Well the good thing that will probably come out of this now is more HD, we should now get the Disney channels back in HD. I suspect they will come back as soon as the ESPN deal is done.
DISH loses Appeal in DISNEY HD Fight
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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Dish has to negotiate now that the ESPN contract is coming up for renewal. They might be able to dodge the Disney Channel HD for an extended time, but when Disney puts ESPN on the line they will have to come up with a deal...
So now DISH DOES have to pay for both hd and sd channels of Disney/Abc family ? IF this makes my bills go up to much higher I will have to reconsider pay tv too. I just can't see paying much more for the few shows I watch on those few channels I do watch. THis could be what starts the churn train a chugging and the end of DISH as we know it.
Since it is not ESPN it is probably only a few cents (i.e. under $1) per channel for the HD. Considering the $56 million is over years of programming it is probably pretty small per month difference.
and then Viacom, ComcastNBC, Discovery, Scripps, the A&E Nets that Disney now owns half of, Time Warner, CBS, Fox all want to start getting paid for both versions broadcast and those pennies turn into lots of dollars. Never underestimate the greed of the media conglomerates.
IF it sets the standard that all tv channel companies will follow-pay for both SD and HD feeds of all channels- it will force the price to more than double that we all pay for proramming. This will kill pay tv as it exists today if so.
While Disney may have filed the suit originally over a demand of "double payments" this suit became all about leverage pretty soon after. I don't think Dish is going to have to pay a penny of that award. It is chump change to both Dish and Disney. Disney would rather have Dish pay a little more for all the ESPN's and Disney's and offer in HD the channels Dish never offered in HD or take an additional ESPN/Disney channel that Dish never provided, or even have Dish agree to provide a FUTURE ESPN/Disney channel as part of the overall agreement. This is all about leverage and Disney would rather have the long term commitments from Dish that will net Disney far more money than a lousy $56 million. Disney and Dish are smart companies, they know it's better off to come to some agreement over carriage. But the appeal is all about business and due diligence. Dish certainly doesn't want interruption of ESPN, but Disney doesn't want to be the Viacom of DirecTV's last disagreement. Then again, I suppose cheap Disney could ask Dish for at least a million or two of the $56 million judgement 
.
.It's not setting any standard or precedent. Dish left a hole in the contract that allowed it. Any new contract will address it specifically, and I can't see any provider willing to pay double.
Dish probably could have avoided the whole problem by working with Disney rather than trying to exploit a "loophole" they thought they found. Probably would have cost them a lot less just in legal fees and countless hours wasted by Dish employees working on this case.
Why would Disney choose to work with Dish when they had a contract that guaranteed more money?
But anyway, this double charging business should be done. Dish will not agree to it again, and given the differing state HD programming is than it was 7+ years ago when the last deal was negotiated, even Disney has to realize they can't get away with it anymore.
Maybe they will charge extra for:
- color upgrade from black and white
- 2-channel stereo upgrade from mono
- Dolby Surround upgrade from 2-channel stereo
- Dolby Pro-Logic Surround upgrade from Dolby Surround
- Dolby 5.1 upgrade from Dolby Pro-Logic Surround
- Dolby 7.1 upgrade from Dolby 5.1
- etc
- etc
I think Disney and the rest of the programming people are trying to charge way to much. There is no reason why an average cable TV bill should be $100. I understand that the equipment costs more than before. But really they are charging more so they can pay more for reporters. And also pay more for sports rights. Espn to me is way overpriced. Eventually everyone should just say enough and not watch. That would drop the price. Disney is making enough just from theme parks alone. They don't need to get any bigger.
HD is becoming the norm. Eventually SD will be no more. Perhaps they know this and just trying to milk it for what they can knowing this may be their last chance to do so. Next time when negotiations happen after this deal gets done it will most likely be HD only.
I've been saying this for a while but Dish needs to come out with a smaller package again. Go back to the days when they had the top 60. People do not need over 120 channels as their base package. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice package but you could get rid of half those channels and take $20 of the price. Could you imagine having the top 60 channels for $30?
I thought it was the other way around. Disney found a loophole in the contract and exploited it to get extra money from Dish, and Dish fought it.
I wonder of Dish would even be allowed by the providers to do so. Their contracts likely call for inclusion in Dish's lowest package. Some of the fluff is likely also part of the carriage package for some of the popular T60.
They'd have to spend the $$$ to replace all the SD receivers, though.
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