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LATEST CARRIAGE DISPUTE: FOX VS. DIRECTV

gregg75

gregg75

Claims are Fox wants a 40% payment increase for these channels FX, National Geographic Channel, Speed, Fuel TV, Fox Soccer, Fox Movie Channel, Fox Deportes, and the 19 Fox regional sports networks. Can't say as I'd really miss any of those. Fox should be paying Directv to carry most of them I.M.O. Why do these mostly obscure channels need to be subsidized by all viewers? FX, NGC & FMC are tier two or three channels at best.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/10/dir...-fox-networks-on-nov-1-over-carriage-dispute/
 
There is no way National Geographic is a tier 2 or 3 channel. I watch that all the time. I know FX is very popular too. Those are both definitely tier 1's.
 
gregg75 said:
Claims are Fox wants a 40% payment increase for these channels FX, National Geographic Channel, Speed, Fuel TV, Fox Soccer, Fox Movie Channel, Fox Deportes, and the 19 Fox regional sports networks. Can't say as I'd really miss any of those. Fox should be paying Directv to carry most of them I.M.O. Why do these mostly obscure channels need to be subsidized by all viewers? FX, NGC & FMC are tier two or three channels at best.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/10/dir...-fox-networks-on-nov-1-over-carriage-dispute/
Click to expand...

I can almost guarantee that it is the 19 regional sports networks that are driving this increase.

As far as FX being a Tier 2 channel, that might be your opinion, but ratings show otherwise. I'd also argue that National Geographic is not an "obscure" channel. The rest, I could almost see.

If you are angry about it, then why don't you pressure Direct TV to carry these channels in different tiers? Remember, the rates are PER SUBSCRIBER, so if you feel it is Tier 2 or 3, then pressure Direct TV to put it in a higher Tier, then you won't be paying for it.

Actually, upon a glance, if you don't wish to pay for National Geographic, or anything but FX, just take the basic package.
 
This is pretty comical considering Fox Sports plugs the hell out of Direct TV ad nauseam dead horseam during football and the World Series.
 
MarcB said:
I thought DirecTV was partially owned by NewsCorp or one of the other divisions of FOX.
Click to expand...

They were, but Fox traded their 38% ownership (controlling interest at the time) to Liberty Media, in exchange for the 18% that Liberty owned of NewsCorp.

Honestly, that brings up a good point. Direct TV was probably getting the channels at a discount under the old contract, due to being a child company of NewsCorp. Those discounts are now probably ending, resulting in part of the increase.
 
FX 2nd or 3rd tier channel? This channel has legit network primetime quality programing in rescue me, sons of anarchy, unsupervised
wilfred, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and apparently their new series american horror story is taking off, cause I keep hearing about it. Not to mention past shows like nip tuck.

Basically FX set the bar for basic cable original programing that AMC followed, tnt is trying to play catch up on, and USA is still ignoring with its FCC safe programing.
 
FX is probably the most popular cable channel right along there with ESPN, TNT, USA and TBS. Especially now that they carry College Football and very popular shows like Sons of Anarachy. I would certainly be disappointed to see it go because I'm a big fan of Sunny.
 
It's interesting to read this right on the day word came out that Fox won the TV rights to show the FIFA World Cups of 2018 and 2022 (and their female counterparts in 2015 and 2019). This may well be their first test to see whether they can move FS and FS+ to a better tier.
 
mnradiofan said:
They were, but Fox traded their 38% ownership (controlling interest at the time)
Click to expand...

You mean "controlling interest" is defined as plurality (not majority) ownership? Since when is an enterprise "controlled" by someone who owns less than 50.0000....1% of its stock?

ixnay
 
If that was the largest single block, it would effectively be controlling.
 
FX is just FOX but doesn't have to censor itself. Archer, Always Sunny in Philly, American Horror Story, Damages, Sons of Anarchy.

It's a popular channel. People would change carriers if DirecTV didn't provide it.
 
FOX is not alone. Dallas-Based Belo Broadcasting, on the other hand, may pull its owned & operated stations-Like Flagship WFAA, Austin's K-VUE, San Antonio's KEN'S-TV & WWL-TV in New Orleans. All of these stations are the #1 most-watched TV stations in their respective cities; also affected: KHOU in Houston, KMOV in St. Louis, KING-TV in Seattle & WCNC in Charlotte, NC. The former two are CBS Affiliates, and the latter 2 are affiliated with NBC.

There's more to this story:
www.wfaa.com/directv
 
If their DirecTV bills go up.........consumers would save money in the long run by buying
a $25 antenna (to get locals). A $2 a month DirecTV increase wiould be $48 over 4 years.
 
Eventually, as I've stated in the past, these content providers are going to shoot themselves in the foot by forcing distribution channels like Cable and Satellite to charge consumers more than they can afford, to keep up with these increases.

This is one example where I feel that it's too bad we can't just cut out the middlemen and go directly to the content providers. Right now, it ends up making the cable and sat companies look bad for constantly raising rates, but if Fox came directly to me and said "we think you should pay double to continue to receive our channels" then they could get more direct feedback from the very people that they are ALSO trying to sell advertising to, plus it would put the choice in the hands of the consumers as to what channels they want to pay for.

Of course, it will probably mean that you will pay more if you want every channel, and a lot of channels would go under, because they would have smaller audiences to sell to advertisers, so it really becomes a pro-con game.

Should be real interesting to see how much longer this game can continue before programming distributors start to notice a real uptick in subscriber losses. The problem I see coming with it though, is that as people move to online systems like Netflix and Hulu, the content providers will just start charging those delivery systems more, as has already started with Netflix. Can't be more than a decade away from $60 monthly Netflix bills at this rate....
 
With all the Direct TV plugs during the World Series on FOX you would think everything is fine between the two.

Also I didn't know it would also effect the regional sport nets as I noticed in that newspaper ad.
 
mnradiofan said:
This is one example where I feel that it's too bad we can't just cut out the middlemen and go directly to the content providers. Right now, it ends up making the cable and sat companies look bad for constantly raising rates, but if Fox came directly to me and said "we think you should pay double to continue to receive our channels" then they could get more direct feedback from the very people that they are ALSO trying to sell advertising to, plus it would put the choice in the hands of the consumers as to what channels they want to pay for.
Click to expand...

I keep hearing that reasoning, but to me, it doesn't add up. If the content providers were providing the service directly to consumers, they would all have to put new customer service infrastructures into place in order to bill consumers, process payments, cut-off service to deliquent customers, etc. All this would cost them money. "Middlemen" exist for a reason - they can bundle services and provide customer service for combined providers at a lower cost per provider - and therefore a lower cost per consumer.

I also don't buy the argument that an "a la carte" system (customers paying for only the channels they want) would save money for most consumers. I know there are a few of you out there who are content with just the big 4 networks, and a few local indies. If that was my preference, I'd erect a big attenna on my roof and get everything OTA. But that's not me, and I think I'm a fairly typical 21st Century TV viewer. My wife keeps an eye on our investments by watching CNBC, we watch CNN for news at least a few times per week, I prefer the dramas provided by the basic cable networks (FX, TNT, AMC, etc.), but I still watch a few shows on each of the Big 4. There are a couple shows I watch regularly on BBC America, etc.

All told, we probably watch 25 channels regularly, and another 25 during the course of a month. So if the providers or the cable company charged me only $2 per channel for those 50, I'd be paying about what I pay now for Comcast. If I was charged $3 per channel, I would be paying considerably more - with many fewer choices.

I don't see the upside.
 
Lkeller said:
All told, we probably watch 25 channels regularly, and another 25 during the course of a month. So if the providers or the cable company charged me only $2 per channel for those 50, I'd be paying about what I pay now for Comcast. If I was charged $3 per channel, I would be paying considerably more - with many fewer choices.

I don't see the upside.
Click to expand...

The upside is for people like me who regularly watched only a few cable services (I counted 5 before realizing it was costing me $65/month for those 5 and pulled the plug).
 
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