Featured Blogs:

 

Cannes Film Festival 2013

AMC to live-stream 'Breaking Bad' premiere for Dish customers

Offer the latest salvo in war between cable channel and satellite provider

By Alan Sepinwall Thursday, Jul 12, 2012 11:57 AM

<p>Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul in a scene from the "Breaking Bad" season premiere.</p>

Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul in a scene from the "Breaking Bad" season premiere.

Credit: AMC

The new season of "Breaking Bad" premieres on Sunday night at 10 on AMC, but because of a contract dispute between Dish and AMC's parent company, AMC has been yanked from the satellite provider's channel lineup. The show is available by other means (episodes appear on iTunes early the following morning, for instance), but AMC has offered Dish customers a free alternative for at least the season premiere.

Related

The website Breaking Bad 4 Dish allows Dish customers to register (beginning Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern) for a chance to watch a live-stream of the premiere on Sunday night. It sounds like a one-shot deal, as the press release states: 

AMC wants its loyal DISH viewers to experience the excitement of the “Breaking Bad” premiere at the same time as their friends and neighbors, and we want to give DISH customers an extra week to switch providers so they can enjoy the rest of the season.

But it's something, at least.

Alan-sepinwall-sm
Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
Related Searches: Breaking Bad

Comments

  • Option 1

    Comment instantly as a guest Guest

  • Option 2

    Connect

  • Option 3

    Login or create a HitFix account Login Signup
  • Default-avatar

    Dave I

    Do we know the full terms of the deal or why it was unpalatable to DISH, yet is not with DirecTV. I doubt DISH wants to screw their subscribers and it's a very convenient time for this sort of stuff to happen for AMC if they're trying to work a new deal (much less DirecTV for being now the satellite subscriber with the channel that offers Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead amongst other things). I'm curious if they have said what the snagging points were, if they were still negotiating something, or if the deal is dead in the water and DISH just dropped AMC permanently, end of story. There has to be a reason though. Also, interesting timing that it would happen right before the premiere of the final season of one of their top three shows.

    -Cheers

    July 12, 2012 at 1:42PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      Dave I I would note, it's possible this is just the time of year these companies make their contract. Anybody know one way or the other? DirecTV just lost MTV and the other Verizon channels. Which I would not really care about except 1) it DOES kind of suck to lose channels whilst still paying the same as you did before and 2) my wife watches Teen Mom and 16 & Pregnant. Which means I get to hear her grumbling about it. Still, the timing is convenient for them to do this stuff right when their high-visibility/popular shows are premiering and it sounds like Verizon wanted a 30% jump in pay so I'm not quite ready to swallow that one side is clearly in the right or not, particularly when they come out with lines like "we want to give DISH customers an extra week to switch providers so they can enjoy the rest of the season." It seems more like they're in attack mode more so than actually trying to work something out, and in AMC's case it seems particularly beneficial to DirecTV. Not that I should complain as a DirecTV client, however I hate seeing people get shafted like this, particularly if they are in the middle of a contract and really CAN'T switch, or just like their provider and don't want one channel/company trying to make that sort of decision for them.

      -Cheers

      July 12, 2012 at 1:48PM EST
    • Default-avatar

      cipiloni AMC. HAVE something to do with it. They lose many viewers who have Dish contracts. I do not have dish, but for sure they were in dispute with AMC

      July 12, 2012 at 2:21PM EST
    • Default-avatar

      Ed G. Hi DAVE I,

      AMC and Dish have had a dispute for some time.

      From a NY Times article from May 4 (http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/dish-network-says-it-will-drop-amc-in-summer/)

      "The dispute comes at a time when the two companies are battling in court over a separate issue involving VOOM HD, a defucnt set of high-definition cable networks. Dish used to carry VOOM’s networks, and when it stopped doing so in 2008, VOOM – an indirect subsidiary of AMC — filed a breach of contract lawsuit and sought $2.5 billion in damages.

      On April 26, according to VOOM, a New York State Supreme Court judge rejected a series of pretrial motions by Dish, “leaving the case to be set for trial,” AMC Networks said in a statement on Friday morning. Within days of the judge’s decision, Dish informed AMC of its decision not to renew the contract."

      Dish says it dropped AMC because of ratings, but AMC feels it's because of the VOOM dispute

      July 12, 2012 at 2:32PM EST
    • Default-avatar

      Dave I Thanks for the info. Yeah, if DISH just dropped AMC and not because the network was being overly demanding I'd probably be annoyed to have to miss the final season(s) of Breaking Bad, not to mention any other shows/movies you might like that they offer. AMC is kind of making a name for itself with its original programming. That seems like kind of a big deal. I suppose we'll see how much this hurts DISH.

