While that is true, since this issue only applies to DISH, that's just a drop in the bucket. Dish has around 14 mil subscribers, whereas there are WAY more people with televisions. It's even worse since these are broadcast channels that are free when picked up via OTA. Nielson reports that 96.7% of US households has a television, so that's 96.7% of ~114,825,428 households. So that's about 111 mil households. Then take into account that many many many houses have more than 1 TV.
Chairman of NBC no fan of auto hop
- Thread starter CK SatGuy
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Which would be crippling for DISH, and not nearly as much for the broadcaster. This creates zero leverage for DISH.
Also true, but if Dish gets away with this, then more providers will be behind them doing the same thing. The broadcasters might "make an example" out of Dish if things aren't played right.
Add CBS to the growing list... (So now that's 3 out of the Big Four, I'm sure ABC is next...)
CBS' Leslie Moonves blasts Dish's Auto Hop ad-skipping feature - latimes.com
NEW YORK -- CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves blasted satellite broadcaster Dish Network's new Auto Hop feature that allows consumers to more easily block commercials from recorded programming.
"They can’t just take our signal and change it and put on a black spot where our commercials were," Moonves said during a Wednesday morning news conference to unveil the network's new fall schedule.
Moonves joined executives from Comcast Corp.'s NBC and News Corp.'s Fox in criticizing the Dish feature, which lets customers block commercials from recorded shows that have aired on broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox during the previous day.
Although consumers with digital video recorders can already fast-forward through commercials of recorded shows, Auto Hop takes it a step further. The screen goes black when a commercial break appears. A few seconds later, the program returns. The Auto Hop feature can't be used on a show during the same day that it's being broadcast, or on live event programming, such as a sporting event, that has been recorded.
Dish is heavily marketing the feature and even bought a full-page ad in Thursday's USA Today to promote it. The company also seems to have timed the hyping of the commercial-zapping device to coincide with the "upfronts," the week the broadcast networks are all announcing their fall schedules to advertisers.
CBS' Moonves suggested that if Dish continues to push the Auto Hop to customers, his network will respond by not making its programming available to Dish, which has over 14 million subscribers.
"How does Charlie Ergen expect me to produce 'CSI' without ads?" Moonves said, referring to the chairman of Dish Network Corp.
Further annoying the broadcasters is the fact that Dish is not offering the Auto Hop feature for cable channels. Moonves suggested that if Dish goes forward with selling the Auto Hop feature, it could risk losing access to CBS content down the road.
"There are obvious things that can be done and we’re looking at that," Moonves said.
Earlier in the week, Dish spokesman Bob Toevs said the satellite broadcaster "believes that consumers deserve a choice when it comes to television viewing, and Dish's Auto Hop feature is all about choice. Viewers have been skipping commercials since the advent of the remote control. We are simply making it easier."
While Moonves isn't thrilled about Dish's new gadget, he also was not worried that it would actually get off the ground.
"Too much is being made of it," Moonves said. "It's Charlie being Charlie."
CBS' Leslie Moonves blasts Dish's Auto Hop ad-skipping feature - latimes.com
NEW YORK -- CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves blasted satellite broadcaster Dish Network's new Auto Hop feature that allows consumers to more easily block commercials from recorded programming.
"They can’t just take our signal and change it and put on a black spot where our commercials were," Moonves said during a Wednesday morning news conference to unveil the network's new fall schedule.
Moonves joined executives from Comcast Corp.'s NBC and News Corp.'s Fox in criticizing the Dish feature, which lets customers block commercials from recorded shows that have aired on broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox during the previous day.
Although consumers with digital video recorders can already fast-forward through commercials of recorded shows, Auto Hop takes it a step further. The screen goes black when a commercial break appears. A few seconds later, the program returns. The Auto Hop feature can't be used on a show during the same day that it's being broadcast, or on live event programming, such as a sporting event, that has been recorded.
Dish is heavily marketing the feature and even bought a full-page ad in Thursday's USA Today to promote it. The company also seems to have timed the hyping of the commercial-zapping device to coincide with the "upfronts," the week the broadcast networks are all announcing their fall schedules to advertisers.
CBS' Moonves suggested that if Dish continues to push the Auto Hop to customers, his network will respond by not making its programming available to Dish, which has over 14 million subscribers.
"How does Charlie Ergen expect me to produce 'CSI' without ads?" Moonves said, referring to the chairman of Dish Network Corp.
Further annoying the broadcasters is the fact that Dish is not offering the Auto Hop feature for cable channels. Moonves suggested that if Dish goes forward with selling the Auto Hop feature, it could risk losing access to CBS content down the road.
"There are obvious things that can be done and we’re looking at that," Moonves said.
Earlier in the week, Dish spokesman Bob Toevs said the satellite broadcaster "believes that consumers deserve a choice when it comes to television viewing, and Dish's Auto Hop feature is all about choice. Viewers have been skipping commercials since the advent of the remote control. We are simply making it easier."
While Moonves isn't thrilled about Dish's new gadget, he also was not worried that it would actually get off the ground.
"Too much is being made of it," Moonves said. "It's Charlie being Charlie."
