Dish to drop WLNS?

[Scott Greczkowski]

The following has just been posted to the WLNS website.

Dish Network Has Let TV 6 Viewers Down

Posted: Dec 10, 2008 10:28 AM

Dear DISH Subscriber:
DISH's contract with WLNS TV 6 originally expired on December 10, 2008 . WLNS TV offered to extend the contract in an attempt to reach an agreement with DISH. The extension was not accepted by DISH For the past several months our company has attempted to reach a new agreement with DISH. Unfortunately DISH has elected not to accept our proposal.

We know that it is important to keep you informed, and therefore, we want you to know the FACTS:

· DISH charges you a fee for WLNS TV6. We believe DISH should be willing to pay a small, but fair, portion of the fees you pay to DISH for the program content we provide to you.

· The fair compensation that we are asking for, as part of our contract with DISH, is about a penny per day, per subscriber. We believe that a penny per day per subscriber is a reasonable demand for our award winning news, sports and entertainment programming. It is considerably less than the amount paid by DISH to less popular satellite/cable networks.

· We will continue to work diligently in the hope that DISH will complete an agreement for carriage of WLNS TV6.

We regret the inconvenience that DISH may cause you.

Our programs include your favorite local news, weather, sports and entertainment programs including 6 News, The Doctors, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Price is Right, CBS Soaps, Dr. Phil, The Insider, CBS News, Entertainment Tonight, 2 and ½ Men, CSI, CBS Sports and many more .

You may continue to watch the great programs on WLNS TV6 by alternative means. Your choices include:
· Free over-the-air reception directly from the station
· DIRECTV
· the local cable system
· In some cases, the local telephone company.
We will keep you fully informed of the status of our negotiations with Dish Network.

 

[jdmacor]

Man, Michigan is not the place to live right now... jobs plummeting along with temperatures; no thanks. And the icing on the cake? Losing a local network on Dish...

Sure, we need to keep things in perspective, but that still sucks...

 

[GRExpert]

Grand Rapids also doesn't have CBS, although we have the SD version, just no HD. It is another example of Charlie looking out for his customers ... Think Lansing will get a discount on the $5 local fee now that CBS is gone???

 

[jayn_j]

Note that 'a penny a day' works out to $.30/month/subscriber. That's pretty high for a local channel.

 

[Voyager6]

We will see more and more of this as the local stations try and grab some gold from the satellite and cable companies for local retransmission rights.

 

[VinceT3]

dish doesn't believe in discounts.. they may charge you a fee for not having all your locals though?

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I still believe that local affiliates should NOT get a penny from Dish to broadcast their channels -- not as long as they are broadcasting over the air. $.30/month per sub is crazy.

 

[Dah-Henny]

I agree with you Rocky.

 

[dlsnyder]

You can't blame local stations for trying. With advertising revenue drying up and more and more people using satellite, cable, and especially DVRs, local stations are getting to be in a tough situation financially. A TV station license, especially in smaller markets, is no longer the license to print money that it once was.

After the digital switch next year how many people are even going to bother with broadcast TV alone anymore? That's gotta hurt the bottom line at your local broadcaster.

 

[JEFFinINDY]

Man, Michigan is not the place to live right now... jobs plummeting along with temperatures; no thanks. And the icing on the cake? Losing a local network on Dish...

Sure, we need to keep things in perspective, but that still sucks...

Don't forget about the Lions.

Well, on second thought....

 

[ekilgus]

Note that 'a penny a day' works out to $.30/month/subscriber. That's pretty high for a local channel.

I've always thought this retransmission structure is totally backwards. It seems that it is the stations that should be paying to have their signal retransmitted as it would reach potentially many more viewers allowing them to increase revenue from advertisers.

I wonder if there are any numbers showing how many viewers (for this and other stations like it) receive the signal from cable, satellite, OTA, etc.?

I think if many of these stations had to rely on only OTA for viewers they would probably have only a fraction of the audience they currently have. What would that do to their advertising revenue?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I've always thought this retransmission structure is totally backwards. It seems that it is the stations that should be paying to have their signal retransmitted as it would reach potentially many more viewers allowing them to increase revenue from advertisers.

Bingo, these stations should want to be on satellite, it is bringing them more viewers which in turn equals more revenue for them from their advertisers.

Its funny how many broadcasters signals can't reach the area they are supposed to serve.

 

[HDRoberts]

I still believe that local affiliates should NOT get a penny from Dish to broadcast their channels -- not as long as they are broadcasting over the air. $.30/month per sub is crazy.

Amen, Rocky. I can see wanting a few cents (might as well make some money if you can) but $0.30 is a ridiculous total. That's probably more than a lot of basic cable stations.

 

[dennispap]

In baton rouge, La. the abc affiliate has been off of dish for about a year. Now the nbc, fox and cw (same ownership) is threatening to pull out jan 1st if they dont get an increase from dish. They are asking for 2 cents per sub per day.
That would leave Baton rouge with only the cbs SD local
(no hd yet ).Well see what happens

 

[NMR_Man]

Lansing just got the NBC affiliate, channel 10, in HD. Now, channel 6 goes bye-bye. One step forward, two steps back... Luckily, 6 has the best OTA in my area.

 

[dishcomm]

Note that 'a penny a day' works out to $.30/month/subscriber. That's pretty high for a local channel.

yes it is..

 

[NMR_Man]

One more thing: D* TV is not a real option for 6 or any local because they don't carry the HD signal and it doesn't seem to be in the pipeline.

 

[mike123abc]

I believe the rumored price Dish does is 25 cents/sub/month for the big 4. Considering the costs of fiber and uplinks Dish/DIRECTV probably just break even on the locals, it is a loss leader to sell satellite service.

They have to hold the line somewhere, I am sure that the stations would love $5/sub/month...

 

[wetz73]

Fox played hardball here with E* a few years ago and got to the point where they went dark on E*. At that point, E* threatened to put up a Fox network from about 100 miles away and supposedly was ready to send out mailers to all of the local Fox network's advertisers that now X-number of E* subscribers were not receiving the local broadcast and should renegotiate their advertising fees accordingly. The local Fox was back up on E* the next day. So while it's fun to call Charlie the bad guy, especially on this board, E* does do a good job at keeping their costs low so they don't have to pass huge jumps on to subscribers. I have been with E* for 6 years and my bill has gone up less than it did with our local cable company in the 9 months prior to dumping those crooks!

 

[JEFFinINDY]

One of Indy metro's cable systems lost the local CBS station in a feud with the affiliate. Many, many people defected to satellite and Uverse in the month or so it was off the air, right at the start of the Colts season. In fact, the affiliate (a LIN station) was promoting Dish Network to those affected.

It's always hard to root for a cable company, especially when every other provider was able to come to terms with the same station.