Ergen Talks Some Trash About AMC, His Own Customers Dish Users Live on Farms, Don't Like No City Folk Shows Back in May Dish has dropped the AMC network and other AMC channels including WeTV, IFC and Sundance, just as AMC hit "Breaking Bad" was returning to the air. To hear Dish boss Charlie Ergen tell it, Dish dropped the channels because the broadcasters "devalued" their content by signing streaming distribution deals with the likes of Netflix and Amazon. To hear AMC tell it, Dish is simply being vengeful because of a long standing legal dispute with AMC over the 2008 dropping of VOOM HD. In a move that probably won't help speed things along, Dish boss Charlie Ergen continues to attack AMC in the press, and even managed to insult his own customers in the process: "I've had satellite television for as long as satellite television has been around and there's never been one minute that I know of anybody in my family, or anybody who's came to my house, has ever watched one second of any of those channels.... Ergen went on to talk about Dish subscribers a little bit: "They live in farms and ranches... They have no clue about zombies and New York." Surely Dish owners will be surprised to learn they all live on farms and have no interest in AMC's growing lineup of hit shows including "Breaking Bad," "Mad Men," and "The Walking Dead."
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 | | Ha You'd have to be isolated on a farm to consider Dish a quality provider of anything. | |
| | |  Wow...
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|  | | | Re: Wow... Don't forget Dish has been in dispute with ABC over HD feeds for 3 years of ESPNEWS/ESPNU/ABC Family/Disney. They also have dropped all NY area regional sports networks.
Dish might be cheaper at first, but you get what you pay for. | |
| | |  maartenaElmoPremium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
kudos:1 | Re: Wow... said by osravens:Don't forget Dish has been in dispute with ABC over HD feeds for 3 years of ESPNEWS/ESPNU/ABC Family/Disney. They also have dropped all NY area regional sports networks.
Dish might be cheaper at first, but you get what you pay for.
Exactly. Granted, all providers have their disputes. See the big mess between DirecTV and Viacom only a month ago. Although resolved, no provider is immune from it. That said, Dish Network seems to be the worst one.
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"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" | |
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|  HallPremium,MVM
join:2000-04-28
Dayton, OH
kudos:2 | "slap on the wrist" ? "golden parachute" ? You do realize he (founded and) OWNS the company, right ? | |
| | | maartenaElmoPremium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
kudos:1 | Re: Wow... said by Hall:"slap on the wrist" ? "golden parachute" ? You do realize he (founded and) OWNS the company, right ?
So did Steve Jobs with Apple. He was still kicked out. (Until they realized they needed him and brought him back 5 years later, and out came all the iStuff)
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"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" | |
| | | |  KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | Re: Wow... Uh, I think you need to look up your Apple history. Steve Jobs exit at Apple began May 1985 and by September he was gone.
He returned to Apple in 1997.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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| | | | said by Hall:"slap on the wrist" ? "golden parachute" ? You do realize he (founded and) OWNS the company, right ?
So that must make it completely and totally ok to other investors that he's basically telling his CUSTOMERS to go pound sand if they want AMC or other channels? Must be nice to have that sort of power, not only does he get to be an obtuse tool, he gets to stay on the board without repercussions. Captive customers, aren't they the greatest? Well assuming that all their customers live on farms, can't get OTA or any sort of broadband useful enough for netflix/amazon instant video, or any other sort of over the top video provider.... | |
| | | | | | | HallPremium,MVM
join:2000-04-28
Dayton, OH
kudos:2 | Re: Wow... said by DownTheShore:And we're supposed to glorify these jokers and give them financial incentives to continue? 
It is up to consumers to decide whether or not to help them continue with their success(es).
Look how badly Chick-Fil-A was affected and how little customers supported them the other week. | |
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 elwoodbluesElwood BluesPremium
join:2006-08-30
HarperLand | Remember Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.Greed is right, Greed works | |
| | | My cable company doesn't have BET Yet you don't hear them trash talking their customers.
This is bad form by Charlie, but not unheard of. | |
| | | | Re: My cable company doesn't have BET They likely have many other Viacom networks. That's why they're not slamming BET. They don't want to lose Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, CMT, Comedy Central and Spike.
