AT&T pulls plug on HBO for Dish, Sling subscribers
4In an unprecedented move, new HBO parent blacks out programming on Dish Network and Dish owned Sling Television
This evening hundreds of thousands of Dish and Sling customers are without HBO as a result of a negotiations breakdown with HBO owner AT&T.
The key stumbling point, according to Dish executives: AT&T is insisting on collecting royalties on a fixed block of Dish subscribers, whether those customers subscribe to HBO or not.
Dish has requested third party binding arbitration in an effort to reach a resolution. So far, AT&T has declined this request. In the interim, Dish is providing a free preview of HDNET.
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This is the same kind of crap that I went through with DirecTV. They usually figure it out within a few days. HBO will be back. They’d be stupid to lose all of Dish instead of negotiating.
I sometimes wondered if they announce it so people complain to HBO or whatever channel they’re negotiating with.
@RiotDemon There was no announcement, pe se. Just a test pattern where the HBO channels were. I dug around and received confirmation from a contact in the AT&T media relations group that AT&T cut off access, not Dish.
AT&T owns not just HBO, but Dish competitor Direct TV AND coms giant Time Warner. Dish-sympathetic industry buzz is whispering “monopoly” and suggesting AT&T is trying to muscle out Dish with unreasonable contract terms.
@RiotDemon you forget that AT&T owns DirecTV. They are just pissing in DishTV’s cheerios.
This is what happens when you let carriers become content providers.
Welcome to the world without net neutrality. Expect more corporate giveaways of the public interest from Trump-appointee Ajit Pai.
Also know that AT&T plays dirty against the cable companies that have to pay municipal license fees (for using city right-of-ways to run their cable to your house) because DirecTV is IPTV (i.e. streaming), not broadcast, and is classified as a communications service, like a landline phone, which is exempt from such fees that fund your local government (OMG, Taxes!).
@RiotDemon DishTV should run 24x7 ads that say AT&T has cutoff your HBO as a hostage in contract negotiations. Tell them as a HBO subscriber, you want them to release HBO from use as extortion from a competitor (anti-competitive behavior, anyone?) and to stop the blatant and willful abuse of customers/subscribers.
Then show a screen with instructions to:
File a complaint with HBO. Their Customer Complaint line is …
File a complaint with the FTC. Their website is …
File a complaint with the FCC. Their website is …
And then loop it 24x7.
@mike808 As of early this morning, Dish was playing a short infomercial on the channels where HBO used to be. Basically Dish is saying what you suggest. They are also playing the “rural” card, stating how HBO and AT&T are targeting rural Americans because rural areas don’t have access to high speed internet service and therefore have no other options beside satellite for TV service. That part strikes me as a bit blatant and petty, but whatevs, Dish was founded on the principle of bringing satellite service to areas without reliable cable or broadcast TV (ie: rural America).
@ruouttaurmind just wait for the AT&T ads on the other DishTV channels that blame DishTV for ‘cheaping out’ on their customers and HBO had no choice but to pull the plug after being reasonable with the maniacs at DishTV.
Cue the crawl in 3, … 2, … 1 …
“Call DishTV and demand they restore your HBO at …”
@ruouttaurmind Yep …
@mike808 You called that one.
I dunno. Maybe the end game AT&T is working is to remain at odds with Dish. This would have a serious impact on Dish and current as well as potential future subscribers. Maybe even ultimately forcing them into a sale to AT&T?
What ATT wants apparently is similar to the crap Microsoft pulled for many years; every machine a manufacturer made that was capable of running a windows OS had to have windows licensed and paid for or else they’d jack up the price on all windows licenses to that manufacturer. So if you wanted to buy a PC to run a real operating system on, instead of settling for windows, you still had to pay the microsoft tax.
Comcast has done similar crap.
@duodec This is precisely the matter in question. I’m still sussing out the details, but apparently AT&T wants Dish to buy blocks of licenses rather than individual per-seat licensing. I don’t have an insider at Dish, but with a whole lotta pressure, my AT&T contact hinted their offer is structured in such a way that Dish will be forced to buy licenses for customers who don’t even subscribe to HBO. I get the sense it’s some kind of “percentage over” licensing thing.
@duodec The AT&T/Warner/DirectTV/HBO/Turner conglomerate smacks of the old AT&T telcom giant Bell Operating Systems busted up by the feds in the early '80s. Frankly I’m a bit surprised they were permitted to own so many pieces of a monopoly. They are in a prime position to muscle out competition from satellite and cable providers alike.
