[xaviersaint]

Quote

THE REAL REASON DISH IS DROPPING AMC NETWORKS…

In a ruling filed on Thursday, April 26, 2012, the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court denied DISH’s application to further appeal a prior trial court decision sanctioning it for bad-faith destruction of evidence in the ongoing VOOM HD/DISH litigation. The case has now been set for a trial beginning September 18th..

The case began in 2008, when VOOM HD (an indirect subsidiary of AMC Networks) sued DISH Network for breach of contract. The case concerns a contract in which DISH agreed to carry a suite of HD networks known as VOOM for 15 years. In early 2008, DISH improperly terminated the VOOM contract, and VOOM HD filed suit, seeking over $2.5 billion in damages.

In a pre-trial ruling, the trial court judge ruled that DISH had destroyed evidence in the case, citing DISH’s “pattern of egregious conduct and questionable – and, at times, blatantly improper – litigation tactics.” The Appellate Division recently affirmed the trial court ruling, writing that DISH “acted in bad faith in destroying electronically stored evidence.” And on April 26, 2012, the Appellate Division denied DISH leave to further appeal the decision The trial court has now set the trial date.

Within days of the denial of DISH’s final avenue of pre-trial appeal, DISH informed AMC Networks of its intention to drop its award-winning networks.

In response to DISH’s decision, AMC Networks released the following statement: “AMC Networks has some of the most acclaimed programming on television, with shows like “Mad Men,” “The Walking Dead” and “Breaking Bad.” In fact, AMC’s “The Walking Dead” is the number one scripted drama with DISH subscribers.*

It is unfortunate that, because of setbacks in an unrelated litigation, DISH even suggests that they might deny their customers access to some of their favorite networks and shows that are offered by every other major satellite and cable TV provider.”

*Source: Nielsen Media Research 4Q11-1Q12 A18-49 (000) Dish Universe

So anyone on the board affected by this?

[Goat]

I have a couple friends who are.  Sucks.  They've sent their emails of protest already.  Ultimately, AMC probably won't get dropped though.  It's more often than not a bluff for better contract terms when this comes around.  Even if they're in litigation, Dish makes money off of AMC and would like to see that money continue to come in.   Losing a court case + losing AMC revenue is ultimately worse than losing a court case + keeping a contract with AMC.

[xaviersaint]

I've seen this go bad to where the network was in fact dropped only to be picked back up later but by that time, it had affected viewership. I think it was DirecTV and I wanna say that it was TNN back when they were hosting WWE Raw.

[gracie lou]

This happened last season with one of their cable providers, but they got it all worked out. I believe it was right before the mid-season premier, or whatever they like to refer to that as...

[xaviersaint]

Could be that it's a ratings ploy too. Remind people of their shows "oh they're gonna go away" so waste your time e-mailing and complaining so it's fresh in your head come fall. Yep, it's official, I've become a bitter old man.  

[Major Tom]

Unfortunately, I recently contracted with Dish for 2 years of their hopper thing.

I like Dish but I am royally pissed that I may have to find another source for Breaking Bad and TWD. I have emailed and twittered my feelings on the matter, for all the good it will do.

Given the nature of the dispute I am not sure there will even be an opportunity for someone to blink.

[Gingerbeard]

Doesn't really affect me. I'll be back at school by the time TWD returns, and I don't go to any ritsy college that would care enough to have Dish Network. Good old regular Cable!

Stupid decision though. It would be a bad move for them not to resolve this.

[Barry Cade]

In the UK we're pretty much stuck with three major providers of cable TV, BT (British Telecom), Virgin (The Richard Branson company) and Sky (The Rupert Murdoch company). Virgin and Sky have been at each others throats for many years and a few years ago things got so bad that Virgin were forced to suspend access to Sky's main channels even now, the premium content channel Sky Atlantic is only available to Sky customers and guess what premium content is only ever shown on Sky Atlantic - Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire et al. As Rupert Murdoch makes my teeth itch I'm not happy at giving him my consumer quid, and Branson gets mine. I have just watched season one of Game of Thrones on DVD. Why can't they all just get along (sigh).

[Serenity@sea]

Barry Cade, on 12 June 2012 - 07:08 AM, said:

In the UK we're pretty much stuck with three major providers of cable TV, BT (British Telecom), Virgin (The Richard Branson company) and Sky (The Rupert Murdoch company). Virgin and Sky have been at each others throats for many years and a few years ago things got so bad that Virgin were forced to suspend access to Sky's main channels even now, the premium content channel Sky Atlantic is only available to Sky customers and guess what premium content is only ever shown on Sky Atlantic - Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire et al. As Rupert Murdoch makes my teeth itch I'm not happy at giving him my consumer quid, and Branson gets mine. I have just watched season one of Game of Thrones on DVD. Why can't they all just get along (sigh).