BET is a common omission in extremely white, rural areas on cable systems. Even among the big boys, I know some Comcast, Time Warner and Cox systems without it. | |
| | | | | Re: My cable company doesn't have BET That's my point exactly. | |
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| | So Lonely. Sounds like Dish subscribers are all around smarter than Ergen. Even if they are living 'in' a farm they do not pretend to know about made-up things like zombies, unlike Ergen?
Really though, if you went solely by Ergen's observations you would conclude that all television viewers only watch UFC and porn. All I think when I he says he does not know ANYONE that watches certain channels is that he doesn't have many friends. | |
|  Duramax08Win8 sucksPremium
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX | And I just switched to dish..... Damn it, I just switched to dish after dumping directv. Looks like I might be jumping back after my 2 years......
Dish, get your shit together. | |
| | maartenaElmoPremium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
kudos:1 | Re: And I just switched to dish..... DirecTV will be adding the following HD stations next week too:
- BBC America (finally!)
- Nat Geo Wild
- ION National EDT feed
- Disney Jr.
- BeIN Sports (soccer channel).
And according to some insiders.... "more is coming soon".
Doesn't look like AMC comes back to Dish. Then again, DirecTV doesn't have G4 at all, so it depends what you like better.
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"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" | |
| | | | | Re: And I just switched to dish..... BBC America and Nat Geo Wild HD were long overdue, but Disney Jr. over The Hub? What the fuck, DirecTV?
ION national feed? People dedicated enough to want the national feed over an affiliate are the types who have C Band dishes and can do this without DirecTV's help... DirecTV's low bitrate H.264 re-encoding would result in it being inferior to an OTA ION affiliate anyway. The whole point of getting a national feed is the higher quality of it.
All this comes after they just added a "HD" channel which has never aired a single piece of high definition content: TCM.
Who the fuck is making the HD addition decisions over there? H2 HD, Game Show Network, Investigation Discovery, Sundance Channel... they should all be coming before "Disney Jr." | |
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 JeffreyConnoisseur of leisurely thingsPremium
join:2002-12-24
Long Island
kudos:3
 ·Verizon FiOS
 ·Vonage
| Yeee-Haw! "I'm worth $10 billion so I'll just say whatever I want."
I'd ask him to queue up Google Maps, Satellite view. Zoom-in on Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx in the NYC area and just see how many dishes reside on the roofs. I'm sure this is the same for many large, farm-less cities.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my cattle.
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He used to say that soul shine, is better than sunshine, better than moonshine, damn sure better than rain.
Debunking the 2012 hysteria. | Always looking for a new job | Begging the Wilpons to sell the Mets. | |
| | | Misleading Dish Each time Dish has a dispute over carriage rates, they end up lowering the quality of the channels. Dish went through a spat with Disney years back, since then no high definition Disney, all standard definition.
I still miss Voom HD, Monster HD and the original HD programming AMC offered though on those channels (though I don't miss AMC channel itself). Having "Univeral's Chiller channel, which is Standard Definition, HIGHLY highly edited doesn't compare to MonsterHD, not at all.
Off topic, I have the Hopper. At first I thought it was the coolest thing in town. Now as I use it more I find it challenging, using fast forward or rewind it runs-away and you end up at the end or beginning of the show but no where near where you wanted in time.
The timers are off by 2 minutes and non customer correctable. This means I miss the first two minutes of many programs as the Hopper's clock won't set properly.
With the Hopper I lost Picture in Picture, it has a button for it on the remote but unlike the previous Dish hardware, it simply is not active. It also DOES NOT have an offair antenna connection, which means I can no longer DVR local side channels which Dish doesn't carry - WTF Charlie!
Then I got the bill - OMG I am not a happy camper. Fee after Fee after fee is on my bill for this hopper. Friggen be honest Dish, don't state a sales price that will never be the actual price because of your additional fees. Seriously $7 bucks for every TV, $10 bucks just to have the hopper, which we pay up front hard cash for, then there's the service fees/maintenance fees on top. It was cheaper not having the hopper, I had picture in picture, I had (ALL) local channels I could DVR, the timers worked and I didn't pay TWICE the price for extra storage.
