Less than one month after Dish Network pulled the Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network from its platform, over 90,000 of its customers have cancelled their subscriptions in favor of other television providers, according to a Fox News executive.
Carry: Dish Has Lost 90,000 Subs from Fox News Blackout: Tim Carry says Dish’s disconnect from Fox News Chan… http://t.co/uhRKdRqQnt
— Multichannel News (@MultiNews) January 7, 2015
Tim Carry, Fox News’ executive vice president for distribution, told Multi Channel Wednesday about 90,000 subscribers have cancelled their Dish subscriptions as a consequence of the television giant pulling the channels. “We think they’ve lost about 90,000 subscribers over the past two weeks tied to Fox News,” Carry said.
Carry added that a total of 350,000 have called Fox or visited the section of their website that gives viewers in their coverage area options for alternative cable or satellite providers that offers Fox News and Fox Business.
Dish originally pulled the news outlets from its 14 million subscribers just before midnight on December 20 because of an ongoing contract dispute. Carry said at the time:
It is unfortunate that the millions of Fox News viewers on Dish were used as pawns by their provider… Hopefully they will vote with their hard-earned money and seek another one of our other valued distributors immediately.
Since the two networks went dark, Carry said there has not been any progress between the two sides:
They have not spoken to us at all. There has not been any outreach on any level. Their positioning that they are actively negotiating rings hollow.
As Multi Channel points out, some have speculated that negotiations broke down over other Fox properties including Fox Sports 1 and FXX; and Dish said talks were close even after Fox wanted to double the cost for the two channels.
But a “surcharge” was proposed by Fox for a third unrelated, unnamed channel whose contract “does not expire for some time,” Dish CEO Charlie Ergen explains.
But Carry said the negotiations pertained to the news channels. “These are big companies with many assets and properties,” he said.
Other things were discussed, but the negotiations broke down over core issues to Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.
On December 5, CBS pulled its broadcast network from Dish before coming to terms several hours later. And many Time-Warner networks including CNN, Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) were blocked out by Dish for over a month before the two sides came to a temporary agreement in November.
h/t: Multi Channel
Image Credit: File Photo
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism - Informing And Equipping Americans Who Love Freedom