Posted on 12/29/2014 4:01:31 PM PST by xzins
Furious Dish Network, Inc., customers are dropping the service, demanding refunds and besieging Dish with angry calls and emails after Fox News was dropped over a contract dispute.
On Dec. 21, fans of the immensely popular Fox News, among the 14 million Dish subscribers, awoke to find out that their favorite network had been blacked out, Mediaite reports.
To date, 178,000 complaint calls were made through a toll-free line Fox set up, and 140,000 emails have deluged Dish, but the dispute remains ongoing, Variety reports.
The squabble involves "carriage fees" paid by providers to networks for programming. Dish claims that Fox attempted to obtain a new, higher-priced contract for an "unrelated" channel, likely FXX or Fox Sports 1, as part of the new overall Fox contract, and Dish bucked the effort, dropping Fox instead as a negotiating ploy, Mediaite reports.
Fox News, in a statement reported in Variety, said: “Since Dish dropped Fox News, Dish has focused on shifting blame instead of getting Fox News back on the air. But the facts speak for themselves – Dish has blocked more than 10 channels in the last six months alone. We continue to work on resolving this situation, but until Dish is responsive, we are unable to update you on when Fox News will be available.”
However, in a video released by Dish, chairman Charles Ergen, making a play on Fox's "Fair and Balanced" slogan, stated: "There was nothing about this extortion attempt that was fair or balanced. Rather, it was greedy, arrogant and disrespectful to you, their loyal viewer.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Unfortunately, I live in the country and satellite is the only TV option. So far as the internet, everything is paid by the gigabyte, so anything streaming is cost-prohibitive...and slower than one would like.
I just signed up for DirecTV after over 15 years with DISH.
The Beck channel (the Blaze) is far better than the Karl Rove network, ie. Fox News
I just tuned it when this squabble started
Yes, the games are on ESPN but I don’t want to be in the middle of cancelling and switching, have a kerfuffle and end up with no TV on game day. My luck runs like that. It is mandatory to be supporting the Tide.
If you are not able to see Fox News here is what is happening now.
Sean Hannity is still talking loudly at all times with no modulation in his voice. Shepard Smith is annoying all with his liberal nuttiness. O’Reilly is bloviating. Gutfield is making sense.
The Fox gals are still good looking specially Carol Alt
http://www.foxnews.com/shows/index.html?intcmp=onair
Maybe it’s just me but I don’t miss all the people yelling at each other on FOX.
Do It!
“Gutfield is making sense.”
Uh-Oh! Have you seen your psychiatrist lately? ;)
I is NOT JUST YOU.
Understood.
We vacation in Alabama a couple weeks/yr so I understand the religious zeal involved here.
In October we stayed at a nice hotel near Birmingham which was 95% full of people going to the game at Tuscaloosa. They were nice people.
I noticed today that Dish has inserted Newsmax on 206. Decidedly right of center news without the balanced fairness. I never really needed balance or fairness. I’ll settle for the truth.
I’ll check it out
Dhue has her own show on the Blaze and does the news spots for them. Her show is really good. It’s kind of a 60 minutes type show but with interesting content and excellent journalism.
The Tide is so big it runs two college football programs — their own and UAB’s.
But nice people in my experience, as long as I don’t use the “A” word.
Repubs don’t do enough to stop abortion so they vote for wide open abortion? That’s crazy.
I have had Dish and Direct, I hate them both, I now have comcast, I hate them even more. I have too many trees for any of the satellite systems now and Century Tel owns the wire in the area and we can’t get AT&T. I hate Century Tel and AT&T too.
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