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Television

6.6 Million Lose CBS Channels After 'Business Dispute' With AT&T (engadget.com) 143

Posted by EditorDavid from the cutting-the-cable dept.
"Media giants are embroiled in yet another fight over TV rates, and viewers are once again paying the price," writes Engadget. CBS' channels in 17 markets (including New York, San Francisco and Atlanta) have gone dark on AT&T services like DirecTV Now and U-verse after the two companies failed to reach an agreement on a new carriage contract before the old one expired at 2AM ET on July 19th. As is often the case in disputes like this, the two sides are each accusing each other of being unreasonable -- though AT&T in particular has also claimed that CBS is using All Access as a weapon.
CNET notes that the dispute also affects 100 CBS stations and affiliates on Direct Now, citing reports that it ultimately impacts a total of 6.6 million TV viewers in the U.S. "A business dispute took CBS off the air for millions of satellite television customers of DirecTV and AT&T U-verse on Saturday," according to a news report (from CBS): CBS said that while it didn't want its customers caught in the middle, it is determined to fight for fair value... AT&T countered in a statement provided to Variety that CBS is "a repeat blackout offender" that has pulled its programming from other carriers before in order to get its way.
"Isn't this the sort of thing they enemies of net neutrality assured us would never happen?" writes long-time Slashdot reader shanen. "Or is it just a plot to sell VPN services?"
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6.6 Million Lose CBS Channels After 'Business Dispute' With AT&T More

6.6 Million Lose CBS Channels After 'Business Dispute' With AT&T

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  • I'm not following (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 21, 2019 @08:07PM (#58962492)

    The qouted reader.

    What does vpns and net neutrality have to do with cable tv

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It has nothing to do with it whatsoever. It's a throwaway line to feed red meat to asshole tech nerds with more money than brains.

      I could not care one bit if anyone loses some large corporate channel or the large corporation that carries it screws you over. You are still getting fucked for paying them and having to watch ads. In the end you will end up paying more and getting less. 30 minute sitcoms are now 19 minutes or less of television. 1 hr shows barely hit 40 minutes running time. I will not wat

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It has nothing to do with it whatsoever. It's a throwaway line to feed red meat to asshole tech nerds with more money than brains.

        It has quite a a lot to do with it. It hints that there are other way to get the content you want when the big boys start playing their money games with each other. Those of us with limited funds will find a way to watch what we want, your (outrageously gross) profits be damned.

        • Well, litigation over content price can happen with any streaming service. Net neutrality is about not discriminating bits on a cable, this is many layers above it. You cannot force CBS to accept AT&T prices, nor you can do the opposite. And AT&T most certainly shall not air CBS without a valid contract between them.
        • My antenna will always pick up those stations no matter what money games the big boys want to play.

    • Re:I'm not following (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wssddc ( 450574 ) on Sunday July 21, 2019 @08:57PM (#58962664) Homepage

      What does vpns and net neutrality have to do with cable tv

      If the network has a streaming service, a dispute like this may cause it to be blocked to cable internet users even if they are paying for the service.

      If you use a vpn to get around such a block, any agreement between the network and the cable company to not count streaming traffic against your monthly quota may also go away.

      • Except that this is not a streaming service vs a carrier, but a content producer vs a streaming service. Nothing to do with neutrality, everything to do with licensing of content. Especially since here AT&T is pulling CBS not as a form of retaliation, but because it has no right to air it since the contract expired. Also, if you are pro net neutrality you should be against zero rating, not complaining you may lose it.

  • Weird (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Sunday July 21, 2019 @08:07PM (#58962496)

    My OTA broadcast of CBS still seems to be working just fine when I checked it in Plex. Not that there's anything I actually want to watch right now, but still, it's there should I ever want it, and I don't pay a dime in ongoing costs for it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Except massive doses of radiation.

    • Re:Weird (Score:5, Informative)

      by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Sunday July 21, 2019 @11:40PM (#58963104)
      You missed the part where CBS has moved their programming to CBS ALL ACCESS (for a price[$5.99 with ads, $9.99 without]) if you want to see anything new. OTA is just there because the government mandate. But yes, I get my Big Brother OTA through my HDHomerun.

