Fox Sports Channels, FX Blocked in Dish Network Dispute
By BRIAN STELTER
October 1, 2010, 8:55 am
Dish Network subscribers woke up Friday to find that FX, National Geographic Channel and Fox’s regional sports networks had disappeared.
The subscribers are caught in the middle of a dispute between Dish and the News Corporation over the fees that are paid to carry the channels.
The two companies can’t even agree about what happened at the stroke of midnight Friday morning, when the channels vanished from Dish’s system. In dueling statements, Fox Networks claimed that Dish “decided to no longer carry Fox Networks cable programming,” while Dish claimed that Fox Networks was “blocking” access to the channels.
Dish Network says it has about 14 million subscribers.
Threats of losing access to popular channels are now commonplace when companies negotiate new TV contracts.
Early Friday morning, Fox said, “The proposal we’ve offered Dish is fair and in line with the tremendous value we provide. We regret the inconvenience to our viewers, but Dish has asserted its subscribers do not value our channels and has made a decision to go forward without them.”
A few hours later, Dish said in its own statement that Fox was demanding an “unprecedented rate increase of more than 50 percent.”
Fox has a total of 19 regional sports networks. During the impasse Dish said that it would make the NFL Network, Big Ten Network, and many other regional sports channels available “to all affected customers at no additional charge.”
As is common in these disputes, the two sides have set up Web sites to rally support. Fox’s site is called GetWhatIPaidFor.com. Dish has a series of sites, including FoxShakedownDish.com and JoinTheFightAgainstFox.com.
The current spat between Dish and News Corporation does not affect Fox television stations, but the contracts with stations owned by Fox expire in a month, according to Multichannel News.