Living in a rural area, I’ve had Dish for almost 20 years. This is SOP during negotiations with content providers - it will eventually be resolved. PITA, if you watch the channels that are in negotiation (I don’t have HBO). But I’m glad that Dish plays hardball to keep the cost down.
@macromeh I agree that viewing blackouts are not uncommon with Dish during contract negotiations. I’ve been a Dish subscriber since 1999 and seen it a handful of times.
This particular case, however, is unprecedented. This is the first time the content provider (HBO/AT&T) operates their own service provider (DirectTV) which is in direct competition with Dish. The stakes are higher than ever for both parties.
I’m not suggesting the parties won’t reach an agreement, but HBO has less motivation than any previous content provider to budge from their demands.
Interesting times.
@macromeh @ruouttaurmind What about NBC/Comcast? Wasn’t that the same scenario?
“This is the first time the content provider (HBO/AT&T) operates their own service provider (DirectTV) which is in direct competition with Dish.”
@G1 Little different situ as: 1. NBC is (primarily) OTA broadcaster. 2. Comcast and Dish are more what I’d refer to as indirect competitors. Although Dish could potentially steal 100% of Comcast subscribers, Comcast only has the infrastructure to serve a small portion of Dish subscribers. Comcast can only be considered competition in areas where they have a content delivery vessel. Even NBC can’t compete with Dish via OTA due to the same limitations. Areas without reliable OTA television reception are only able to receive NBC via satellite, cable or digital delivery (ISP). So it’s really NBC who’s at a disadvantage.
Little rambling, but hopefully you get the general assertion I’m after.
When Directv did it to The Weather Channel, seems it lasted maybe a couple months and the email campaign against Directv got pretty strong. Finally they worked it out and The Weather Channel was nice enough to send everyone one of their hats to thank them for sending notes to Directv via their website when it was over.
Crap. Posted in the wrong place. It’s late, I’m tired, and I’m pissy without my HBO. I was nearly finished rewatching The Sopranos. Two episodes left and I was gonna zip it up tonight. But no joy, no HBO.
@ruouttaurmind did they already disable the provider login via the HBO Go app?
@Ignorant I haven’t tried streaming from outside Dish receiver. I can’t even speculate how HBO manages streaming credential authorizations or how long it may take them to pull the curtain on that stuff. Maybe I can sneak a couple streaming breaks into my schedule today. I’ll try it when I get to the office.
@ruouttaurmind blame the goat too… Sorry that interrupted your evening plans.
@Kidsandliz Where is that goat? @jst1ofknd, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!
@Ignorant Here’s what I see when I access HBOGo on my desktop from Chrome browser. First a message flashed “You have been signed out”, then this:
@ruouttaurmind damn
@Ignorant No worries! Just found them on Prime Video.
@Kidsandliz @ruouttaurmind
I got here as soon as I could. I had to go to my day job, then see my new great niece, then pick a load of tile…
I’m here now and I say…
My bad.
Prior to this afternoon, the Dish Network logo appeared in this list of providers when signing in to HBO Go. They’ve been scrubbed from the list. AT&T is looking like they’re wanting to make this a permanent arrangement.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Update: 11/07/2018
It’s been one week, and neither party is budging on their position. Dish continues running their canned “it’s not our fault, blame HBO” bit on the channels where HBO used to live. HBO continues to blame Dish for not accepting their “current terms” (HBO press release written in a way that makes it sound like Dish was seeking better terms than they already had).
<sigh>
I guess it’s time for me to break up with Dish. I could just subscribe directly to HBO NOW and continue using Dish for everything else, but I prefer to have everything integrated together, and a local DVR option.
I guess I’ll explore the current offers from DirectTV and Cox (our local cable conglomerate). At least with Cox I could get higher speed internet. Currently on a 10MBps line with CenturyStink,the highest speed they can deliver to my home. I may be able to do Cox for television and 100MBps ISP for only a few dollars more than I’m paying for Dish/CenturyStink.
@ruouttaurmind I am dumping my AT&T service this week and switching to Spectrum. The AT&T sales rep told me I’d be getting 50mps internet with my Direct TV package. After I’d signed the contract and the DTV was installed, it turned out to be 10mps. I have been suffering constant lag and interruptions for 18mos. I found out yesterday that Spectrum will buy out my contract if I switch, so I am gone. I’m getting all the same channels plus HBO, Showtime and Cinemax with 100mps internet and no contract for about 170% what I’m paying now.
