Q. I am a Dish subscriber and it drives me crazy when Dish removes a channel for a long time. Even if it comes back, it still makes me crazy that I have to wait for it to come back. So when do you think Dish will get the NFL Network and Red Zone Channel back? If it’s not soon, I’m gone. — Harry, Carson, California.
Update: Dish and Sling TV sign new deal with NFL.
Harry, as you note, Dish lost both the NFL Network and the NFL RedZone Channel on Thursday night due to a carriage dispute with their owner, the National Football League. The battle, which also includes the Dish-owned live streaming service, Sling TV, is over how much Dish should pay the league to carry the two channels.
While carriage disputes are becoming more commonplace in the pay TV industry, there’s no disputing that Dish is the undisputed champion of fee fights. (Forgive my criminally-wrong overuse of the word, dispute.)
The satellite TV service has gone toe to toe with the industry’s biggest programmers over the last few years, leading to both short-term and long-term blackouts. By example, Dish has been without HBO, and the Fox-branded regional sports channels, for a year or more due to separate carriage fights.
Charlie Ergen, Dish’s chairman and co-founder, has long preached that programmers are demanding too much in fees, and that his company would rather lose a channel than overpay. (It should be noted that Ergen’s hardline stance in negotiations extends to every negotiation whether it’s a carriage battle or a discussion over how much he should pay the neighbor boy to cut his grass. He refuses to take what he thinks is a bad deal.)
In addition, Dish has discovered over the years that channel blackouts can be profitable in some cases.
How is that?
The satcaster saves money for every month it does not pay the programmer while the channel is gone from the lineup.
You might say that Dish will lose money because some subscribers will cancel if they can’t watch their favorite channel. But Dish has calculated that the carriage fee savings often outweigh the losses incurred by defecting subscribers.
This is why I believe that Dish will not settle its fight with the NFL for at least a month or two, if not more.
Ergen knows he can wait in part because sports is a relatively low priority now thanks to the pandemic. After all, it’s not even clear there will be a 2020 NFL season, or pre-season. (The NFL Network is scheduled to air 65 pre-season games in 2020 as well as Thursday night regular season action.)
So it’s unlikely that many Dish subscribers will cancel because they can’t watch the NFL Network.
Meanwhile, Dish will save a significant amount of money by refusing to carry the channels in July, August and perhaps beyond.
Dish has all the leverage in this fee fight, and there’s little the league can do to change that.
That is, unless the NFL can invent a vaccine for the Coronavirus.
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— Phillip Swann
I consider the NFL Network to be a low priority channel. Most NFL games are on FOX, CBS , NBC, & ESPN. The Yahoo Sports Module App carries all national broadcast games including the NFL Network games. I believe the NFL will attempt to play this season. There could be a delayed start or a break during the season for the second wave. Super Bowl could be delivered to March or April. The NFL is the most popular sports league. Cancelling an entire season would be a major sports & general news story. Many sports fans do not trust Dish Network & Sling TV due to a history of dropped sports channels.
It isn’t Dish that drops them. That is the common lie. Dish has no control over what the providers show. They try to force dish to charge us more by charging them more. It doesn’t work out went they demand too much from us. Dish says no, and the providers drop the channels.
DISH blacks out the channels when they don’t like the terms of the contracts presented to them. DISH is the provider and the channel runs programming associated with their general media network and media group. DISH doesn’t control the programming, but they control whether you see that channel or not. That’s why you pay a package fee to see it, or not. That’s why if you pay, and are seeing a blackout from a contract dispute, it’s DISH doing the blackout. That is their choice to do, but it effects customers adversely because DISH is then profiting off paying customers who are now stuck in an argument between the two companies. And it’s not fair. But the stations or channels will often give up after DISH attempts to force an unfair deal to the table. Their CEO is a professional gambler. His stake in the company is based on money. They lost over 400k customers in the first quarter of 2020. They have taken multiple media parties to court, wasting time and money that you, the customer, are paying for. They have engaged in business practices that put strain on the customer and push away broadcast news people rely on to be sidelined. They refuse to negotiate and will, instead, avoid companies trying to reach out to find a solution. Meanwhile, the customer is still paying their service package and not getting what they pay for. Eventually, like Fox Sports, they throw their hands up and walk away from DISH as a service provider and don’t further consider the parts of the markets DISH covers. Negotiations requires two parties to join. When every other provider has signed contracts, except for DISH, it’s not the channels that are the problem. They just do business poorly and take no blame at all for doing what they do to their customers. I finally gave up on DISH and went elsewhere for a service provider. I had that option, but some don’t. I’ve dug in deep on DISH. No Fox Sports. No HBO (for over 2 years now), and I don’t think they’ll be back. They have hit the ABC, NBC and CBS networks, they’ve targets some of the smaller media groups, and they’ve had a few hiccups with some of the larger media groups. If they stopped screwing so many people and parties over with their ridiculous tactics, the fees we as customers paid would see minimal increases. But apparently, taking other parties to court and not having to pay fees while charging you for a service you don’t get? That’s not good business. That’s called thievery.
It’s all about the dollar! Hope they can settle before the season starts.
Same song and dance with Dish Network. Yes, they make out just fine….as the subscribers are still paying the same fees as before – but now without two key sports networks: Fox AZ and the NFL Network. It’s pretty much a no win for the customer – as these greedy CEO’s swashbuckle one another with their custom-fitted Callaway 4-irons. Moving onto Direct TV or Cox is an option…but they’re expensive and a hassle to change over. But if we must do that…then so be it.