      • HDHomerun

        Does it work well? Do you have to pay anything monthly or is it just a matter of buying the box?

        • When used with Plex (with a Plex Pass), you literally just connect the HDHomeRun TV tuner then click a few buttons in Plex. Couldn’t be simpler. Plex Pass is a $5/mo. subscription service, but you can get a lifetime membership for pretty cheap ($75-120, depending on if they’re running a special price), which is what most people I know who use Plex have done, that way there are no ongoing costs.

          When used without Plex, I think HDHomeRun has their own TV guide service that you may need to subscribe

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Pascoea ( 968200 )

            When used without Plex, I think HDHomeRun has their own TV guide service that you may need to subscribe to, and there’s some additional setup necessary, but I’m not familiar with that way of doing things, so I can’t really speak to it.

            I also went the plex route, but my server has been finicky a few times. Fell back to the HDHomeRun app. I know they have one from Android, Xbox, Fire, etc. Comes with a built in channel guide. They sell a "DVR" solution, for a monthly fee.

        • The complete answer to your question is more complex than the answers you received so far. I suggest you read a few articles before making any changes. There are no additional fees "required" for using an HDHomerun to pick-up OTA broadcasts and dump them into your router. However, significant additional costs include the antenna and mast on your roof, coax cable down to box, per-amp if needed, a channel guide, storage for DVR, and some way to watch the recordings. Plex can do some of this for free and m

          • thank you. that's helpful.

          • All true! Although I did build a hangar antenna and I get roughly 150 channels in the Houston metroplex. Still wrestling with getting Plex to play nice with mine. If you set it up wrong the HDHomerun app won't play griping about a missing DVR. When I first set it up and told my wife to start using it instead of our streaming service for local channels she was not pleased. A few weeks later I come home from work and she is watching ancient re-runs and LOVING them! Now she spends most of her TV watching time

          • Don't forget that Plex can auto-remove the commercials too.

            The Lifetime Plex Pass hasn't been $150 for quite awhile. Its base price has been $120 for about two years now (I would know: I bought it "on sale" at $120 about a month before they made that its permanent price), with sales dropping it to around $75 several times a year). And yup, getting Plex up and running can be an expensive affair, though it doesn't need to be. I got it up and running on a 2011 Mac mini I had around the house at no additional c

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      Same here. My MythTV is picking up CBS better than ever, since a few weeks ago when the "second phase" of the digital switch-over happened, and it (and the NBC station) got moved to a lower frequency, with no more glitches from bad signal quality.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Same here. I just checked Sickbeard and "Star Trek: Discovery" is the _only_ current CBS show that I get (and I haven't even gotten around to watching it yet). But the last episode downloaded in April, so it looks like I haven't missed anything. I'd call this a minor disruption at most.

      If 6 million people haven't learned to pirate yet, well, maybe this will help motivate them. But given CBS' "popularity" I wouldn't hold my breath. Most people probably won't even notice that CBS isn't there. Maybe that's the

  • And... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Nothing of value was lost.

  • 1. This has nothing to do with net neutrality. Similar carriage disputes [wikipedia.org] happened while "Net Neutrality" was in effect.
    2. This is just a bog-standard re-negotiation of a contract. It happens [google.com] all the time [google.com] and frequently results in a temporary loss of channels until the two sides come to an agreement.

    • The end result is the same every time. After a brief corporate temper tantrum, channels are restored. The effect on the customers is that they will pay more for the same thing they were already getting. CBS will raise the per-subscriber cost by something like $3 monthly. AT&T will then raise the customer's bill by $5 per month, citing the "increased cost of programming". Cable providers only pretend to fight these increases in content costs. They don't really care because they know they'll just pass 120

      • Cable providers only pretend to fight these increases in content costs. They don't really care because they know they'll just pass 120-150% of the cost increase onto the customers.

        Without a very public "fight" consumers will blame the provider rather than the content producer for the price increase.

      • Maybe: the ATT/HBO spat with DIshNetwork is going on a year, now. (I'm so glad I wasn't hooked on Game of Thrones)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      In a round about way it is due to Net Neutrality. During the Obama years, Net Neutrality was implemented and massive mergers were approved by the Obama administration under the guise that NN "protected" the public and telecom came under the purview of the FTC instead of the FCC.

      Hence we got Charter and AT&T eating up the entire market and merging into basically 2-3 "ma bells" again across the US now including movie and other content studios.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Khyber ( 864651 )

      "This has nothing to do with net neutrality."

      When we first discussed NN, carriage contract wars was one of the first fucking things we discussed as we talked about the fears of content providers becoming the content pipeline. Or were you absent during that discussion years and years ago on this site?

    • Meanwhile I paid because they advertised CBS or whatever the current dispute is about, and they no longer have it. Does the contract say it might not be there? Of course. Do people read it? No they don't.

      So complain as breach of contract, and ask for a jury of your peers. A loss or two and they will pay, then stop advertising that it has CBS. Then customers get used to not having broadcast channels. Then CBS agrees to lower prices to get their ads seen by more people.

      The long game, folks.

  • Alternate headline (Score:4, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday July 21, 2019 @08:22PM (#58962534)

    6.6 Million Discover Improved Quality of Life after Dispute Between CBS, Cable Companies

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BinBoy ( 164798 )

      It's amazing that that many people still watch TV.

    • Re:Alternate headline (Score:4, Funny)

      by ebonum ( 830686 ) on Sunday July 21, 2019 @08:57PM (#58962660)

      Nine months from now:
      New York, San Francisco and Atlanta report an unexplained raise in the number of births.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Deserves the funny mod, but I think I should clarify that the part that was bothering me was not so much the entertainment side of CBS as the journalism side. There were also questions about why this is related to the net neutrality debate, though I see the connection as obvious.

      There are important non-commercial issues here, but those concerns are getting ignored or even crushed by squabbles over maximizing profits. We need GOOD journalism, and this approach is NOT working.

      No, I don't think we can get back

  • Locast.org still works. (Score:3)

    by MMC Monster ( 602931 ) on Sunday July 21, 2019 @08:56PM (#58962658)

    So long as CBS has an antenna in New York, the New York denizens can access it online (or on their computers or app stores) via Locast. ( https://www.locast.org/ [locast.org] )

    • Or, they can plug in an antenna and grab it themselves. CBS is a national over-the-air broadcaster after all.

  • As large arrangements like these falter and cause massive issues, it will only go to further drive companies to believe that instead of making content deals, they should maintain a massive silo of content they have full control over and not rely on licensing.

    Only when some silos show they cannot make money on their own will we see a re-expansion of some content silos warming to the idea of licensing content far and wide again, and not asking too much for the privilege.

  • AT&T could EASILY put CBS in its place (Score:3)

    by Miamicanes ( 730264 ) on Sunday July 21, 2019 @09:38PM (#58962766)

    All AT&T has to do to smack CBS (and other broadcasters with local affiliates) into lowering their fees is make their various products (DirecTV, DirecTV Now, Uverse) directly interoperable with networked OTA tuners (HD Homerun and others), then allow potential cord-cutters to keep the cord connected, but prune away the local broadcasters in exchange for saving $15-25/month that AT&T would otherwise have to pay in local-carriage fees.

    Up until around 2008, both DirecTV and Dish Network used to do precisely that... you could pay them for local channels, or you could save the fee, connect an OTA antenna to their STB-DVR, and it would seamlessly insert the local channels directly into your STB-DVR's channel lineup. Voom! did the exact same thing, though IT did it because it had no choice in the matter (Voom! only had one satellite, so it didn't have the transponder capacity to handle local channels for markets besides LA, New York, and anyone who qualified to watch the affiliates from those two cities because they were too far away from their own local affiliates to have an acceptable signal).

    If someone like AT&T even WHISPERED that they were thinking about doing this, every bitchy local affiliate that wants higher and higher fees to carry their channel would INSTANTLY be in full-bore existential-terror mode, because it would effectively let AT&T off the hook. They could pass along whatever the local affiliate demanded for customers determined to not mess around with an antenna, but even SLIGHTLY price-sensitive customers would buy an antenna and pocket the savings. Meanwhile, the few remaining customers willing to pay for not having an antenna would see their local channel fee increase until it accounted for half their monthly cable/satellite fee.