      -Cheers

      July 12, 2012 at 3:19PM EST
  • Default-avatar

    Robin

    Alan, I wonder if you think that this trend of channels being yanked off various providers' services is going to have any effect on traditional cable networks making more of their content available online to anyone for a fee. In recent months we've seen AMC and Dish fighting, Viacom channels were pulled from DirectTV, and WGN/WGNAmerica was almost pulled from Comcast. It seems like the networks could start looking at these fights and deciding they don't need the providers anymore -- they can go the HBOGo/Hulu method and let anyone who wants to pay them a monthly fee stream all of their content anytime.

    July 12, 2012 at 1:46PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      Dave I I think a lot of that could depend on how cost-prohibitive that would be, from an end-user standpoint. However, eventually why not? As time goes on, I think I'd be more and more comfortable with on-demand or streaming content or purchased-direct-from-the-provider. The pitfalls would be if by doing so you pay more than you would with the pre-packaged deals you currently get (which I'd imagine you probably would). If you have to work out packaged deals, then you're right back to where we started. Also, I would have to wonder about keeping track of which channels I would actually want/need to pay for, or even which programming. If it's too complicated then people probably won't do it. So I suspect most consumers would still want/prefer/demand/etc. a more convenient "here's my money, just give me the channels I want" rather than "let me get the spreadsheet and list ALL the channels I'll want to watch and send a check to every company that is on that list."

      Still, eventually you would think SOMETHING would be done that largely took the middle man out of the equation and let people just pay for whatever they wanted. I know people who solely rely on things like Hulu to watch TV, so if a company could sort of gather all of the companies together and let you pick what you want and pay one company, without the competing companies/packages that cable/satellite brings to the table, I think that could work pretty well. If not, I'd be curious to hear what the pitfalls are.

      -Cheers

      July 12, 2012 at 3:28PM EST
    • Default-avatar

      Robin I'm one of those who rely on over-the-air antenna, Netflix, and Hulu for TV. I haven't had cable for over 10 years. So I'm definitely not in the demographic of "give me all these channels for one price."

      More and more people seem fed up with the cable delivery system. As streaming becomes more viable with larger bandwidths and internet-ready TVs, it seems that the barriers to making that leap to watching streaming TV has become less and less from a technological and psychological standpoint. My own watershed was when Netflix allowed me to stream via the Wii, and I've never looked back.

      You have a point about the price and whether ala carte would end up being more expensive. But I think your idea of gathering the networks together under a Hulu model would work, while cutting out that cable middle man.

      I'm sure there are numerous considerations I'm not thinking of, but we're also in a whole new age of TV and the cable companies and networks both seem to want to pretend it's still 1995.

      July 12, 2012 at 5:22PM EST
  • Default-avatar

    Rocket

    Th

    July 12, 2012 at 5:19PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    Rocket

    This is just the state of television right now. No matter where to get your TV, you're going to be subject to these negotiation tactics.

    I'm switching away from DISH, but not because of this. It became a money issue, where the FIOS bundle was just so much cheaper that it was not worth paying the difference to keep DISH.

    I like DISH a lot because they fight to keep their rates low. I stuck with them after a similar situation a few years back where I was without Fox/FX for a few weeks. And Id' probably do the same now if not for my other circumstances.

    July 12, 2012 at 5:23PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    Frank

    I honestly don’t care who is at fault. Though I’ve definitely fallen out of love with AMC, I still love Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Hell, I even enjoy The Walking Dead. When I called Dish to ask about the Dish/AMC dispute, I was told that AMC is asking for 200 percent of what they were being paid until now. I was also assured that Breaking Bad would most definitely be available to me when it premiered. It doesn’t look like that will be happening, and if that does turn out to be the case, I’ll be live-streaming the first ep and changing providers immediately thereafter.

    July 12, 2012 at 10:19PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    Blake

    I read that AMC was getting 25 cents per viewer per month and now wants 75 cents. I would pay 50 cents extra per month for AMC.

    Complain to Dish at least. Otherwise they'll never get AMC back.

    July 13, 2012 at 1:16AM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    Steve

    Directv has an awesome services on sports packages while Dish Network is better on entertainment packages. On the other hand they are pretty similar, both are better than cable.
    To know more about the between DIRECTV and DISH NETWORK just visit:
    http://www.thesatellitecompany.com/

    August 7, 2012 at 10:34AM EST Reply to Comment

News From Our Partners

Get Instant Alerts on What's Alan Watching

Latest Posts
More Posts
Recent Activity on Facebook
Most Popular on Facebook
Top Stories From Around the Web
About HitFix

HitFix delivers the Movie, Music, TV and Awards and general entertainment news that fans care about most, without the gossip or celebrity scandal. Our nationally-recognized, tastemaker journalists provide the latest breaking news, analysis, reviews, recaps, interviews and exclusives 24 hours a day while our proprietary localized Event Calendar and mobile apps allow consumers to stay up to the minute while managing their entertainment lives. Find out What’s Next In Entertainment with HitFix.

Advertise on HitFix
Subscribe to HitFix

Get the latest headlines & updates in your inbox

Popular Topics

© Copyright HitFix.com. All rights reserved. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy