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Retransmission Consent squabbles


bhratbrat

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There have been rare instances of premium channels being blacked out due to retransmission disputes, the only one I can think of was the removal of Showtime (as well as The Movie Channel and Flix) from Time Warner Cable systems during its 2013 dispute with CBS Corporation.

 

That being said, it isn't really a financially smart idea to use a premium service as hardball in a carriage disagreement. Remember, they rely on viewers paying an additional fee to receive the services, and out of approximately 90 million MVPD subscribers nationwide, not many subscribe to multiple premium services and no premium service has a reach comparative to the major basic cable networks. Since they don't rely on advertising, the hit to a premium service's revenue from a retrans dispute would sting more for a premium service that has anywhere between nine million and 30 million subscribers than a basic cable channel that reaches 80 to 90 million subscribers would.

 

It's downright ridiculous. These are premium a-la-carte channels that people spend money on (like $15/mo PER channel), and if the provider yanks the access (of course it's Dish, which is notorious for this), then the paying customers SHOULD be properly reimbursed.

 

On the flip side, HBO should allow their paying customers to access their content regardless of the provider, especially if Dish yanks away the access. It could hasten the demise of the "bundle" and encourage others to become a-la-carte services (like HBONow), telling the cable and satellite companies to shove it once and for all...

Edited by Guest
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Somebody who misses boxing?

#BringBackHBOBoxing

 

But seriously, how many rural people actually watch HBO? It's the same argument that Dish made years ago when they dropped AMC, citing that its viewers (mostly rural) don't really fit AMC's target demo. That, or Charlie Ergen needs to go.

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From Reuters. AT&T is accusing the DOJ of collaborating Dish over this carriage dispute of HBO.

“The Department of Justice collaborated closely with Dish in its unsuccessful lawsuit to block our merger,” a WarnerMedia spokesman said in a statement. “That collaboration continues to this day with Dish’s tactical decision to drop HBO – not the other way around. DOJ failed to prove its claims about HBO at trial and then abandoned them on appeal.”

 

As you know, the DOJ has filed an appeal to try to block the sale of Time Warner to AT&T. And they suppose to go back to court next month. And the DOJ figured this situation here might help their appeal in court.

“This behavior, unfortunately, is consistent with what the Department of Justice predicted would result from the merger,” a DOJ representative said. “We are hopeful the Court of Appeals will correct the errors of the District Court.”

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It's downright ridiculous. These are premium a-la-carte channels that people spend money on (like $15/mo PER channel), and if the provider yanks the access (of course it's Dish, which is notorious for this), then the paying customers SHOULD be properly reimbursed.

 

Dish is reportedly giving its customers statement credits.

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There have been rare instances of premium channels being blacked out due to retransmission disputes, the only one I can think of was the removal of Showtime (as well as The Movie Channel and Flix) from Time Warner Cable systems during its 2013 dispute with CBS Corporation.

 

That being said, it isn't really a financially smart idea to use a premium service as hardball in a carriage disagreement. Remember, they rely on viewers paying an additional fee to receive the services, and out of approximately 90 million MVPD subscribers nationwide, not many subscribe to multiple premium services and no premium service has a reach comparative to the major basic cable networks. Since they don't rely on advertising, the hit to a premium service's revenue from a retrans dispute would sting more for a premium service that has anywhere between nine million and 30 million subscribers than a basic cable channel that reaches 80 to 90 million subscribers would.

Here's the thing: CBS bundles Showtime into its carriage agreements, whereas HBO has a seperate carriage agreement for its channels from the rest of WarnerMedia. On another note, this comes at the worst time for AT&T, which means that now the DoJ now has fuel to fight the merger.

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Here's the thing: CBS bundles Showtime into its carriage agreements, whereas HBO has a seperate carriage agreement for its channels from the rest of WarnerMedia. On another note, this comes at the worst time for AT&T, which means that now the DoJ now has fuel to fight the merger.

 

It could be worse if the Justice Department's case wasn't predicated entirely on Turner Broadcasting (AT&T will get to keep HBO even if Justice wins).

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It could be worse if the Justice Department's case wasn't predicated entirely on Turner Broadcasting (AT&T will get to keep HBO even if Justice wins).

How does AT&T get to keep HBO? Last I checked, its still a part of Time Warner, albeit with plenty of autonomy from Turner.

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How does AT&T get to keep HBO? Last I checked, its still a part of Time Warner, albeit with plenty of autonomy from Turner.

 

The Justice Department's suit in its appeal form only seeks for AT&T to sell Turner. This interview with Makan Delhaim stated Justice has no problems with AT&T owning Warner Bros. or HBO.

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  • 4 weeks later...
2 hours ago, AaronQ said:

TEGNA has reached an carriage agreement with DISH. All TEGNA stations are now back in the DISH lineups. 

 

It was all those emails from folks saying "I don't care anymore about your problems"...

Plus...

I have an antenna....so "eff-em".

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  • 3 weeks later...
54 minutes ago, DENDude said:

I have seen a crawl on KDVR warning about a possible blackout on Charter & Spectrum systems in Colorado.   Interestingly enough i haven't seen it on KWGN which is odd because they are Tribune, duopoly stations.  

They haven't been doing crawls or announcements on WITI, sticking to the top banner to the template website (though they have one promo which tries to say 'you could lose the spectre/the full spectrum of Fox 6 programming' like a bad dad joke writer got in the fun). Charter never has really got into pulling a channel at all (outside the weird issues involving the cheaper TWC contract and Univision this year and Viacom's self-induced idiocy last year, but those were anomalies), so they must think they can get this settled easily by Tuesday. Whatever the case it's only for the short term thanks to Nexstar, so they'll only be making a deal for the short term.

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Did you see the new tactic Tribune is using against Spectrum???

 

...from the FOX 5 San Diego Website... and WJW has a similar vanity phone number...

 

fox5dispute.thumb.JPG.c49c4ab2013067f6af813d3ad83b31db.JPG

wjw.thumb.JPG.4bcbfd6ced3ac8a2c5e3aa0babdf9abc.JPG

A funny thing happens when you call that number. It ring into a Tribune answering center and give you a little message about how mean and nasty Spectrum is and  you should be mad they are depriving you of all that fine FOX 5 fare.

 

But then...

"Please Stand-By while we transfer you to a Spectrum operator who is standing bye to take YOUR call...."

 

WTF?

Tribune just pulled a "hot transfer / call forwarding" double back slap!

 

I'm sure If  Mrs C.Cutter was to wait on the line for that Spectrum operator they would both feel a bit awkward.

 

Spectrum must be digging that little trick, and look at the quick data you (Tribune) acquire just by making that call to that Tribune trap line. They must think you are more inclined to place your angry call thru a station friendly "vanity" phone number...as opposed to calling Spectrum directly...or providing the actual Spectrum customer service phone number.

 

 

Tricky!

Edited by Eat News
it's late and cold.
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16 minutes ago, CalItalian2 said:

Tribune stations (KTLA, WGN America, AntennaTV) were blacked out about 2:10 PM on Spectrum Los Angeles. They're running a long pre-produced voiced anti-Tribune message. 

 

It was so nice of Spectrum to wait and not pull the plug on Jan 1st....when KTLA (and a crapload of other Tribune stations) run

the Rose Parade Live.

 

May the ghost of Hal Fishman and Stan Chambers haunt the Spectrum 1 newsroom.

Edited by Eat News
https://youtu.be/jEaZHQdWLEU
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