I agree with you. Since Dish network is saving money by not having these channels they should be giving us customers a discount on our bills
I agree !! I specifically asked them, (before I changed providers ) about the NHL and the NFL Thursday night games. They ASSURED me, yes no problem. Now I don’t have either one and in my mind, THEY broke the contract. Not me
I’ve been a loyal DISH customer for many years.One channel myself and my family could count and is the NFL Network. We’re die hard football fans and rely on the NFL Net, well all year long as I myself have a group of sports fans and I always counted on the NFL Net to get all my daily info. Not anymore and it’s huge loss not having it. We all pay for way too many sports channels on DISH that we’ve not and I’m sure millions of other DISH customers haven’t watched as well but yet still pay the price. We don’t need a ton of baseball, soccer, tennis, on on on, channels. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Please bring back the NFL Net/Redzone. Such a simple request by your customers, pleading for it. If it’s not back soon we are definitely leaving DISH. Not our choice by any means, it’s DISH’s. I’ve already requested info/prices, etc at your ‘competition’ satellite provider. We’ll be sad to leave DISH but not having the NFL Net and left with only an overload of never watched other sports channels, we’re okay with getting our simple heart’s desire. PS: A discount for all your loyal customers upset with not having NFL Net, but still staying loyal to you, would be the right thing to do. Just my humble football loving opinion.
Sorry but your wrong about being low priority and not meaning much in certain months.me like everyone I know almost watch mfl network mainly gmfb for 3 to 4 hours a day every single day of every year.so it’s a top priority channel year round.as far as them making more money then losing.im giving them until a week before football season cause I appreciate dish trying to not go up on our bills but by football season I personally know about 25 or 26 dish customers that’s going to direct TV if NFL channel not back on dish.thats not counting all the millions I don’t know.thats a lot of money and I know they not saving half that by not having it.just me changing they losing over 100 dollars a month.times that by thousands or millions.
Clearly coming from a non sports fan. NFL RedZone is an absolute must have during the football season. You get to see 8 hours of nonstop action with no commercials it’s the best tv all year. Def cancelling my subscription if RedZone is not back 1 week before the season.
In the 4 months I have had dish the nfl network has been canceled as well as red zone cbs and affiliates.When I signed up the person told me that fox sports 1 detroit should be back soon,not true. I was also told that I could not cancel in the first 30 days.Can anything be done?
Canceling today, it is getting to close to the NFL season to run the risk. This author does not play fantasy football. Millions of Americans do.
I was a Dish Subscriber for over 14 years until they began pulling the plug on the sports channels beginning with my regional sports network then the NFL Network but they continued to rise my subscription price and fees, so I finally pulled the plug on them.
Here’s a pretty good article from earlier this year:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/dish-network-going-die-only-question-when-124796
But it’s still has great shelf life, as we can all see Dish Network dying a slow death. Once the satellite TV darlings, say, 5 to ten years ago, they’re losing customers now hand over fist – as their ongoing dispute with the programmer$ (i.e. dropping ABC, HBO, NFL Network, FOX AZ, etc.) continues while the innocent customers (us) still cough up full amount on our monthly bills. They rip us off now, for obvious reasons: to help counter the mass exodus of the paying customers.
I’ve looking into switching over to Direct TV of late. But…its like pick your poison in that regard.
That is, I can switch over…. ge those channels back….but have to pay about $18 more per month. AND…. get whacked with an increase after one year! (say ~ $25 to $30 more per month than what I’m paying now with the lame duck, Titanic-like, Dish Network). Gee….thanks!? 🙁
Thanks for posting that link to the article on Dish and TV in general. Maybe subscribing to Youtube TV or Hulu is the way of the future.
Cancel channels, raise your prices, I would stream but the reason I have satellite is can’t get internet as I live in the mountains. Dish stinks
I called Dish to ask if there is any end in sight to this war. The representative could hardly speak English and was trying to read some story to me. Dish is a big corp. and should have plenty of money to pay their bills. If we didn’t pay our bill they would shut us off too!! They need to pay up,negotiate this and take care of their paying, frustrated customers!!!
Less service for more money. Isn’t that an interesting business model. They sold me on the Dish Outdoors service for tailgating and now are systematically dismantling the sports channels both regionals and ABC. If Ergen can’t run the business without ripping off the customers sell your company. By the way, what are you doing with all the money you are collecting and not paying for the Fox sports regionals and ABC? Regional sports blackout is going on 15 months. Why don’t you blackout Hallmark Channels and see how that works. During the pandemic it would be nice for a lot us whose teams sold their regional broadcast rights to Fox to at least watch some baseball but Dish says no. How arrogant can Charley Ergen be?
After 20+ years as a DISH subscriber, it seems Dish management determines the content….NOT THEIR CUSTOMERS….a business generally fails when ownership/management doesn’t listen to their customer base.
Why not get creative and develop a “Sports package” like the competition? I don’t watch 75% of the BS programming that gets jammed down our throats by these clueless programming directors who have worthless packages they offer.
As with many other sports fans, it looks like I will be dropping DISH. For 20+ years of loyalty, I and many others feel betrayed. Looks like its time to move on…..sad
After 20 + years, I will be moving on as well. I had a conversation with a Dish supervisor 2 days ago, and what I got out of it was they’re not trying to negotiate with the NFL, and could care less if they lost fans over this. He said we could stream NFL, and keep Dish. I said how bout dropping the price to compensate for the lost channels, Fox Sports Southwest, NFL, HBO, etc…He said that wasn’t possible. So, if you’re holding out hope, let it go. They could care less about us. The options are Direct, Fubo, Youtube tv….Good Luck.
my bill is 140 dollars to watch sales of cins shoes clthes i want the cubs and bears