A week ago Kati and I were watching a Braves game on T.V. when a commercial aired asking us to go to GetWhatIPaidFor.com to find out why we might be losing our FOX Sports channels, FX, and the History channel. Well the day has come, as of today October 1st, 2010 FOX Sports has cut the cord from Dish Network leaving my wife and I without the ability to watch the last 3 games of the preseason.
What are our alternatives? We cannot get over-the-air signal, there are no cable providers, and it’s much too late to order DirecTV. These renegotiation happen all the time (FOX v. TimeWarner, Hallmark v. AT&T, Versus v. DirecTV) and customers are the ones who suffer. Now, I am not so naive to believe that DISH Network is wholly pure in these negotiations nor is FOX. I know neither one of them care about Sports — they care about money.
DISH Network claims that they’ll have to charge their customers more money if they give in to FOX’s demands. FOX claims that they only want what they deserve for the content they are delivering (according to industry standard). But where is the transparency? We get the “facts” from both sides… but no hard numbers, not real negotiation information, why?
DISH claims that FOX wants over 50% more per subscriber. You may be thinking, “50%! That is insane!” but 50% of what? 50% of 1.00$ is 1.50$… 50% of 2.00$ is 3.00$. DISH Network is making money hand over fist how much would 1.00$ per subscriber be? My bundled bill fluctuates a few dollars every month, I wouldn’t notice an extra 50 cents.
FOX claims that ESPN gets 3.00$ – 4.00$ per subscribe but why doesn’t FOX disclose what they are asking for? Of course, DISH claims that FOX’s demands are far above the industry norms but how are the industry norms being defined? Of course, they probably have some non-disclosure agreements that prevents them from disclosing their pricing to the public. Unfortunately, I find this idea even more disconcerting.
I say all this to make one point. You, DISH and FOX, both have customers who want to consume your media. You are both making a profit and will probably continue to make a profit. However, when you put your consumers into a position where they are unable to consume your media easily and legally, they will find a way to do it. They will find someone who is streaming their “game” on Justin.TV or some Peer-to-Peer network. They will jump ship and subscribe to a new service provider (until this happens again). Your actions will force the hands of thousands of sports fan to make choices that they need not make. DISH and FOX, you both have a responsibility to your customers — if your customers are not happy, then they will leave and they will remember.
Sports Fans, if you want more information about what is happening between FOX and DISH Network, then check out DISH’s FOX Refused site and FOX’s GetWhatIPaidFor site. Also, DISH has added 20 additional Sports channels to try to offset the lack of sport broadcasting until this FOX issue is resolved. Frankly, I do not recommend hassling either company — they are both at fault in my eyes.
does this mean we could lose our local FOX channel as well? That seems to be the implication on the getwhatipaidfor.com website.
That seems like a definite possibility (coming November 1st)
Lew
THANK YOU for voicing what I’ve been wondering about – what these actual numbers even mean. Us viewers are being used like chess pieces, and I particularly don’t like it.
For me, it’s all boiling down to this: Who’s asking for more money. And in this horrible economy, that makes FOX the enemy.
All I care about is FX and Sunny in Philadelphia. I would be willing to pay an extra dollar on my bill for that – but without any real numbers to back up FOX, it just boils down to them being greed jerks.
Dish Network said loosing the local channels isn’t going to happen. I know, they could just be lying to keep me onboard – but FOX’s little scare-tactic campaign makes me think otherwise.
Yeah, I don’t trust Dish or FOX… their lack of transparency makes me think they’re both being greedy.
By the way, if you read what Dish says about the local channels, they are talking in present-tense. They’re not saying “You will not lose the local channels” they say, “You are not losing the local channels”. That was immediately suspicious to me.
Thanks for commenting.
Lew
I have done as much research as I could to figure out who the bad guy is in this ordeal. My findings show that FOX pulled their stations from Dish Network because Dish Network would not agree to a new contract price. I was successful in finding a source that works for Dish Network, and was told Fox is Demanding around $5.50 per subscriber to view FX and Fox Sports networks. I have yet been unsuccessful in contacting Fox and getting verification of the price.
Fox continues to say the price is a “reasonable offer”. I then asked Fox for a dollar price, and was told that due to contract negotiations, the public would not be given a dollar amount. I ended my conversation with, “I support your price as long as it is fair and reasonable”. The only solution is to sit back and watch the rich, get richer.
Hey Joe,
Thanks for the information… I wish we could verify it. FOX claims that “ESPN receives $4-5 per subscriber and TNT gets $1 per subscriber.” If FOX is asking for 5.50$ than that is probably a little absurd. That basically means they were getting around 3.60$ per subscriber.
Lew
Well said. The two of these companies are nothing, but a bunch of greedy leeches who don’t give a darn about the people. All they care about is the $$$$$$.
do the math,
Recent dish network commercials say they have 14 million subscribers, and 9000 operators to handle problems.
9000 to handle problems?What kind of problems do they have that requirwes 9000 operators?
Next, tackle that 14 kmillion customers issue.
The minimum charge for dish is 29.95 (we’ll say 30 bucks to round it off)
14M x 30(per month) = 420 million per month or 5.04 billion per year
tale 9000 operators makig …say 3000.00 per month (to sit on their butt and answer the phone), that’s 340 million per year, and we are barely into the 5 billion.
Say the owners get, oh 10 million per year to run the pace, we are STILL not into the 5 billion yet. You can have 10 guys making that much and are still barely into the 5 billion, yet. say knock it down to 4 BILLION profit per year. i It only cost about 300-500 milloin or less to launch that satellite, which THEY did not do ,anyway. And the owner has to come along and say FTA’ers are COSTING them momney.
Ha ha ha. Only the world of the stupid would believe that.
Now, go and add those DTV subscribers into the icture (dish and DTV are owned by the same people.) and now you are into , maybe 7 billion per year in profit, and Dish network filed SEC earnings of 14.4 billion in 2009.
ALL of dish network stocks are held by large block companies (companies that hold large blocks of stock)Goldman Sachs having the largest holdings in Dish .
They also get to “write off” those that it thinks it has lost due to “pirating” or FTA, so, it really doesn’t loose any money and can, in fact, make up any number it wants to as FTA “rip offs” , which it probably does.
So, how do they get off, telling the american oublic they are “losing money”?
Easy, THEY LIE!!!
I would dearly love to be the IRS agent who goes over their books, every year. And do you think he isn’t paid off?
Think again….they have way too much money.
I think Dish is tresspassing on my property by broadcasting over MY airspace, without MY permission.
They say FTA is illegal. Well, then dumbass, is listening to FM stealing? If I build an am or fm or UHF of VHF receiver stealing?
Hell no. How do you think we won WW II? By intercepting german broadcasts and decyphering them. What if they don;t allow this? They stifle american inginuity, some jerk comes in, uses broadcast radio to communicate with the extremists, and because we can;t trap and decypher those communications, they come in and kick our butt.
Now, mr smart ass dish owner, what do you do then?
Say Heil Hitler?
I think they are idiots.
Rupert Murdock owns Fox and Direct TV.