CBS Seeks to Unwind Retrans Agreement With Dish Network
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I understand the thought that even if Dish wins, at negotiation time they could lose. I think that is easier said then done however. Based on current negotiations where locals were holding Dish (and others) hostage, and the speediness of most of the disputes, I doubt Dish simply caved, I would say the local could not afford to lose those viewers for long. Money is tight for them, especially the news side, which is their real selling point and where most of their money goes. I'm not saying Dish has them over a barrel, but neither do I think they have a clear advantage over Dish. If Direct TV would bring forth their version of this as is reported by Scott to exist, that may actually give the advantage to Dish and Direct. In fact that's the crux of the opposition - that others will do it too.
People, CBS owns the content. It's their right to say how their content is delivered and how you can use it. They have the right to say you may only view it once during its broadcast and thats it, and how you may view it. Some people might not like this but unless you have 1 billion plus to create your own network, then you just have to deal with it. People whom create the content sells it to the networks. The rights or "property" is sold to the networks and they now own the "property" the networks now can do what they want and stipulate what they want with that property such as allowing retransmission over dish. You can think of this as having a rental property that dish rents programming or property from the providers for distribution to you. If CBS feels that their property has been altered in its presentation to you, then they have the right to sue. In this case the networks feel that the presentation has been altered by dish's allowance of automation of skipping commercials. In the past, it wasn't a big deal as the end user did the alteration and it was the end users choice if they wanted to see or have a flash of a commercial that could lead to the user rewinding to see the commercial. With Auto hop, its not like that, majority of the spots are skipped. CBS feels that it isn't dish's business to automate a choice that the customer can make for themselves, and it isn't dish's business to change the presentation of its programming as originally aired through automation. Like it or not, CBS has the right to say yes or no.
Now if dish did or didnt mention PTAT and Auto Hop that doesn't matter as dish clearly did not make clear what it would do to their presentation. Remember that CBS throws in upcoming program spots during commercials to encourage viewing of up and coming tv series and programming. Auto Hop cuts that out. Finally, I love how the majority of you all speculate without knowing how the TV industry works. TV Programs are like mortgages. You just cant remodel the property without the consent of the owner (IE the networks) When you think of it that way, CBS's side clearly makes sense and dish's side becomes very fuzzy. Also unlike VOOM, CBS has more money in lobbyists and Lawyers that they could probably bring down Dish and Charlie. After all I hear CBS is now investing in wireless spectrum in under the table deals. (hearsay) Things that make you go hummmm.... Has Charlie pissed off the wrong person, and is Leslie that pissed that he would put his hand in the honey pot to keep charlie from gaining an advantage. My 8 ball says, yes.
Finally, Remeber that 90 percent of the content is owned by CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. If they all collectively put their heads together and the courts find that not disclosing Auto Hop (which is separate from Prime time anytime) is a legal reason to terminate the contracts immediately That could give all of the network's a reason to immediately pull all of their programming at once as they own the property's. If that happens, the only thing on dish will be home shopping network, Current TV and infomercial city. Imagine Dish without, Nick, MTV, ESPN, Nat Geo, FX, ect. The exodus would be huge. And the way that programming is contracted, that could really happen. After all there have been crazier things in court to happen... If the glove fits!
Now if dish did or didnt mention PTAT and Auto Hop that doesn't matter as dish clearly did not make clear what it would do to their presentation. Remember that CBS throws in upcoming program spots during commercials to encourage viewing of up and coming tv series and programming. Auto Hop cuts that out. Finally, I love how the majority of you all speculate without knowing how the TV industry works. TV Programs are like mortgages. You just cant remodel the property without the consent of the owner (IE the networks) When you think of it that way, CBS's side clearly makes sense and dish's side becomes very fuzzy. Also unlike VOOM, CBS has more money in lobbyists and Lawyers that they could probably bring down Dish and Charlie. After all I hear CBS is now investing in wireless spectrum in under the table deals. (hearsay) Things that make you go hummmm.... Has Charlie pissed off the wrong person, and is Leslie that pissed that he would put his hand in the honey pot to keep charlie from gaining an advantage. My 8 ball says, yes.