Dish, like other have said, get your Shizmit together! Don't force me to switch to Comcrap. | |
|  espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2
·Vitelity VOIP
| Context.. not like anyone cares. "We have data, real data from our customers," Mr. Ergen said. "And for whatever reason our customers don't watch some of those ... at the level that we read about in the paper, perhaps because we skew a bit more rural or whatever."
"Short term, we clearly will lose some customers and perhaps in the future there'll be some customers who might want that channel who won't subscribe to our service, but we think that's more than made up by two factors," Mr. Ergen said. "One is the improved cost structure in terms of not paying for programming that we have available on other channels. And second, on a retail basis, we're several dollars lower than our competition who are carrying those channels."
AMC has been campaigning to get Dish subscribers to speak out against Dish, most recently starting a contest asking subscribers to create videos talking about why they miss AMC. The network previously sent actors dressed as "Walking Dead" zombies to the streets of New York, ultimately creating a video with the tagline, "Zombies don't belong here. Put them back on TV." The clip has gone viral on YouTube.
But Dish customers aren't thinking about zombies stunts in New York City, Mr. Ergen said during the call. "They live in farms and ranches," he said. "They have no clue about zombies and New York." Source: The article that Karl cites that most people never bother to read before commenting.
»www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHPMocTmC08 | |
| | | "Breaking Bad," "Mad Men," and "The Walking Dead." How can this be a growing lineup of hit shows when you list all the hit shows AMC has?????? | |
|  antdudeA Ninja AntPremium,VIP
join:2001-03-25
United State
kudos:4 | My new home area... In my new home area, it is like a farm but on the small mountains/giant hills. Previous owners had Dish service. :P | |
| HallPremium,MVM
join:2000-04-28
Dayton, OH
kudos:2 | Speaking of customer data Speaking of customer data, when Ergen said "We have data, real data from our customers," Mr. Ergen said. "And for whatever reason our customers don't watch some of those ... at the level that we read about in the paper | |
| | | | Re: Speaking of customer data Indeed.
Wouldn't you expect that a satellite provider would be more rural than a cable provider that has per-mile capex and maintenance costs? And that Dish, by being the lower-cost satellite provider, would skew even more rural than its competitor DirecTV?
It's pretty clear from the conference call transcript that Charles Ergen is not an idiot. He know exactly how the four AMC channels are doing. (emphasis mine)
In June, we announced our intention to drop AMC Networks' AMC, WE, IFC and Sundance from our network offerings. Simply put, with the exception of a few original series from AMC, all 4 channels significantly underperformed with our DISH subscribers. In a year where we took no price increase, we are laser-like focused on controlling our ever escalating programming costs.
»seekingalpha.com/article/792031-···t=single
Other interesting tidbits from the conference call:
• Here's the rest of the out-of-context quote that Karl called an "insult to his customers." You be the judge. "The fact that we had to carry WE and IFC and Sundance ... we know the viewer measurement is not one of our top 100 or 200 channels, those 3 channels."
• I think he should be applauded for his support of non-bundled channels. That gets rid of these silly disputes, removes the cross-subsidies, and makes it very clear just what each channel is worth to the end-viewer. AMC thinks they're hot stuff. Well, then they can try to charge higher prices to the viewer, and see where that lands them. "Well, we've been kind of a lone voice in Washington, although I think from time to time, Cablevision actually has joined in, in a similar vein, but we've been for à la carte."
• I wonder if these speculative remarks are referring to himself: "So I think there'll be a day when there's probably an offering out there from somebody who doesn't include sports, just because sports will get -- the contract will get so onerous that somebody could make the decision that they'll take the short-term pain of losing that 20% of the eyeballs and then take the long-term gain that they might be $10 or $15 or $20 less expensive for the consumer." | |
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| | The editor's contextual help doesn't seem to match up "I've had satellite television for as long as satellite television has been around and there's never been one minute that I know of anybody in my family, or anybody who's came to my house, has ever watched one second of any of those channels....They (Dish subscribers) live in farms and ranches... They have no clue about zombies and New York."
