Tue, March 9, 2004
It's War!—12:01 AM
It appears that Echostar (the Dish Network people) are involved in a little skirmish with CBS/Viacom. They're threatening to drop CBS and the Viacom networks (Comedy Central and anything that begins with "Nick" or "MTV") rather than pay a nominal rate increase to keep the stations. This is even more futile than the L.A. grocery strike – a satellite provider simply can't live without the Viacom nets.
It's great news for me, though, because I've spent the last two years talking satellite-curious friends out of Dish Network and into the vastly superior DirecTV. I always thought of it as a glib and pointless remark when I referred to Echostar as "Small time. Above-ground pool people." Turns out, I was right!
Tonight, I saw 2 messages crawl across the screen urging Dish Network subscribers to call and complain – one during The Daily Show and one during Cheers on TV Land. (Expecting Dish Network subscribers to read above a second-grade level is a heady risk.) Plus a message on CBS.com. I'm impressed because Viacom is using Dish Network's own service to distribute its message against them, which is cool. Echostar was always a tad cocky, in my view. They tried to buy DirecTV a while back, and yes, I am happier with Rupert Murdoch owning my satellite service than having it fall into the clutches of those savages. Go get 'em, Sumner!