GoT spoiler: click if you have watched all of Season 1 of GoT

Spoiler

Were you as shocked as I was when Ned was beheaded?
I thought TWD wasn't afraid of killing off characters......this show, there seems to be a surprising death in just about every epi.

Edited by Serenity@sea, 12 June 2012 - 08:35 PM.

[Ansceniiiic]

Serenity@sea, on 12 June 2012 - 08:32 PM, said:

GoT spoiler: click if you have watched all of Season 1 of GoT

Spoiler

Were you as shocked as I was when Ned was beheaded?
I thought TWD wasn't afraid of killing off characters......this show, there seems to be a surprising death in just about every epi.

If you were shocked, then you clearly have never watched anything with Sean Bean in it


It was In-evidee-bull!

also fuck cable companies and their scamming ways to milk more money out of us! death to them all.

Edited by Ansceniiiic, 12 June 2012 - 10:51 PM.

[Barry Cade]

Does he die (on-screen) in When Saturday Comes? I only ask as he should have for that piece of tripe.

[Major Tom]

Serenity@sea, on 12 June 2012 - 08:32 PM, said:

GoT spoiler: click if you have watched all of Season 1 of GoT

Spoiler

Were you as shocked as I was when Ned was beheaded?
I thought TWD wasn't afraid of killing off characters......this show, there seems to be a surprising death in just about every epi.

Not sure how the HBO series will play out but in the books the author kills off damn near every major character. However, it is a fantasy a la LOTR and some of them come back.

Edited by Major Tom, 13 June 2012 - 07:07 AM.

[Major Tom]

The AMC/Dish conflict

Not sure how many of you will be affected by this but I am one who will.

The link above is the best info I have seen on the dispute. Dish stands to lose an estimated 10,000 subscribers which is less than 1%. AMC will lose more than $14mil per week.

Dish is known to play hardball and is unlikely to yield before the cutoff date of July 1 2012. There is an ongoing lawsuit that many believe Dish will lose so they will probably settle the matter before the trial starts in September, 2012. This would mean that Dish subscribers will miss several Breaking Bad episodes but AMC should be restored by the October premier of TWD.

AMC appears to be the bloodiest in this fight and they are pretty much going to be forced to settle. Their stock is already taking a big hit and the revenue interruption hasn't even started.

[Barry Cade]

Major Tom, on 18 June 2012 - 04:03 AM, said:

The AMC/Dish conflict

Not sure how many of you will be affected by this but I am one who will.
...

AMC appears to be the bloodiest in this fight and they are pretty much going to be forced to settle. Their stock is already taking a big hit and the revenue interruption hasn't even started.

Is this likely to impact on their budgets for TWD going forward? We all sighed when they reduced the budgets for S2; what's likely to happen to S3?

I mean, there're probably some Blakes 7 sets going cheap from the 'Beeb if the production team wanted to make some good savings; and if they relocated to Blyth they could save on make-up, and location costs as the whole place looks like a zombie holocaust hit a year ago.

[webzila]

AMC has already been dropped from the Dish lineup.
Just checked today and the channel has been replaced with HDNet Movies.
What ticks me off even more is this morning Dish sends out an email with other ways to watch the shows on Amazon, ITunes, Roku, etc...
What kind of a solution is this since none of these services are free. So now I have to pay Dish + other providers in order to watch the shows that should be on Dish but are not because they drop networks because of their silly disputes? I am really thinking about dropping dish.

Please let Dish know how much they suck:

http://www.keepamcnetworks.com/dish/

To continue to make your voice heard:

Call 855-KEEP-AMC
Contact DISH on Twitter by tweeting to @dish and @dish_answers.
Email DISH executives directly and tell them you don't want to lose your favorite channels:
Charlie Ergen, Chairman of the Board: charlie.ergen@echostar.com
Joe Clayton, President and CEO: joseph.clayton@dishnetwork.com
Tom Cullen, Executive Vice President: thomas.cullen@dishnetwork.com
Dave Schull, SVP, Programming: dave.shull@dishnetwork.com
Carolyn Crawford, VP, Programming: carolyn.crawford@dishnetwork.com

Thank you for your support.

[Major Tom]

I have contributed my 2 cents on the subject via email to dish. It is a hopeless cause from the standpoint of viewers. Dish is not going to blink.

Look for it to be resolved in a month or two. Dish has the stronger hand in the short term. AMC can not afford to lose the Dish viewership. Their stock is already taking a hit and Dish is holding steady.