Reading this, "They (Dish subscribers) live in farms and ranches" doesn't make sense to me. "They (anybody in my family, or anyone who's came to my house) live in farms and ranches" seems more plausible, albeit using the atrocious grammar of the original speaker. | |
| | | | Re: The editor's contextual help doesn't seem to match up said by dynomutt :The editor's contextual help doesn't seem to match up
That's because the quotes were both distorted and taken out of context.
Here's some more context (emphasis mine) -- and there's a link if you want to read more.
And then the third thing is, that when our customers can go to iTunes or get Mad Men the same time it's on, the economics is we could pay for every customer -- we could pay -- for every customer who would watch Mad Men, we could pay their entire iTunes bill and it would be cheaper than burdening our customers who don't watch those channels with that cost.
... In fact, one of the major programmers sent me a picture of the Godfather, right, from the movie, right, because that's the approach we have with them, right?
... we're in a situation where we could do Mark [Cuban, owner of HDNet] a favor and he did us a favor. And our customers benefit. Our customers -- just read the blogs.
Go read -- our customers are not looking at zombies in New York City. They live in farms and ranches. They have no clue about zombies in New York City marching around saying where is my AMC? I mean, they're watching a Saturday night movie with their husband or their wife or their kids with no commercials, and they're ecstatic, and their price didn't go up.
»seekingalpha.com/article/792031-···anscript
I also find the rest of the quote to be very interesting:
•Was he referring to Disney or AMC when he compared one of the content-owners to the Godfather? He's got a colorful way of speaking, that's for sure.
•He's just about ready to take a bullet for Marc Cuban.
•HDNet has no commercials, whereas AMC has tons of commercials. Therefore, for AMC's ostensible purpose as a movie channel, he's paying less and getting more.
•This still doesn't give him AMC's original shows. But AMC's price demands were so out-of-line with actual viewership that it's cheaper to tell customers to go buy a season pass for their favorite show on iTunes. | |
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| | First time? It's not the first time this happened, right?  | |
|  skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2
 ·Cox HSI
 ·Clear Wireless
| Big mouth aside he has a point Channels like AMC don't get great ratings. Premieres will get decent ratings (decent for cable) but ongoing ratings are mediocre. Think about it, AMC wants millions a month (about $2.5M) from Dish for 3 hours a week in "top tier" programming, I'm talking Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, etc. And even then the seasons are pretty damn short...you don't get 52 eps obviously. In reality we're talking about $30M for about 50 hours of good programming. That's insane.
Ergen has zero discipline in terms of dealing with the media but he's right, AMC wants more than the channel is worth.
* The $2.5M number came from a news item I read a while back claiming that is that DN saves by dropping AMC. | |
| | | | Re: Big mouth aside he has a point Not to make Charlie Ergen's point for him, but the costs for AMC Networks might be a little inflated.
If you look at the smaller providers (especially a lot of the muni FTTH networks), they're not carrying IFC, WE, Fuse and Sundance. A lot of smaller cable companies shun them too. EPB in Chattanooga doesn't have them, Cincinnati Bell doesn't have them, etc.
Google Fiber has yet to add any of that suite.
TWC had their major fight over MSG (from the Dolans) and Suddenlink a few months ago had a major fight with AMC, and had plans to drop the network.
And outside of their hit shows that have been mentioned, AMC is pretty worthless. It's heavily edited, heavily ad-inserted movies seen elsewhere and largely with better image quality. And IFC isn't what it used to be either, but they do have some good original content. | |
| | | | What the hell are you talking about? The Walking Dead is the #1 rated show on cable. Breaking Bad and Mad Men are in the top 10. | |
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See 6 replies to this post | |
| | | Indeed, Mad Men is famous in the advertising business for bringing in mediocre ad revenues. And budget disputes led to an 8-month delay in the start of the fifth season.
Basically, AMC is trying to move upwards in the value hierarchy. They got a lot of buzz and great reviews for a few shows -- so they think they can demand a higher price from the MVPDs. Except that they don't have the viewership to back it up. So when they took a tough stance in negotiations, Dish decided to walk. | |
| | | | said by skeechan:In reality we're talking about $30M for about 50 hours of good programming. That's insane.
If you think $30 million is insane, then $70 million would be ...?
