it?


The first losers-
The people who watch the black out channels and Viacom as the revenues stoppedm, having a direct impact on the stock holders of Viacom.

The losers down the road- DishNet as a company when the estimated 200-500 thousand subscribers defect to other services over the coming months should the blackout continue.




I suppose the ball was in the court of Viacom to put up or shut up on the descrepancy between the ads they ran this week and what was in the contract they were asking for. Way to go Charlie for standing up to the school yard bully! Now all of us need to contact our congressmen and let them know we don't want big business to hold our public airwaves hostage in a private programming negotiation ever again."

_____________________________________________________

My own assessment is that Charlie did what he said he would do, Viacom agreed to what they advertised by putting it in the contract and Charlie caved on tieing the CBS retransmission agreement to the pay private channels, MTV VH1 etc.

Bottom line- Charlie wins. Every good negotiator knows you have to give up something so he gave up the contract format of CBS retransmission & MTV pay channels and won the cost descrepancy. Excellent!

Now we can enjoy both for a few more years. In the meantime maybe Congress will forbid a private company from holding the public airwaves hostage in their private channels negotiating. Call your congressmen to get this fixed or we will see it all over again with other big company providers.

 

[jeffwtux]

I'm guessing that with all that fighting, Mel wanted Nicktoons on AT120 or 60, not 180. Charlie started by saying he wouldn't take it and then bargained him down to AT180. I'm starting to think what is getting Dish into all these spats is the 3 programming tiers, almost nobody has 3 anymore(DirecTV dropped Select Choice). Nobody wants their channels in AT180, but he got Mel to put NickToons there, I'm guessing that's sort of a victory.

 

[Bichon]

Does anyone know whether I can use the free PPV coupon for a $3.99 discount on a HD PPV?

 

[AdamB]

Agreed. Who cares who won. Both are still rich and we have our channels back.

AdamB

Who cares who won & who lost?

We got our channels back
We still get a credit on this month (either $1 or $2)
We get a free PPV coupon

So, I make 4.99 for not having CBS for less than 2 days (or 8 hours I'm actually home)

 

[dbronstein]

No doubt Viacom were the biggest looser, they lost 9.5 million customers in the first minute, not small beer!

But they got them all back after two days, or sooner for the ones who switched. How many subs did Dish lose because of this? And those subs are never coming back.