Dish Network subscribers got a bit more variety on the menu today as Dish and Turner Broadcasting have apparently patched up their recent dispute, ending a month-long blackout for Dish subscribers of several prime Turner stations, including CNN, TCM, and Cartoon Network.
A brief statement from Turner Broadcasting announced the restoration of the missing channels today, leaving out any details regarding the terms of the agreement.
“Turner Broadcasting and Dish Network announced today that they have mutually decided to restore service of CNN, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, truTV, TCM, HLN, CNN en Espanol and Boomerang, and extend the carriage of TBS and TNT. Dish and Turner will not have any further comment,” the statement reads.
The blackout came as a result of a breakdown in contract negotiations between the two companies, which left Turner uncertain of its future with the satellite provider. In its statement last month, Turner said Dish was “once again operating in a disruptive manner,” and that the company had “unilaterally” pulled Turner’s content from its service. While the Turner stations are back for now, it’s unclear at this point whether or not the two feuding sides have worked out a long term deal.
This is far from the first spat the feisty satellite service has had with content providers as of late. Last March Dish ended a lengthy bout of legal entanglements with Disney over its Autohop feature, which allows Dish subscribers to automatically skip over commercials during next-day airings of shows from major networks like Disney-owned ABC. The two patched things up with a deal that saw Dish agreeing to pause Autohop for ABC programming until three days after air in exchange for access to the Disney vault for its forthcoming standalone Internet TV service.
And it looks like there are more fireworks to come, as Dish tries to lineup a new contract with yet another major content provider, CBS. Following Dish and Disney’s new agreement, outspoken CEO Les Moonves expressed doubts last February about reaching a similar deal with Dish, saying the deal between Dish and Disney was a “great start” but that his network is looking for “some different things.”
CBS has its own vested interests in the Internet TV arena, having recently launched a standalone app of its own which allows users to access its library of content, as well as allowing for live online viewing of CBS programming in select markets. That could mean Dish will have to dig deeper into its bag of bargaining chips to bring CBS on board for its own Internet TV service. The two have managed to avoid a blackout of CBS content for Dish subscribers for now, however, agreeing today to extend contract negotiations further, according to the LA Times.
We’ll continue to follow these stories as they develop, so stay with us.
Update 11/22/2014: This post has been updated to clarify that TNT and TBS were extended as part of the new agreement and were not a part of the original blackout.