“We believe Dish is making a strategic mistake, risking billions to save $70 million per year in AMC license fees versus settling their lawsuit and agreeing to a new long-term distribution deal,” blogged BTIG Research’s Richard Greenfield.
»paidcontent.org/2012/07/11/dish-···sts-say/
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| |  pb5kCan't TriforcePremium
join:2005-11-16
Glendale, AZ | Re: Charlie better watch his back... Don't forget Cullen Bohannon from Hell on Wheels. He'd pop a black powder cap in Charlie's ass.  | |
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mworks
join:2006-06-13
Faison, NC | Providers still don't get it People don't want cheaper programming at the expense of dropping channels that have content. People want cheaper programming by choosing WHAT they want to pay for. Dish , Direct, Cable , insist on bundles that have channels the subscriber does not want , complain and they say that they have to have those channels to get some other ones, that the studio is forcing them to take them all, when nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is the programming tier method they use is not the best deal for the consumer it is the best deal for the provider, by moving popular channels to more expensive tiers while still keeping the channel counts high they can advertise, 40 + channels for $19.95 and for just $29.95 more you can get that 1 channel you wanted to start with. | |
| | Reviews:
·Millenicom
 ·AT&T Southeast
·Verizon Wireless..
| Re: Providers still don't get it Here is the Add A Channel A La Carte Channels listing for DirecTV for Hotels. It is in the Business Section of the website
»www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/b···packages
Notice that some channels are $0.20 and some are $4.00+.
There are similar variations when you ask the content providers(not the sat or cable companies) for individual channel prices, except the variation is wider. But if the cable or sat companies agree to take a bundle, they give the sat and cable companies discounts, which is partially passed on to the final subscriber. The problem is that the content providers will quote $1.50/month per subscriber for THE channel that is highly popular and a total of $0.50/month/subscriber for 5 channels, if the sat/cable company agrees to put the 4 low popularity content channels in the same tier as the highly popular one. So the satellite or cable system operator takes the package and does the deal. Since 99% of potential subscribers first look at the number of channels per price tier, the system operators try to get tier price points with a lot of channels to catch the potential customers attention. It is just like a pizza place that offers you a large ten topping pizza for $10. But the artisan cheeses, red/yellow/orange peppers, portobello mushrooms, spinach, shrimp, and lobster are not available for that deal. That pizza is still $30, because those ingredients cost the pizza maker more. He got your attention with the so many ingredients for a low price deal and then brought to the real cost of getting what you want.
A&E HD, History HD and Discovery Health Channel $0.35
BabyFirstTV $0.20
BBC America and Current TV $0.20
Big Ten Network HD $0.25
BET HD and >GSN $0.15
Bravo HD, IFC and WE: Women's Entertainment $0.35
C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 $0.08
CBS College Sports HD $0.15
Disney Channel (East) HD, Disney Channel (West) and Disney XD HD $0.75
ESPN HD $5.15
ESPN HD & ESPN2 HD $4.40
ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD & ESPNEWS HD $4.30
Fox Movie Channel $1.00
Fox News Channel HD $0.50
Fox Soccer Channel HD $0.20
Fox Soccer Plus HD (Games only) $0.20
FUEL TV HD $0.20
FX HD $0.30
GolTV HD $0.20
The Golf Channel HD $0.25
HGTV HD, Food Network HD and Travel Channel HD $0.15
LOGO $0.15
MLB Network HD $0.40
NBA TV HD $0.35
NFL Network HD $0.30
Nicktoons, Nick Jr, TeenNick and> PBS Kids Sprout $0.30
Speed HD $0.25
Sports South HD (only available in certain areas of U.S., zip code confirmation required) $0.99
Sundance Channel® $0.35
Tennis Channel HD $0.25
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) $0.30
TVG The Interactive Horseracing Network $0.15
TV Land, Lifetime Movie Network, The Hallmark Channel HD $0.25
Versus HD $0.35
WGN America $0.14
SonicTap Music Channels (includes up to 84 channels) $0.18 | |
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| | Support charlie if half of you even realized the ceo of the dish company isn't charlie anymore so he is just giving an opinion it's really not even up to him anymore | |
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