Now maybe
No surprise the FCC is getting involved. But if they find both sides have negotiated but DISH simply refuses to pay what is being asked then what? This could have been finished and settled if what DISH suggested was done.
Tribune Broadcasting Company Blacks Out DISH Customers in 33 Markets;
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Now maybe
No surprise the FCC is getting involved. But if they find both sides have negotiated but DISH simply refuses to pay what is being asked then what? This could have been finished and settled if what DISH suggested was done.
That article is terribly written. If it were no rules, that'd be fine. But since the rules heavily favor broadcasters and the NAB, he actually means no new rules, which is the worse thing for consumers. Wheeler really is acting like an elected politician, for being a slimy douche bag.
Yes if you go to the original article it explains that the FCC is working with both side for a fair deal
DISH disputes with locals rarely last more than a few days, and not as long as this one, that coupled with DISH and Meredith avoiding any take down has to put some additional pressure on Tribune.
Reading between the lines and actual statements WGN America is a or the sticking point. And when Tribune says they just want the fair market value as DISH has given others that tells me DISH is telling them their fair market value is less. It isn't a stretch at all to say WGN mostly has programming other channels have that DISH carries. I'm even more convinced this isn't really a locals dispute partly because of the length of it, and because WGN is being packaged with them. If that is the case the FCC should strongly suggest to Tribune they should not package locals with other cable channels in a contract something I bet DISH is telling them.
Reading between the lines and actual statements WGN America is a or the sticking point. And when Tribune says they just want the fair market value as DISH has given others that tells me DISH is telling them their fair market value is less. It isn't a stretch at all to say WGN mostly has programming other channels have that DISH carries. I'm even more convinced this isn't really a locals dispute partly because of the length of it, and because WGN is being packaged with them. If that is the case the FCC should strongly suggest to Tribune they should not package locals with other cable channels in a contract something I bet DISH is telling them.
I agree with you 100%. I know Disney tied their ABC locals with the ESPN/Disney Channel contract back in 2014; I know NBC tied their local channels to their agreement this past year; and CBS tied their locals with their agreement back when they signed in 2015. (I assume Fox is the same but I don't recall) When the precedent is there, I am sure Tribune wants the same treatment. But really...WGN America compared to the group of the CBS, Disney, NBC cable networks just doesn't compare. If Tribune allowed Dish to drop just WGN America, my guess is the locals would have been gone a couple of days, if at all, and WGN America would have just been dropped.
I am betting that WGN America is the sticking point. I bet Tribune wants distribution in every package and an increase in the fee, since they now have original programming.
wgn isn't the same without Chicago news or cubs and sox games. I'd like to see every Chicago newscast shown on wgn local in Chicago along with baseball games.
Dish Network returned fire this morning at Tribune Media, which yesterday accused the No. 2 satellite company of failing to respond to a contract proposal that would restore distribution of its 42 TV stations and WGN America.
http://deadline.com/2016/06/dish-ne...bitrator-resolve-contract-dispute-1201773782/
http://deadline.com/2016/06/dish-ne...bitrator-resolve-contract-dispute-1201773782/
That article is a month old and had already been posted here...a month ago.
Just read the Tv predictions email that the FCC is forcing DISH and TRIBUNE to sit down together in D.C. to fix this situation , by looking to see if either or both companies have acted in bad faith in negotiations. They rarely pursue bad faith , but this situation has been going on for 5 weeks with no end in sight.
Dish Tests Its Resolve With Tribune
Retrans spat becomes an endurance struggle as it hits the one-month mark
http://www.multichannel.com/dish-tests-its-resolve-tribune/406386
The one-month anniversary of the retransmission-consent dispute between Tribune Media and Dish Network passed with little fanfare last week. And though both sides claim they are still negotiating toward a settlement, some analysts believe that the end to the spat will be more a question of endurance than of compromise.
About 42 Tribune stations in 33 markets went dark to about 5 million of the satellite-TV provider’s customers on June 12, after the parties couldn’t reach a retransmission-consent agreement.
Dish has claimed that Tribune is asking for more than double the old rate for its stations and cable network WGN America, while Tribune has countered that its requested rates are in line with what comparable distributors have already paid and reflect the value of its content.
AT LOGGERHEADS
In an interview last week, Dish senior vice president and deputy general counsel Jeff Blum said the satellite company has been distributing free over-the-air antennas to Dish customers in the affected areas. Dish has also proposed several extension scenarios that would put the stations back on the air during talks and, once a deal was reached, the terms would be retroactive, Blum said.
