Dishnetwork and Viacom.

[sports]

Viacom wanted more $$$ for their stations, so Dish said no.

http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/p...es/index.shtml

These channels and CBS stations, owned by Viacom, have proposed excessive rate increases which we feel are unreasonable. Viacom is demanding rate increases nearly 4 times the rate of inflation for various cable channels, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in fees that would increase the cost of our services to you.

No Comedy Central, BET, MTV, MTV2, VH1, or Nick.

[phnompehn]

I was wondering what was going on there. Dish's subscriptions will probably take a nose dive. Comedy Central and MTV are extremely popular, and the only reason most people get cable/satellite, right behind HBO. CBS is basically 1/3 of the broadcast TV market too. The networks are getting greedy.

[ArrowX]

Viacom Seems To own Everything.

[PonchtheJedi]

If you go to any of the Viacom channels on dish network, it says to call and log a complaint with Viacom and gives a number. It seems to me like this sort of indicates that it'll be temporary, otherwise they would've just yanked the channels altogether.

[phnompehn]

They're airing commercials on Comedy Central about it now. I hear they're coming pretty close to an agreemen, though.

[Zbu Manowar]

Kinda sad that Viacom has to resort to running those lines and making up ads to solve this problem. It just shows bad taste. Dish Network was going to get hit with several calls anyway, putting pressure on them like this isn't going to solve anything.

I heard Dish would be willing to refund the amount of money to either subscriber for the loss of all of Viacom's stations: a $1 each subscriber per month. Ouch.

[ScruU2wice]

The service stopped for us today. Dish Network is trying to make it self look like it's completely virtuous and protecting the rights of the viewer. My mind is fighting against the propoganda

[sports]

I hate Viacom...love Comedy Central...but hate Viacom.

[phnompehn]

Didn't Viacom just recently completely buy out MTV/VH1 and Comedy Central? They used to share it with another company. I remember Jon Stewart mentioning it.

[Zbu Manowar]

In hindsight, it's both their faults. They could keep service without having to resort to biased ads and banned services. Just a pile of crap, it is.

[ScruU2wice]

My lil brother is saying they are giving us some other channels that we didn't normally have to make up for the channels we're missing :/

[Ghost of Fraiser]

See, at least with cable, they'll do anything to keep their best channels or they though they're out of business.

[timrpgland]

Maybe now they'lll stop interrupting my shows with their scroll on the bottom. I could care less, I got cable but they still feel the need to inform me about this.

[ScruU2wice]

they fixed it

and we get a free movie, suckaz >=D

[Jim Duncan - Weather]

I understand that it has been a difficult 36 hours to be without these popular channels.

Oh yes, so very hard, because no one can last THREE DAYS without these channels. I mean, come on, it hasn't been difficult, maybe bothersome, but not difficult. People are brain dead idiots who can ONLY sit around and watch TV.