For *F*X* sake......

Once again as a customer of Dish Network, the customer is caught in between a dispute between the satellite carrier and a broadcast company. A few years ago it was Viacom, now it is Fox. As of this morning FX & National Geographic channel have been pulled from Dish Network's lineup, and supposedly Nov 1st, Fox itself could be pulled as well.

I kind of have mixed feelings. On one hand it pisses me off that this issue seems to come up once every year or so with certain networks. I have no idea whom making what money for who behind-the-scenes, all I know is, as a paying customer, someone who has never been late on a bill ever, I expect to get what I am paying for and not be threatened to have channels yanked every so often. It is not like the satellite package I have is cheap. It is probably way more than I should be paying considering my fixed income, however I am a TV/Movie junkie, so that is where a portion of our paycheck(s) go.

On the other hand, it is sort of nice that the satellite company is at least trying to starve off the prospect of having to raise fees on it's customer base due to unfair price gouging by the network(s). Other carriers, will gladly take on the hiked fees from the networks and just as quickly pass on the rate increase to it's customers.

So I suppose this can be looked at in both ways. Lucky enough for me, FX network is a "once a week" channel for me, (Thursdays "Always Sunny" & "The League) for now until Louie starts it's 2nd season. And I believe similar disputes with other networks has never lasted more than a few days, so hopefully all sides get a quick and solid solution! Oh and hey while the negotiation is going on we get HDNet Movies & HD Theater channels for free in place of the other channel.....so a big *woot* on that!