Nobody with Hopper can (at the moment
.) Well at least through the receiver anyway... I do miss the integrated OTA my 722Ks had...
You're kidding, right? You do realize that they would prefer to have as many viewers as possible, and would prefer to make a deal than lose viewers.
Not necessarily, see my previous posts. If the CPs have a strong opinion on this (and it certainly seems that they do) they might even consider it worth the loss. As I said, see my previous posts in this thread.
Only time will tell the real story though... I actually hope that the naysayers here are right. I just don't think that the CPs are going to be that flexible.
At this point they are loosing the revenue anyhow so to them it doesn't matter. I say Bravo to the execs. I hope they pull all of the channels down! Charlie doesn't listen to customers anyhow and all he does is play hardball with the providers. Let's see how dish likes it when the shoe is on the other foot!
K9SAT said:
Yep, you're right Bob, right now, not a single Dish customer is watching any of these ads because they ALL have Hoppers and are ALL using Autohop.
If they did that DISH might end up owning a few TV networks. There is something called contracts that the network must honor. Not to mention certain must carry laws. DISH is not in violation of any contract nor are they violating any of the copyrights because the programs are stored 100% in tact with the commercials.
Networks might not like it (and since you work for a network I could see why you don't like it) but from a legal standpoint it appears 100% legal.
Hell I have been automatically been auto skipping commercials from the networks for years on my Windows Media PC. Maybe we should protest that Microsoft stop selling Windows too.
If they did that DISH might end up owning a few TV networks. There is something called contracts that the network must honor. Not to mention certain must carry laws. DISH is not in violation of any contract nor are they violating any of the copyrights because the programs are stored 100% in tact with the commercials.
Networks might not like it (and since you work for a network I could see why you don't like it) but from a legal standpoint it appears 100% legal.
Hell I have been automatically been auto skipping commercials from the networks for years on my Windows Media PC. Maybe we should protest that Microsoft stop selling Windows too.
Actually Scott, there are clauses that protect the networks in the event of something like this happens.... Also must carry only applies when a station requests that status and that has nothing to do if anyone pulls their cable networks. The content providers have that option to pull their channels anytime they want. It's their property! Also there are FCC regulations concerning MVPD delivery that the FCC might have to look into as this is also regulated when it comes to MVPD. Scott are you an expert on dish's contracts now? Dish can say they are not in violation, and tell you that, but they really could be! Dish will tell anyone anything just to appease them. After all we were suppose to have full HDRSN's over two years ago when Charlie was going to launch them in June of 10`
While yes, you have been skipping commercials, what the networks don't like is the fact that the unit does it for you. In the past the customer had to do it themselves. Its going to come down to who has the most money wins the lawsuit, and I see the networks pooling on this one against dish. I just think its a matter of time as the networks are probably strategizing right now on how they want to approach this legally.
So Bob,
Please show your clauses then or are you just talking crap? And yes I know a LOT more about DISH contracts then you EVER will.
Please show your clauses then or are you just talking crap? And yes I know a LOT more about DISH contracts then you EVER will.
nope. If a station gets pulled that doesnt give you a right to get a distant station. Also remember Dish and AAD are two different companies
On top of that, they wouldn't be collecting any fees for being carried on Dish. There is no way that autohop puts Dish in a weaker position come contract negotiation time.
Not all of us has had to do it ourselves. As Scott pointed out, media PCs have done this for quite a while now. Perhaps the network chiefs didn't really care about that because they figured we were too small of a number to warrant concern. But autohop has been around on our HTPCs.
This attitude that the CPs have about "we own it, and the viewer ain't got crap for rights" is starting to wear thin on their customers. A number of viewers could end up just giving them the middle finger and moving on. If they're not careful, they could end up losing more eyeballs for their commercials by fighting autohop than what autohop its self would take away.
Cheers
One thing is for sure and that its the networks who are giving DISH a ton of free advertising by talking about this great new Hopper feature.
What difference is watching it commercial free the next day on my DISH DVR or the next day Commercial Free on the networks own website? (or if it has any commercials it is one per break and is usualy and ad that was NOT shown on the broadcast of that program.
What difference is watching it commercial free the next day on my DISH DVR or the next day Commercial Free on the networks own website? (or if it has any commercials it is one per break and is usualy and ad that was NOT shown on the broadcast of that program.
Everything is "opinion" or "interpretation" at this point. Dish's lawyers feel it's okay, the networks do not. There WILL be a lawsuit to make the final decision unless they can work something out in the meantime.
Given the tiny, tiny number of users who do this, they don't care !Hell I have been automatically been auto skipping commercials from the networks for years on my Windows Media PC. Maybe we should protest that Microsoft stop selling Windows too.
The real reason they are upset is that they know there is a fairly large percentage of people that do not skip commercials even though they can. Essentially a lot of people are doing other things when watching TV and forget about the commercial skip. Having it be automatic will make a big difference. I know a lot of times I am on the computer and realize halfway through the commercial break that commercials are playing. Of course that indicates that the programming is not really that compelling and I am getting so distracted that I do not even notice when they go to commercials.