@moondrake I have only 2 options for ISP. Cox for cable net, and CentutyLink for various DSL options, and fiber in limited locations (in which I do not reside). Cox provides TV and landline service as well as ISP. CenturyLink provides landline, ISP, and is partnered with DirectTV for television via satellite. No other options available here. I know in some cities there are 2 and in few cases even 3 cable carriers, and a handful of DSL type providers.
@moondrake @ruouttaurmind
What they can set as a max on your DSL modem (DirecTV is just IPTV) isn’t what your line will actually support. That 50Mbps is shared with DirecTV. And they use QOS to sacrifice internet to make sure you don’t lose picture.
I had a tech come out and test my line (same problems) shortly after they offered a faster Internet package for the same price when my 1-year contract discount ran out. Pay the same, get faster speed. What’s not to like, yes?
Except my distance from the VSLAM had so much noise and packet retraining that I could only actually get the lower speed I had before without dropouts and connection weirdness. The tech guy marked my account with a max limit on the line speed even though I have a “higher speed” package, and set the VSLAM and modem max to the lower max (20Mbps vs the 50Mbps package my bill says I have).
You might be in the same boat. Once they did that, I see single digit retrain events after months. Before it was in the thousands per month with daily dropouts.
When this discount ends ($60/mo - we dropped pay tv) I’ll drop to the lowest speed tier and start over. AT&T pricing is just abusive - they force churn to meet ‘new subscriber’ targets vs retaining existing customers. Its crazy - I can’t get a renewal for the same price I’m paying now, I have to cancel and sign up on a new contract for a different tier – for the same price.
@mike808 Same problem here. I’m about 2200 feet from the DSLAM. I’m paying for 40MBps DDSL but ISP had to throttle to 10 to maintain reliability. Houses closer to the DSLAM are paying the same price for 40MBps.
@mike808 @ruouttaurmind The problem for me is that I live in one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city (my house was built in 1912). It’s a lower income neighborhood with a lot of older population and AT&T hasn’t bothered to upgrade their equipment here. What really pissed me off, other than being stuck for 2yrs with inadequate service, is that the price didn’t change when they reduced my service level by 80%.
@moondrake @ruouttaurmind
They’re pretty sneaky about making sure they say “speeds up to <whatever>” to weasel out of your complaint.
Just watch when you renew they dont “reset” your speeds to the new plan and screw up the throttling. It is what it is. Wanting it to be faster like other customers won’t make it so.
@moondrake @ruouttaurmind
But hey, Ajit Pai is in our corner because Trump is our guy and we voted him in. He wouldn’t fuck us over for his corporate grifter buddies, right?
Now who’s bitching about not having their socialized internet entitlements, ya pinko commie rat basterd.
I hope Dish stands their ground on this. I’m a long time Dish subscriber that does not buy HBO. Why should they get a share of my bill for a service I choose not to buy? Certainly seems like unfair business practices.
On a side note, what this has to do with Net Neutrality, I can’t figure out.
@rework I agree, I don’t think this is in any way related to net neutrality, and I don’t think it would be fair to expect you to subsidize my HBO any more than CenturyLink (my ISP) is having me subsidize my neighbor’s service by having me pay the same price for 75% less service.
@rework @ruouttaurmind
Because HBO content is the crux of this dispute, it’s not strictly a ‘net neutrality’ issue. However, it is tangentially related in this manner: the content owner is also a service provider, and is ‘withholding’ content to a competing service provider. Net neutrality advocates are concerned (among several other things) that internet content might be similarly blocked/withheld based on the service provider chosen (especially if choices are limited).
@compunaut I remember when the concept of net neutrality was just a sprout. There were two concerns which were basically one street in two directions: Content providers withholding access unless a ransom was paid by the ISPs, or ISPs charging content providers and/or subscribers for access and/or “preferred” access (throttled performance of that subscribed content unless a fee was paid).
That battle has already been lost with mobile service providers who regularly throttle access to streaming content and offer premium plans which remove the throttles.
@ruouttaurmind Yeah, but throttled performance is really just a speed thing (I think); related mostly to streaming activity. I’m more concerned about blocked/limited/exclusive access to sites or information.
@compunaut @ruouttaurmind Except when someone in control of your internet decides to throttle Netflix and Hulu but grant free passage to Amazon Prime Video. Or to throttle the streaming apps of some TV providers while allowing others full service. Killing off the competition and creating monopolies is one of the big dangers of losing net neutrality.
@compunaut
Like… Amz paying Comcast to throttle, or even eliminate access to Walmart? Or Google paying to have Apple access limited? No, not a real thing. Yet. But theoretically possible without protection of strong net neutrality laws, innit?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