    • +1, I have always wondered why they didn't just defang them with this approach. Only a minority of customers outside broadcast tower range would be negatively impacted.
      • Tech support. Most folks are clueless about antennas-YOU SOLD THIS TO ME..why doesn't it get CBS ? "Well sir, you live 125 miles away from the nearest transmitter"...
    • Yes, I had one of these Dish Net boxes for quite a while...although the reason was because they could not get locals...it was a big deal...at some point you could get either NY or LA, but not "local" if you lived elsewhere. The locals didn't want to cut Dish in.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      I guess you're not old enough to remember that cable TV started because of people with bad OTA reception. It wasn't until the '80s that the dozens of niche channels full of commercials became a thing. So realistically they can't just put an OTA tuner in, because even if they installed an antenna, there's no guarantee that any particular customer could get all the local channels. Digital is even worse than analog about this because mostly it either works or it doesn't, you don't get a partly-watchable channe

      • It doesn't matter *why* cable TV started. As far as anyone who was a teenager in the 1980s or later is concerned, "cable" is for cable channels like MTV, HGTV, CNN, etc. Local channels are an afterthought... and increasingly, an expensive one.

        About 20% of ATSC reception problems are the broadcaster's fault... specifically, using overly-long MPEG-2 GOPs to let them cram in another over-compressed subchannel nobody cares about. Channels with only a single subchannel (like channel 17.1 in Miami) are easy to re

        • Just to add... I'm not aware of any US broadcaster using the technique, but a few years ago, someone came up with (and patented) a way to encode MPEG-2 video in a way that guarantees that every frame includes a few rows or columns with I-frame-like qualities, even when GOPs are long, so that after a mangled I-frame, you get a venetian blind-like correction over the next dozen frames or so.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DewDude ( 537374 )
          The other 80% are due to ATSC being a technical pile of shit that seems like it was designed to degrade fringe reception and push people to alternative methods.

          • The biggest single problem with ATSC 1.0 is that it sacrifices huge amounts of functionality that are important to the urban majority (like the ability to receive it in a moving vehicle, or with a substandard antenna) for the sake of making it a tiny, tiny bit less impossible to receive if you're in far-fringe areas and put up a HUGE antenna. The whole COFDM-vs-8VSB debate, which has been more than adequately documented over the past 25 years. The latest chipsets have fixed a lot of 8VSB's problems, but its

    • if Cable/Satellite companies were smart, they would sneak a semi a-la-Carte Package (for example, a Disney Package, a Viacom package, a CBS Package, ETC) on content providers contract renewals and execute it in the program lineup. Any time the CP's decide to raise rates, the Companies simply nod their head "Sure!!" and proceed to immediately raise the rate on just the affected package 1:1. When Sub's Cancel, the CP's will get less because Less people actually get the content now (which can now be officially

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DewDude ( 537374 )
      If I am remembering correctly, they cannot do this over U-Verse. Cable operators are mandated to offer a minimal service called "basic cable" that contains just broadcast channels at the minimum. "Expanded basic" is what most people call "basic cable". As a cable provider, you aren't allowed to offer expanded basic service without basic service. I went through this when I was at a small cable system and we were trying to get around the high retransmit fees from local broadcasters. We wanted to take advantag
  • They don't want over the air "free" tv anymore. They want everyone on subscription tv. They hanker with the major cable/satellite services who end up dropping them, and hope people will sign onto their "all access" crap. Well, since Big Bang Theory finally stopped, I've got ONE more network show left I still follow. Once NCIS dies off, I'm FINISHED with network tv. 1/2 hour shows are less than 17 minutes, 1 hour shows are less than 35 minutes with all the flipping commercials! Screw em!

    • NCIS will never die. They’ll just keep putting different cities in the name and recycling the old scripts.

      Oh, and be sure to tune in for the premiere of NCIS: Alamogordo, New Mexico this fall!

    • just wait for ATSC 3.0 with pay OTA channels!

      • No, I can't wait for targeted ads....OK, I'm in a nice area, so it will probably be for cars and vacations, and drugs you never want to need. In poor areas, It'll all be fast food and Cash Now !!! payday lenders. We will need adblock for our TV sets !!

  • Networks need to chose between commercials and making subscribers pay not both.

    • CBS is free OTA. One reason they charge cable companies because those cable companies want to swap in their own commercials. No benefit to the end subscriber, but the end subscriber should really use an antenna anyway if it's an option. Better quality signal.

  • And in the end nothing really matters. And nothing of value is lost.
    toss up a cheap antenna and watch it for free as CBS is still a free OTA broadcaster.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hodr ( 219920 )

      Every time I see this suggestion I am reminded of how out of touch city folk are. You realize the overwhelming majority of people living within the US are out of range (>80 miles) away from a any market large enough to support OTA TV broadcasts (TVfool.com).

      Hell, I live in a metro area with more than a million people and have zero OTA options. Would have several if I could get a practical antenna that goes more than 100 miles, but i'm not willing to buy a 3 meter yagi and mount it on a 15 meter pole to t

  • Loss of ad revenue (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Oliver Wendell Jones ( 158103 ) on Monday July 22, 2019 @12:44AM (#58963328)
    I've never understood how any TV network thinks this is ever a good idea (and I say that having worked for the local FOX affiliate for a couple of years).

    Advertising rates are determined based on a combination of how many viewers you can claim you have and your Nielson ratings. It costs a TV station virtually NOTHING to allow a satellite or cable company to re-transmit their signal. In return, the station then gets to claim that all of the satellite/cable subscribers in their DMA (Designated Media Area) are now potential viewers as well which increases their base advertising rates. Again - there is NO COST TO THE NETWORK/STATION to allow this to happen.

    However, stations/networks got used to receiving that amount of free money every month/quarter/year and then they get greedy and start demanding more money for a service that BENEFITS THEM FAR MORE THAN THE re-transmission fees ever could and we, the consumers/viewers, end up with the short end of the stick as both companies complain that the other company is being unreasonable and cheap/greedy. They broadcast warnings that their network/station will no longer appear on cable/satellite and to call your cable/satellite company and tell them that you want this station to stay on their service! They actually expect the consumers to do their negotiating for them...

  • These channels should be paying the cable companies to carry their channels on their systems, not the other way around.

  • Can't imagine why independent content creators are doing so well. I have to thank both AT&T and CBS in this situation for making independents an attractive alternative to big monopolizing corporations that produce and distribute content increasing more undesirable compared to their competitors. Keep it up guys, certainly you're both too big to fail ;)

  • I was still able to watch Friday night's "The Late Show" for free after DirecTV dumped them and the TiVo recorded 1 hour of elevator music with a static DirecTV logo. AT&T/DirecTV: fuck you guys. You want to get cord-cutters? Because this is how you get cord-cutters.

  • What gives?

    How can my zero dollars per month HDTV antenna pick up CBS channels in my city?

    Oh, wait, it's for people too lazy they pay rent to cable firms using satellite services.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DewDude ( 537374 )
      Because you happen to live in an area where you can actually get your OTA channels; but the fact is ATSC uses 8VSB modulation...and 8VSB modulation loves to just stop working at the first sign of multi-path. If you live in an urban environment...you're going to be getting multi-path; these signals bounce off buildings. So you can be in a situation where your antenna winds up being worthless because the buildings in your way block the direct path of RF entirely...or the reflections of signals renders the dec

      • Nah, my 1080p HDTV signal comes in through buildings, as do the lower bands (e.g. 9, 9.1, 9.2 for PBS from KCTS, or 7,7.1 for the CBS channel); I can even get Tacoma through at least one hill if I aim the antenna.

  • If only there was a way to watch CBS's top notch, world class content for free using little more than a coat-hangar. Alas, it's just a pipe dream...

  • Apparently, CBS owns the Smithsonian Channel as well and has borked it for DirecTV customers. Ironically, I pay extra for that channel so WTF, CBS?

  • No new Big Bang Theory so who cares about CBS?

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