Finally, Remeber that 90 percent of the content is owned by CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. If they all collectively put their heads together and the courts find that not disclosing Auto Hop (which is separate from Prime time anytime) is a legal reason to terminate the contracts immediately That could give all of the network's a reason to immediately pull all of their programming at once as they own the property's. If that happens, the only thing on dish will be home shopping network, Current TV and infomercial city. Imagine Dish without, Nick, MTV, ESPN, Nat Geo, FX, ect. The exodus would be huge. And the way that programming is contracted, that could really happen. After all there have been crazier things in court to happen... If the glove fits!
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In the long run the networks will win this one. Dish's autohop may be ruled legal, but without any content to autohop over it will be a useless technology. Eventually Dish will have to negotiate retransmission agreements, then the networks will win just like they always eventually win the price hikes.
I could even see the networks compensating local affiliates for lost retransmission earnings (by forgiving their fees to the network) if the agree not to renew with Dish unless Dish drops autohop.
I could even see the networks compensating local affiliates for lost retransmission earnings (by forgiving their fees to the network) if the agree not to renew with Dish unless Dish drops autohop.
I could see this happening too. In the end dish's autohop is a great thing for the consumer that will lead to unintended consequences for all. After this whole thing shakes out, Charlie could be known as the guy who killed the TV industry.
1. I don't know the TV industry from an insider perspective, I DO know business from an insider perspective. The networks can fight this and will. But more from a legal standpoint in my opinion. If they can win there, that's where they want to fight this. Withholding programming has a lot of ramifications, and not something they will readily do. (Thus my previous post) Those non O&O's are a private business. It will be a question of can they overcome the feature in other ways rather than put businesses at risk. I also can't say all the networks would take the withholding approach either. Lets see if NBC and CBS do it, if the other two just as an example decide to let their programming be seen and get higher ratings. Plus, would that be collusion if all of them do it? Not an easy road to go down.
2. You are mixing two things. What is legal and what the networks want. Obviously if it's found to not be legal that eventually could end that feature. However the Networks not wanting it used is a very different issue. If it's not illegal, and say only one other provider, Direct TV starts using something similar, are the networks prepared to drop all their programming from some 30 million or more subscribers, which is, oh I don't know some 80 million people or so?
3. Almost everything you said has been said before - by the Networks or the Movie industry- to stop VHS recording, to stop DVR's, to stop fast forwarding.
Just to be clear, this could be a very hard time for Dish, but it's not one sided. There are other solutions besides refusing to allow Dish and potentially other carriers to carry the programming.
2. You are mixing two things. What is legal and what the networks want. Obviously if it's found to not be legal that eventually could end that feature. However the Networks not wanting it used is a very different issue. If it's not illegal, and say only one other provider, Direct TV starts using something similar, are the networks prepared to drop all their programming from some 30 million or more subscribers, which is, oh I don't know some 80 million people or so?
3. Almost everything you said has been said before - by the Networks or the Movie industry- to stop VHS recording, to stop DVR's, to stop fast forwarding.
Just to be clear, this could be a very hard time for Dish, but it's not one sided. There are other solutions besides refusing to allow Dish and potentially other carriers to carry the programming.
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This is very true that there are other channels and shows to watch, but sometimes people get very engrossed in a show, that not seeing what happens next and knowing that there is more to the story is like an ice pick to the brain. I say this because I have gotten engrossed into shows before and would be pieved if I couldn't watch the new episodes because of a stupid dispute over one company trying to ad value to me as a customer, and the other company doesn't like it. Granted, I understand and agree that CBS owns the content, they have the right to say weather it's in HD, SD of even if they only wanted it sent as a 100x100 stream. They have to make money and they have a business model to follow. Never the less, CBS's main competition is not the other companies like it use to be. Their competition is piracy. Take AMC for example. I wasn't a Dish subscriber at the time, but I love the Walking Dead. So, because Dish and AMC had a dispute, if I was a Dish subscriber at the time I wouldn't have been able to watch it. AMC does good to put seasons on Netflix fairly quick, but it's only after the season is over. Yes, I could be a good person and wait till it's on Netflix, but I really want to know what happened in last nights episode, and I know all the people at work are going to be talking about it tomorrow. I don't want it spoiled. I also know how to search and use torrents. Now, I would go to AMC's website and watch the show over the internet and be perfectly happy watching the commercials, but either they don't put it up at all or they put it up a day or so later. Since that is the case that I can't watch it for various reasons in a legal way, that leaves me only two options, don't watch it, or pirate it. If people have the know how, most will pirate it, because the show is like a good book, you don't want to put it down.
