UPDATE, 8:15 a.m. FRIDAY: AMC is offering Dish Network's customers free online streams of Hell on Wheels and Braxton Family Values. “We’ve heard from many Dish subscribers who are upset about missing our programming so we are giving them an opportunity to watch these premiere episodes at the same time as the rest of the country,” the company said in a statement.
PREVIOUSLY: It's been more than a month since Dish Network customers lost AMC and the other AMC Networks channels, and it appears that Dish's chairman won't budge on AMC's demands for more money.
PREVIOUSLY: It's been more than a month since Dish Network customers lost AMC and the other AMC Networks channels, and it appears that Dish's chairman won't budge on AMC's demands for more money.
Charlie Ergen, who is Dish's chairman, said Wednesday in a conference call to discuss the company's second quarter earnings that it just doesn't make sense in this day and age for Dish to pay huge sums of money for networks like IFC, Sundance and the other AMC networks that people aren't watching in large numbers.
"AMC as a standalone could make more sense but that's not anything that's been offered to us," Ergen said. "The world is changing and you're not going to have everybody having every program out there, and you're certainly not going to get programs that are readily available on other networks or readily available on the Internet," he said.
Popular AMC shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad are available online through providers such as Apple's iTunes and Amazon - for a fee - although Ergen says if customers really want those programs, even that would cost less than what AMC has demanded from Dish (which would be passed on to consumers).
AMC Networks, not surprisingly, had no comment on the matter, but some analysts feel a resolution will be reached at some point, probably sooner rather than later. They feel AMC needs Dish more than Dish needs AMC.
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