It is natural to be pissed at Dish and I am, but AMC is not without sin. They require Dish to carry 3 sister channels that I was unaware existed until this situation came up. They also piss off Dish by making their shows available for rerun on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, without any significant waiting period.

AMC is facing a similar problem with ATT Uverse that will come to a head in the next few months.

I saw a comparison of lost revenues to Dish vs AMC and AMC will be getting killed vs Dish. Dish forecasts some lost subscribers but it is insignificant compared to lost advertising revenues to AMC.

Bottom line AMC will have to make concessions and they will be back on the Dish Channel lineup by October, in time for the TWD S3 premier. Meanwhile, I will need to find a way to get Breaking Bad or wait for reruns.

Why can't we all get along?

Edited by Major Tom, 01 July 2012 - 09:45 PM.

[xaviersaint]

I'm a member on another small board, we've all ready had a commitment of every one on DISH moving to DirecTV once their contract expires.


Also I wanted to share something about how this is affecting DISH. Let's just say that our board members are 2 for 2 on getting deals like this:

Quote

Dish stuck to their guns and dropped AMC, so I called them up to tell them what I thought of it all. Shane the CS rep recited his prepared speech on the matter like he'd been doing it all day, and I commended him for it before telling him to stop giving me canned speeches and start giving me compensation for cheating me out of a channel that I had specifically selected my programming package in order to receive.

He started off with an offer of $5 off my bill for three months. I told him to keep trying. He extended that to 6 months. I told him we weren't getting any closer to a deal. He offered a one-time rebate of $30. Turned him down. He offered me a free membership to Blockbuster's Netflix clone. He said that's all he could do. I told him it was time to go to DirecTV.

That's when he sends me to Olajide, the Abu Dhabian escalation rep. Olajide starts off with the same "AMC are very bad people and left us no choice" speech. I cut him off and tell him I heard that already and we're at the part where he has to convince me not to seek out a new service provider. He tries to recycle the offers I had already declined from Shane. He puts me on hold, presumably to take his beating for letting a customer get him to veer off script.

When Olajide returns, he has a bag of goodies to throw at me. I now have a free upgrade to an HD DVR, while my monthly bill does not change. He throws 6 months of free Showtime at me, which I happily accept as well. After all this, I tell him that the underlying matter that I called about is still unresolved: I still can't watch Walking Dead. He tries to go back to the Blockbuster offer, saying I can watch the older episodes on DVD. I tell him I want to see the new seasons. He informs me they are available on Amazon video, and I can watch them via a gaming console. So I lie to him and tell him I don't have a gaming console, and I don't appreciate having to buy a new device to watch the shows on. Back to hold I go.

When he returns, he has a generous offer: He'll sell me a Roku box for $79 which they'll add on to my bill. I reminded him that I just said I didn't want to have to buy new equipment just to watch a show. Back to hold. When he comes back, he has sweetened the deal. He'll throw the $30 one-time rebate back on my bill, and give me an Amazon GC worth $30 to buy the episodes when they are released on Amazon Video. I tell him to keep those and give me the Roku for free instead. back to hold.

He comes back and says they can give me the Roku for free if I extend my contract from 12 months to 24 months. I tell him if I do that, I'm gonna need the Amazon GC thrown back into the deal. He agrees.

I ask him to go back over everything I'm getting, and he runs down the entire grocery list. I accept his deal, not telling him that I watched Walking Dead via torrents anyway. I'm quite pleased to think that I not only ripped them off for tons of overcompensation, but that I completely skewered his contacts per hour quota.

Edited by xaviersaint, 08 July 2012 - 07:10 PM.

[brizzle815]

I just learn of this today about dish network droping amc due to breaking bad comming back on this weekend.  I really like dish but droping amc is a deal breaker for me becasue of breaking bad and twd.  2 favorite shows on right now.  i will be calling monday about switching to local cabel network

i havn't done any research but does amc allow you to watch there shows on there website?  or does netflix offer these shows.  i know i use to not have starz and every time spartcus came on the next day it was available on netflix.

I always thought that these two shows could go a bit further if one of the movie chanels hbo or showtime pick them up.  That would be cool

[brizzle815]

For any other dish customers.

I contacted dish about them dropping AMC.  

Dish offered to pay for Any shows on AMC threw Xbox 360 instant movies online.  I think its zune movie app.  So Dish credit my account for the breaking bad season ( I started watching yesterday).  Any other shows that are offered on AMC Dish will pick up the tab.  There were other ways to watch also I pad, lap top, or Ps3.