Ergen Talks Some Trash About AMC, His Own Customers > Big mouth aside he has a point

reply to skeechan

Re: Big mouth aside he has a point

The Walking Dead is not the top rated show on cable, not even close. It wins the night but is not even close to the top rated show on cable. Let's look at the Closer. Even with Olympic coverage this season, it is pulling a rating nearly equal (I had misread the ratings) to what WD does. Last week the Closer pulled in 5.7M viewers against the 2nd most watched Olympics in history (which averaged over a 21 share). Walking Dead typically does a 3 share (6M) against...well, nothing other than NBC Sunday Night Football...which obviously creams WD. And the NFL is why I TiVo WD instead of watching it live and advertisers know I will skip the commercials. If AMC were smart they wouldn't put WD up against the NFL...obviously they share the same demo and AMC will always lose HUGE to the NFL in 25-54 males, 18+ males...pretty much anything with a dick...AMC loses. And speaking of sports, in terms of cable channels, ESPN routinely kicks everyone's ass on cable. Australian dick wrestling on the deuce will beat AMC on an average night. Dramas aren't the only think on cable. Other dramas aren't the only thing WD has to compete with.

AMC simply doesn't have the ratings to command the money they're demanding, especially when their "hit" shows are only 13 episodes. 13 episodes...about 50 hours a YEAR between every "hit" show they have.

Again, $30 million (or even $70 million...holy cow) for 50 hours of 3-share programming is insanely overpriced.

»tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/0···/124189/

reply to skeechan
With Dish no longer carrying AMC surely they passed those savings onto the customers right?

Did Dish pass on an increase from the other channels that did take an increase this year? Or did they eat it? I'm not a DN subscriber.

If AMC thinks they have the programming, let them go "premium" like HBO. Personally I wish ESPN would go premium since sports is a huge chunk of the bill.

I like when cable operators try and hold the line against these increases. AMC is working on a 300% increase in subscriber fees over the next 5 years. AT&T is claiming AMC is demanding double what competitors pay for AMC including a smaller competitor.

300% increase for what? 2 hours a week for 13 weeks of good programming, 1 hour a week (for 13 weeks) of awesome programming and 8700-something hours a year of zero ratings sh!t programming?

AMC is looking for .75 per sub whether they watch the channel or not. How many basic cable/sat subs are there with AMC...100M? You think AMC's 2 or 3 good shows is worth $75M a month? I don't, and I watch those shows.

reply to 09129800
WD will absolutely pull record numbers (for a drama) for particular episodes, like the premiere and finale which did insanely great but it isn't the highest rated show on cable. ESPN Monday Night Football takes in 14M viewers, doubling Walking Dead and with a share of nearly 10, is also more than double.

And even if Walking Dead were the top show "on cable", a single show or even 2 or 3 shows does not a network make, especially when there are only 13 episodes per season, that is 13 hours of programming...actually closer to 9 or 10 figuring nearly 1/3 of the hour is commercials. The rest of the weeks and month what kind of ratings you think AMC gets? What can the 5 millionth showing of a heavily edited Scarface possibly be getting. This isn't USA network, it's not TNT which have lots of shows (first run, syndicated or sports) that get "ok" ratings bringing in constant viewership.

I absolutely LOVE The Walking Dead, it's my favorite show, but it isn't worth $30M a year (or $70M a year as has also been reported) from a single MSO like Dish. Put WD, MM and BB together and you simply don't have enough hours to warrant that kind of money from a single cable or sat operator.

Think about it, $30M-70M for about 50 hours of good original programming, 13 of which gets great ratings in key demos...programming that isn't exclusive to the AMC cable channel (you can buy overpriced eps of Breaking Bad Season 5 ongoing from iTunes for example). And AMC wants even more increases over the next couple of years. Do you think these few shows are worth $75M a month, remembering that they're only about 13-15 new episodes of each per year. That is what AMC ultimately is trying to get for them...75 cents per basic cable/sat subscriber with over 100M subs in the US alone.

Someone has to hold the line here against networks like Disney and AMC.

reply to BF69
I think by substituting other programming, Dish may meet the minimum requirements of the legal terms of the contract subscribers sign with them. So no reductions in subscriber fees are legally required.