CBS and Dish Network on Saturday morning said that they "reached a multiyear pact for carriage of CBS-owned stations across the U.S. as well as the Eye's cable networks, coming after CBS pulled its signals Friday night" from the satellite provider, according to Todd Spangler of VARIETY. The deal "covers 27 CBS-owned stations as well as CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel, TVGN and Showtime Networks, which includes Showtime TV Everywhere and video-on-demand rights." The sticking points in the talks "were as much about digital rights issues as about retrans dollars and cents." CBS' signals "were yanked" shortly after 7:00pm ET on Friday, and the stations "went back up on Dish" just before 7:30am Saturday. Dish in a statement said that the two parties "had been at odds over the value of CBS Sports Network," among other issues (VARIETY, 12/7). In N.Y., Emily Steel noted the programming blackout "lasted about 12 hours," and the stations "returned to Dish's service before a series of football games this weekend," including the SEC championship game. While the standoff between CBS and Dish was "relatively brief," it "underscored rising tensions between television programmers and the cable, satellite and telecom companies that distribute their programming." Among the issues negotiated between CBS and Dish "were digital rights, Dish’s plans for a new subscription-based streaming television service and terms for Hopper, Dish’s digital video recording service that allows people to skip commercials." As part of the agreement, people "will not be able to skip commercials with the Hopper service for CBS-owned network stations and affiliates for the first seven days after a program is televised" (N.Y. TIMES, 12/7). In Boston, Boss & Graham noted 18 markets were affected by the blackout, including N.Y., Chicago, L.A., Dallas, Boston and Miami (BOSTON HERALD, 12/7).
WHO BLINKED? CBS said that it "came away with the fee increases that it had been looking for." In L.A., Meg James noted Dish "secured new digital rights for some CBS programming," but "did not win permission to include Showtime in a new Internet streaming service that Dish is planning to roll out." Dish "didn't want to go the entire weekend without the programming of CBS," including several NFL games (L.A. TIMES, 12/7). THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER's Eriq Gardner noted while Dish "appears to have made a big give" by agreeing to not allow commercial skipping in a program's first seven days, it did win "some important digital rights in the deal" (HOLLYWOODREPORTER.com, 12/6).