The way to limit the loss to your competition, piracy, is you make it easier to access and free to do what you want with it. People will buy it. The people that are still going to pirate the material never had the intention of buying it in the first place. Here's another perfect example of piracy, and I will admit that I have done this. Go and buy a blu-ray movie. Some come with a digital download. One came with an iTunes download and a Vudu download. The iTunes works someone ok with me as I have two apple TV's, iPads and iPhones, but I also have an xbox 360. well that movie won't play thru it, so I have to swap back to Apple TV to watch it. Now, bought another blu-ray, and it only came with an ultraviolet DDL, so that will work on the xbox, but not the apple tv. Now, times that by the 300+ movie collection I have, and now I forget where movie A is. So, I practice my fair use under the DMCA and rip the movie into a un-copy protected format that will play everywhere I want, and if I can't find a program to break the copy protection on the blu-ray, I will just download a copy off the torrents. I already bought the movie.
Same thing goes with some movies. Some movies I want to see it, but I don't want to go to the theater, and I don't want to pay $25 to buy it, because I might not like it. So I will rent it first, and if I do like it I will buy it. But now, they are making Redbox and other rental places wait 30+ days before it's available to rent after the release on disk. I understand their thinking that this will drive more sales of the content because people won't just rent it once and not again, but that doesn't work because their competition is piracy.
How long could Dish hold up if they had to drop local channels? Not to mention these guys also control a vast array of cable channels. The networks would have a problem if Dish/DIRECTV and cable simultaneously skipped commercials. But, we know as in every retransmission dispute that the contracts would be staggered and they would have to be the only one without the network during the negotiation.
A somewhat moot point, but in your AMC/immediacy example, you forgot or do not know that AMC shows are available the next morning on Amazon. Piracy not required. That is why Dish was giving many subs Rokus and credits for the cost.
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Unless I'm missing something,or the rule about negotiating in good faith has been dropped,then I really don't see how any of the networks will be able to just command the price they want.Just because Dish has autohop,should make no difference unless,they lose the legal battle.What the networks charge cable cos. and dtv should still be in line with what they can charge dish.
Those numbers are confidential though. How does E* know what D* pays or TW or Comcast pay?
There are 2 sides to that coin. How long can the cable channels go without carriage, if they pulled themselves off. Viacom was losing a lot of money while their 20 or so channels were off of Directv last year. They can b*tch and moan all they want in court and to the media, but they won't willingly pull their programming for very long.
CBS will have a hard time claiming piracy for the Network shows, when they put the episodes up the next day on their own website and NBC, ABC, Fox and CW have episodes up on their own websites or Hulu the next day.
It's simple... They own the programming. They can ask what they want for it. They own a recipe to a cheeseburger (programming) and they can charge what ever they feel the value is for it. In the past there were other cheeseburger joint's (CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox) that owned different but simular cheeseburger recipes that would keep prices down due to competition But because the cheeseburger reseller (Dish) who sells all flavors of cheeseburgers from all of the cheeseburger manufacture's (networks) decided that you dont need cheese on your cheeseburger and changed it to a hamburger via automation. By eliminating the cheese the cheeseburger joints decided to pull sue and ask for their contracts to be voided. They argued that removing the cheese (commercials) via automation (dish asked you do you want cheese or not and removed it for you) and doing it on behalf of the consumer that it is foul play. They argue that the cheese should be removed by the costumer manually, and not by the reseller as it is the networks cheese until the end user eats it or throws it away. That's kind of where we are at now. It's up to the courts to decide who removes the cheese. I side with CBS on this one as it should be up to the consumer to remove the cheese via remote, and any automation done via the IRD, should be hands off unless its user presses a button to fast forward or rewind. The networks should have the right to force you to watch commercials. That's how they make money on their content that they own. Also advertisers pay the networks to display their property as apart of CBS's presentation. IF CBS wants you to see it they have the right to make you see it. IF you dont like that then you can simply change the channel.
They can as the copy of that program was not from an approve outlet for their property and you didnt pay for it. The networks makes money from HULU or their own websites. It's their property, so if they want you to see it, it is in their own right to put it where they want. They legally could go after you and have done so in the past!
They are confidential to the public.If a provider questions a broadcasters rates they will have to show them to someone,whether it be the fcc,lawyers,etc.
No, they do not. You are wrong. The Supreme Court has held that time-shifting with a VCR qualified as fair use, which courts have upheld in more recent cases to include DVR's.
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