Lifetime Gets Backup in EchoStar Spat

I would guess that the actual increases (asked) for Lifetime and LMC are probably fairly much inline with the increase that other providers are getting for their channels. The hitch is the forcing of an additional channel for which there is no demand, with a separate carriage fee.

Unlike the other channels which are pretty much controlled by 4 major mega-corps, Lifetime doesn't have the leverage to force this kind of bundling down a cable or sat company's throat.

If Viacom, NBC/Universal, AOL, etc. demanded carriage of LRW or the Puppy Channel for that matter, Charlie would be asking what channel number they wanted. Lifetime, on the other hand, didn't have that kind of clout - and with the loss of the Hearst local station support - they now have even less.
 
How is Designing Women and Will and Grace "crucial life-saving information for women"? Getting a little desperate are we Lifetime?
 
"Lifetime has not explained why replacement of their programming with the Women’s Entertainment Channel is somehow contrary to the interests of women and we hope you would agree it reflects our sensitivity to the issue.

We also asked Lifetime to provide us with any public service announcements or other important information previously carried on Lifetime, so that we could broadcast that important material to our customers at our expense. Lifetime has completely ignored that offer as well."

come on charlie. don't you know psas cost money?

oh, wait, no they don't...
 
My wife and I haven't watched a single Lifetime show in years so this doesn't affect us one lick, but I like the offer to open up details of the demands to the public.

He should do the same for YES and any other channel where greed by the programmers is the sole reason that the channel can't be viewed on E*...
 
It looks like Lifetime is not making as much additional money as they thought they would since they lost their carriage on Dish Network. If they lose 15% of their profits then they would have to charge the others more just to make as much as they would if they were carried on Dish Network. They would still not make up for all the losses because of the loss in advertisement revenue.
 
If the gals are in such a tizzy on this then let them offer to have Charlie make ait a seperate add-on for say $1 or two a month for the channels let;s see how many are willing to cought up the $$, while not alot why shoudl I pay more for channels I don;t want. The ultimate answer is a la carte programming. Give me say some real small basic pachages then allow me to pick from tiered channels.

Say somthing like $39 a mont gets you these basis 20 channels which includes a 500 point (or use real $$ numbers) credit toward addiotnal channels, then they can tier the channles or bundles with a value and we can select them. Hell this is not rocket science, the programmers are the ones that don't want this, see how many channels we really buy then, I watch maybe 20-30 channels of my AT120 and of that less than half regularly. I could get away with AT60 if I coudl throw in say FX and 2 or 3 other channels.
 
While I think it's a mistake for advocacy groups to get involved and I find the message disingenuous at best I don't see the "Men Bad" message either (with the exception of a lot of the programming Lifetime Networks run in general).

And I personally think it isn't a good network. I don't like the "empowerment via victimization" theme(s) I saw the few times I watched it. Wouldn't have even known it was gone on E* if not for the internet. If they really were striving to bring women's issues to light, instead of "Golden Girls" or movies like "Mother May I Sleep With Danger", they'd take camera crews into women and family shelters and show Real Life Battered Women and Children. Or follow someone who is dealing with (and quite possibly dying of) breast or ovarian cancer. These things probably would not rate as well though because besides not wanting to be Real Life Depressing the reality of these situations don't fit well into a tidy 60-90 minutes with commercial breaks and there is no dramatic soundtrack or Tori Spelling. And to make it fair open it to include men's issues. While statistically women tend to be less abusive physically, it does happen.

Anyway- to me it's just another network in just another contract dispute.

Edit- quick question/observation though, if it were Spike TV or ESPN would the terms "tizzy" "spat" "PMS'ing" and other gender stereotypes be used in threads discussing the issue? Just curious.
 
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Great post DeeAnn!

Spike TV promoted themselves as a "mens channel" and I could care less about it because (like Lifetime) they don't promote men's issues.

Regardless of the issue, whether it be politics or satellite channels, the issues are almost always economics at the root. I would guess that the reasons these groups put themselves in support of Lifetime has to do more with money than actual belief in the network.

But, credibility in today's world doesn't mean much anymore, unfortunately. It's all about advancing agendas....
 
deeann said:
Edit- quick question/observation though, if it were Spike TV or ESPN would the terms "tizzy" "spat" "PMS'ing" and other gender stereotypes be used in threads discussing the issue? Just curious.

If Spike issued a release saying that Comcast (or whoever) hates men and men's issues because they didn't carry the channel - I'd hope you'd see the same push-back to those ridiculous claims. Although, I doubt PMS'ing would be used. ;)

The real issue here is forced bundling and ESPN is the absolute worst offender. If somebody dumped them, I'd be praising them with as loud a voice as possible. But it's doubtful anyone has the balls to do it. (shameless man reference for deeann's benefit)
 
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Thanks Tom!

CP, actually- (keeping in mind I could be seeing it differently through gender bias of my own) to me I think the slant is more of a "E* no likey Women" than "Men no likey women" on the (horribly written) statement and I'm totally with ya on the forced bundling issue even as shameless as you may be... :D
 
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With some of the content that Lifetime has according to some of the posts, maybe we are better off without Liftetime. But then I would have to say that about a lot of the other channels as well.
 
Purogamer said:
But let's get something straight. Lifetime has posted numbers, Dish hasn't. They aren't under contract any longer, so Dish has no reason not to post numbers...
Lifetime is on the offensive and it's showing...

Puro, is this what you are referring to?

Fuzzy Math." Let's be clear: your repeated statements that we demanded a 76% increase for Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network are simply false. In fact, even though Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network are the top women's networks, we sought a very modest increase of 4 cents per month per customer, with further increases — still totaling far less than 76% — spread over several years. We believe the resulting rate still would amount to much less than what DISH pays for networks that are far less popular than Lifetime.

I've been looking for numbers posted by Lifetime and these are the only ones I could find. This 4 cents per month per customer with "further increases" spread over several years could very well be 76%. Although it is impossible to tell, yet once again what the real number is as we do not know what further increases means or how many years.
 
We are not talking a one time 4 cent increase here, we are talking an ongoing 4 cent increase.

Lets say that you like that coffee every morning. You pay $1.50 cents for a big container of it. They raise it 4 cents a month on you. By the end of this year it is up to $1.98. By the end of next year it is up to $2.46 and by the end of 2008 it ends up being $2.94. That is a heck of an increase if you ask me. That better be one heck of a container of Joe or maybe they are putting something else in it if they are going to charge that much for it.
 

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