Dish Network and Turner Broadcasting have been unable to resolve a contract dispute, and the result is that several channels, including CNN and the Cartoon Network, are no longer on the satellite TV service.
In a battle of press releases today, each side blamed the other for the channels being yanked.
“Despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an agreement with Dish Network, and they have unilaterally decided to pull CNN, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, truTV, TCM, HLN, CNN en Espanol, and Boomerang off the air upon the expiration of our current deal,” Turner said via a press release. “Turner has worked diligently for months to come to a fair agreement including multiple extensions and compromises, and it’s unfortunate that Dish is once again operating in a disruptive manner that takes away networks and programming from their customers.”
Dish begged to differ.
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“In the past year, DISH has successfully renewed agreements with many large content providers,” said Warren Schlichting, Dish’s senior vice president of programming, in a statement. “As a result, we are confident that we have offered a deal to Turner that reflects an appropriate value for our customers.”
Dish said it was unable to reach terms to renew its distribution agreement with Turner and that it also couldn’t agree to a short-term extension that would keep the channels on the Dish service.
Such disputes are increasingly common as media and telecom giants try to navigate the changing landscape of TV production and distribution. In this case, there were no details offered of what issues specifically were keeping the two sides apart.
But both said they hoped to resolve their differences quickly.
“DISH has had a productive relationship with Turner Networks for many years,” said Schlichting, in the release. “We regret the service disruption to our customers, and remain committed to reaching an agreement that promptly returns this content to DISH’s programming lineup.”
Said Turner: “We are hopeful our counterparts will return to the negotiating table, and we’ll get a deal completed.”
