Echostar (Dish Network) and Viacom (CBS network, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, BET, among others) have sharpened their claws and going at each others’s throats. I first became aware of this last week when watching Comedy Central. The channel started to superimpose a text message addressed to “Dish Network Customers” over the programming, but it was quickly blacked out, assumably by Dish Network staff. This happened a few times during the show. Today we got home and found all of the channels out of service, with a message from Dish Network to direct our frustrations at Viacom.
With all of the commercials that are broadcast on all of these networks, I think it is a joke that they are asking for a fee increase from the satellite company that carries them. Fee increases should only come with advertising decreases.
