The Dish is Half Full

What do CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, Comedy Central, BET and all of their variants have in common? Other than being owned by the same company, they've all been pulled off of EchoStar's DISH Network service. At least for now, DISH Network's "America's Top 50" plan is more like "40 of America's top 50". It's always fun to see companies fight (in a Gladiator fight-to-the-death sort of way) because they fight with impunity, but without the side effects of people-fights (like death and stuff).
Viacom, who owns all of the channels that were pulled, has set up a website, "ILostMyFavoriteChannels.com," encouraging Dish Network subscribers to move to DirecTV or cable, and has even set up a nationwide number to automatically connect you to your local cable company. EchoStar, of course, calls foul play (this from the company that set up "StopFeedingThePig.com"). Meanwhile, radio ads are playing disguised as "Freedom of Choice Alerts", and Comedy Central is running ads telling its viewers "If you know anyone who has Dish Network, make room on your couch, because they're going to be watching a lot of comedy at your house."

Of course, while Viacom is promoting itself as a relenteless defender of free speech against the evil censors at EchoStar, EchoStar is promoting itself as the relentless champion of the consumers against Viacom's corporate greed. They complain that Viacom's rates have increased too much and that they are just trying to keep from raising rates. They even provide a friendly contact link -- the email address "CEOofDishNetwork@dishnetwork.com." Any bets on who really reads those emails?

But it gets better. How about a wonderful game of corporate-scale phone tag? Dish Network took to redirecting irate callers to the home phone numbers of Viacom executives. Viacom in turn redirected angry calls to their lines to the sales department of DirecTV. Hughes (the DirecTV people), Comcast, and Disney (owner of ABC, ESPN, The Disney Channel, etc.) must be loving this. DirecTV even put up a special introductory offer for the occasion. They've dropped their price down to $30 a month for the fisrt six months. For reference, that's coincidently exactly the same price as the introductory Dish Network package. But that must just be a coincidence. Right???

All this over $0.06. We think. The negotiations between EchoStar and Viacom were closed, so nobody really knows how much money we're talking about. But Viacom says the rate increases are only 6 cents per month. SIX CENTS!

I think it's funny. It's a lot more dramatic than the episode of "Survivor" that Dish subscribers won't see. It's probably funnier than the latest episode of South Park. And it's probably more entertaining than the millionth rebroadcast VH1's "Behind The Music".

All in all, I'm for anything that ends up with people watching less TV. If people don't watch "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn" the world is probably a better place. If people cancel their satellite subscriptions over this, even better. If people get pissed off and smash their TV's in rage, then I'm as close to heaven as you can get in temporal space.

And no, you can't watch comedy at my house.

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