On Dish Network and Viacom

Personally, I don't think either side is looking particular good. Viacom is villified by Dish as being greedy (which is probably true). In turn Viacom tries to put out a message slamming Dish for dropping their channels.

Each statement contains straws of truth. For me it is easy to take the high road and say that with the notable exception of Spongebob Squarepants on Nickelodean, Viacom is mostly trash anyway (no, I don't care for Comedy Central).

My children beg to differ though. They like Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues, and (like me) Spongebob. Now if Stanley (Disney channel) goes off the air, there will be some major problems in the Dusbabek household.

I hope for the sake of Dish Network that the problem gets resolved soon. I don't expect most customers will see it the way I do. If I really like any of those channels, I would be upset about it, probably to the point of cancelling my service and contacting DirecTV.

UPDATE 31 July 2004
I sent Dish Network an email during the affair to let them know how I felt about things. About a month later I received a coupon for a free pay-per-view movie, along with a short form letter thanking me for my support. I thought it was a nice thing to do.

UPDATE 23 August 2004
We promptly ordered our free movie and have still not been billed for it. It has been about three months. We were told it would show up in our next billing statement. That would have been two bills ago.