“Taken together, Fox’s actions are profoundly anti-consumer,” said Andy LeCuyer, DISH senior vice president of Programming. “Fox is raising prices and turning its back on its public obligation to provide channels to consumers for free. It’s clear that Fox cares more about padding its bottom line than serving its viewers.”
“To add insult to injury, Fox pulled its channels right as viewers head into the heart of the NFL and college football season,” continued LeCuyer. “We ask Fox to stop punishing its own viewers so we can focus on reaching a fair deal.”
This news comes as DISH and Fox were seemingly making progress in negotiations. In an effort to come to an agreement, DISH offered a short-term contract extension to Fox that would include a retroactive true-up when new rates were agreed upon, and would preserve the ability of DISH customers to access the Fox stations while negotiations continued. The true-up would ensure that Fox was made whole at the new rates for the period of any contract extension.
Here’s a statement from Fox, according to John Ourand from Sports Business Journal on Twitter.
“Dish/Sling is at it again, choosing to drop leading programming as a negotiating tactic regardless of the impact on its own customers. Dish/Sling elected to drop Fox networks in an effort to coerce us to agree to outrageous demands. While we regret this is DISH/Sling’s preferred approach to negotiating, we remind our loyal viewers that the Fox services are widely available through every other major television provider.”
Channels blocked include FS1, FS2, Big 10 Network, Fox Soccer Plus and Fox Deporte. Fox News is still currently live on DISH.
This is breaking news. We’ll update when we have more details.
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