The DISH Won't Turner Over

For a liberal, he's a shameless
Capitalist Tool...

I am a DISH subscriber.  As a result of that, I have lost Turner Classic Movies...and a bunch of channels I never watched. 

What is Boomerang?

Well, the struggle continues as of this writing, which will be brief.  We have two sides on this struggle. 

DISH says that it is because Turner Broadcasting is asking for too much money for its channels, including those that Turner insists DISH take in order to allow their more popular channels (like TCM) on the air.

Turner says DISH would not negotiate despite numerous pleas and concessions by Turner to DISH and thus had to reluctantly pull the rights to the channels for DISH subscribers.

And as always, it's the customer who loses out.

I'm not taking sides in this.  I will make my thoughts brief.

Hey Ben, how'd you like those midterms?

I blame both companies. 
I want Turner Classic Movies back on the air.
I won't drop DISH over one channel and am astonished Turner thinks I would. 

I say 'one channel' because TCM is the only channel I would want.  Maybe CNN.  I missed them in the most recent election because bouncing between the conservative FOX News and the liberal MSNBC I felt I was getting not so much news but either cheerleading or mourning.  Granted, it was amusing but something was missing, at least for me.

However, why would I want Cartoon Network or truTV, two channels I never watched or really wanted to?  Why doesn't Turner ask me if I want to get all those channels?

I don't, so as much as I might want TCM I'm not going to switch providers for that one channel when apart from the loss of TCM I'm generally happy with DISH.   This doesn't mean I may not let DISH know what I think of this mess which I'm literally paying for, but to go to DirecTV or cable for one channel?

It would take a great deal for me to do so.  Silent Sunday Nights ain't enough.

Worse, as time goes by (to coin a TCM-friendly phrase) I find that I actually can live without Turner Classic Movies.  No, this doesn't mean I wouldn't want it back, but it does mean that with this dispute going on three weeks I find that TCM is something I am slowly not missing. 

I could pre-dispute go to TCM and watch something I would enjoy.  With it now gone, while I don't have ready access to their lineup I find that I no longer feel the need to hit that channel.  If it keeps going on like this, I may not even notice it's gone, and that would be the worst of it.

BOTH parties are to blame.  I am not a happy customer, not at all.  There are many issues in this latest battle between network and provider, things like bundling and the higher cost of carry (which are then carried to the customers, who may not like what they pay for). 

I urge BOTH parties to settle this to something they can live with, to return our regularly scheduled programming, and to get Ben Mankiewicz to live up to his principles and apologize to the working-class people who pay his bills for putting us through this ordeal.

   

Not satisfied with killing At the Movies, one of them now wants more money to make pithy/snarky comments in between films...