Tribune has rejected those offers as self-serving for Dish, counterin with a longer extension proposal, which the satellite company rebuffed.
Adding to the acrimony is that broadcasters are beginning to buy pay TV networks — Sinclair Broadcast Group held up its retrans negotiations with Dish last year by trying to secure carriage for a cable channel it didn’t yet own, which turned out to be Tennis Channel — but managed to eventually work out a deal.
Tribune only owns one pay TV channel, WGN America, which was originally a superstation feed of WGN-TV in Chicago before it converted to a cable network in 2014. The network’s fees are low, though. Last year, SNL Kagan estimated WGN America attracted 8 cents per subscriber per month. Retrans fees are much higher, usually in the range of $1 to $2 per subscriber, per month.
PAST BATTLES
Tribune has had some retrans scuffles in the past. It went dark to DirecTV customers in 2012 for about four days and was blacked out to Cablevision Systems customers in the New York area in 2012 for nearly two months.
That willingness to wait it out until the other guy blinks may be a key component of the negotiations, Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan said.
Tribune said it is still in contact with Dish and hopes a deal can be reached, but it isn’t ready to blink just yet. The broadcaster has balked at Dish’s offer of baseball- style arbitration — it says that carriage deals are too complicated and nuanced for that type of settlement.
Eagan sees Dish with a slight edge in talks for two reasons: It isn’t as concerned with subscriber losses as other pay TV operators, and its lack of a broadband service could prevent Tribune from blocking out online access to programming for Dish subscribers.
“Management, and to a degree the Street, doesn’t care so much about subscriber growth,” Eagan said in an interview. “It isn’t that big a driver of the stock.”
Eagan said he sees Dish’s willingness to sacrifice subscriber growth for a more favorable rate as endemic to its overall strategy. It isn’t just negotiating for this deal, it is negotiating for future deals, too.
“I don’t know what broadcast-station group renewals come up after this, but they [Dish] are trying to draw a line in the sand,” Eagan said.
RISKY STRATEGY
But pay TV subscribers are fickle. In 2013, Time Warner Cable dug in its heels during a summer dispute with CBS, a period thought to be ripe for a blackout — there are no major sporting events, reruns rule the broadcast airwaves and most people spend more time off the couch. A month later — after Time Warner Cable had lost 300,000 basic-video customers, the worst quarterly subscriber loss in its history — CBS had its deal at terms close to what it had originally asked for.
No one is expecting a similar fate for Dish in this go-round. Eagan said times are different, the markets are smaller and there were fewer over-the-top alternatives in 2013. Tribune stations offer news, sports and weather information via individual station apps and websites, and viewers can access broadcast-network programming streamed online through their respective websites and apps.
“While that poses a risk for the operator in general because they have substitutes, but it also makes it easier for them [subscribers] to not leave the operator if they suddenly lose a programmer or a channel,” Eagan said.
Retrans spat becomes an endurance struggle as it hits the one-month mark
http://www.multichannel.com/dish-tests-its-resolve-tribune/406386
The one-month anniversary of the retransmission-consent dispute between Tribune Media and Dish Network passed with little fanfare last week. And though both sides claim they are still negotiating toward a settlement, some analysts believe that the end to the spat will be more a question of endurance than of compromise.
About 42 Tribune stations in 33 markets went dark to about 5 million of the satellite-TV provider’s customers on June 12, after the parties couldn’t reach a retransmission-consent agreement.
Dish has claimed that Tribune is asking for more than double the old rate for its stations and cable network WGN America, while Tribune has countered that its requested rates are in line with what comparable distributors have already paid and reflect the value of its content.
AT LOGGERHEADS
In an interview last week, Dish senior vice president and deputy general counsel Jeff Blum said the satellite company has been distributing free over-the-air antennas to Dish customers in the affected areas. Dish has also proposed several extension scenarios that would put the stations back on the air during talks and, once a deal was reached, the terms would be retroactive, Blum said.
Tribune has rejected those offers as self-serving for Dish, counterin with a longer extension proposal, which the satellite company rebuffed.
Adding to the acrimony is that broadcasters are beginning to buy pay TV networks — Sinclair Broadcast Group held up its retrans negotiations with Dish last year by trying to secure carriage for a cable channel it didn’t yet own, which turned out to be Tennis Channel — but managed to eventually work out a deal.
Tribune only owns one pay TV channel, WGN America, which was originally a superstation feed of WGN-TV in Chicago before it converted to a cable network in 2014. The network’s fees are low, though. Last year, SNL Kagan estimated WGN America attracted 8 cents per subscriber per month. Retrans fees are much higher, usually in the range of $1 to $2 per subscriber, per month.
PAST BATTLES
Tribune has had some retrans scuffles in the past. It went dark to DirecTV customers in 2012 for about four days and was blacked out to Cablevision Systems customers in the New York area in 2012 for nearly two months.
That willingness to wait it out until the other guy blinks may be a key component of the negotiations, Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan said.
Tribune said it is still in contact with Dish and hopes a deal can be reached, but it isn’t ready to blink just yet. The broadcaster has balked at Dish’s offer of baseball- style arbitration — it says that carriage deals are too complicated and nuanced for that type of settlement.
Eagan sees Dish with a slight edge in talks for two reasons: It isn’t as concerned with subscriber losses as other pay TV operators, and its lack of a broadband service could prevent Tribune from blocking out online access to programming for Dish subscribers.
“Management, and to a degree the Street, doesn’t care so much about subscriber growth,” Eagan said in an interview. “It isn’t that big a driver of the stock.”
Eagan said he sees Dish’s willingness to sacrifice subscriber growth for a more favorable rate as endemic to its overall strategy. It isn’t just negotiating for this deal, it is negotiating for future deals, too.
“I don’t know what broadcast-station group renewals come up after this, but they [Dish] are trying to draw a line in the sand,” Eagan said.
RISKY STRATEGY
But pay TV subscribers are fickle. In 2013, Time Warner Cable dug in its heels during a summer dispute with CBS, a period thought to be ripe for a blackout — there are no major sporting events, reruns rule the broadcast airwaves and most people spend more time off the couch. A month later — after Time Warner Cable had lost 300,000 basic-video customers, the worst quarterly subscriber loss in its history — CBS had its deal at terms close to what it had originally asked for.
No one is expecting a similar fate for Dish in this go-round. Eagan said times are different, the markets are smaller and there were fewer over-the-top alternatives in 2013. Tribune stations offer news, sports and weather information via individual station apps and websites, and viewers can access broadcast-network programming streamed online through their respective websites and apps.
“While that poses a risk for the operator in general because they have substitutes, but it also makes it easier for them [subscribers] to not leave the operator if they suddenly lose a programmer or a channel,” Eagan said.
If it wasn't for our fellow DISH customers that can't receive OTA signal for various reasons, I say screw Tribune. It sure has been nice to have AutoHop back by using the OTA channel. Thank you for that DISH. 
I can't determine who can wait the longest in this, at this time of year no question DISH with little must see Summer shows though some Saturday baseball games. (AGT and maybe one or two others an exception) In the new season maybe, maybe not different. By far the bulk of channels Tribune owns are FOX and CW, the lowest watched channels over many months now. FOX cancelled almost every new show. There is a sprinkling of NBC (2) ABC (3) and CBS (6) First question is how many are really affected to the extent they will change providers, and second how many anywhere are really watching FOX, CW and WGN America these days?
I don't want to leave the wrong impression, it isn't good for DISH to not have all the locals probably more so when new subscribers are looking around. But I am wondering just how many really care they are missing the bulk of Tribune channels off the air.
This dispute may have a little more significance in that a Cable channel is being forced on DISH as part of the locals negotiations.
I don't want to leave the wrong impression, it isn't good for DISH to not have all the locals probably more so when new subscribers are looking around. But I am wondering just how many really care they are missing the bulk of Tribune channels off the air.
This dispute may have a little more significance in that a Cable channel is being forced on DISH as part of the locals negotiations.
Tribune can probably ride this out for the time being. Until primetime shows re-start in the fall, they don't care (as much).
What's really odd is that either a) people have gotten tired of complaining and aren't doing it, b) have dropped Dish (doubtful - most say they will but don't follow through), or c) don't care since they're not missing new programming*.
* This is surprising because many people actually seem to care more about their NEWS channel and do complain loudly. I've encountered some people who refuse to watch the news from the other local channels in town too.
What's really odd is that either a) people have gotten tired of complaining and aren't doing it, b) have dropped Dish (doubtful - most say they will but don't follow through), or c) don't care since they're not missing new programming*.
* This is surprising because many people actually seem to care more about their NEWS channel and do complain loudly. I've encountered some people who refuse to watch the news from the other local channels in town too.
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