Nothing is worse than waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep, except for waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep and then finding out your satellite service has dropped all the stations carrying Spanish soccer for the upcoming season.

In typical Spanish fashion, La Liga starts a little later than most others with their first round of matches still a few weeks off so I haven’t been paying attention. Googling around, I stumbled on this article stating that as of two weeks ago, Dish network yanked GolTV from their lineup over a contract dispute. I hadn’t noticed because GolTV offers little else that interests me outside their good coverage of the Spanish League, the Copa del Rey (the Spanish Cup), and their La Liga recap show—I don’t follow German or South American football so there’s been no reason to tune in.

So while this is distressing, I thought “No big deal. WorldSport HD still shows ‘big’ games, usually involving Real Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, and Valencia.” Except then I read that Dish also axed the VOOM HD channels back in May, which of course includes WorldSport HD. This was the week of the last regular season game in La Liga, and we were in Spain when this decision went down. Since La Liga was the only reason to tune into WorldSport HD, it’s no wonder I haven’t noticed.

Ironically, I became a Dish subscriber way back in 1997 because it was the only provider that offered Fox Sports Español. Way back then, ESPN showed one English Premier League game a week and usually one or two MLS games, so getting Fox Sports Español was like giving a junkie a crack rock the size of a small moon. They showed the Premier League, the FA Cup, the Scottish League, the German League, the Italian league…it was insane. I had never seen so much footie on the television before. (Note: The Dish was a birthday present from Amy, which is one of the leading reasons I married her; she not exactly what she was getting into, she helped feed it.)

While I don’t want to overstate the case, Dish Network definitely got some decent business from being the provider for soccer fans. It took DirecTV and cable awhile to add Fox Sports World (a channel inferior to Fox Sports Español I might add), now named Fox Soccer Channel. It wasn’t until we once again signed up for Dish back in Madison (satellites were not allowed in our Seattle apartment and cable had FSW anyway) that I knew GolTV even existed—probably because it didn’t until February 2003.

While this move won’t (necessarily) lose my business, it is highly annoying and none too endearing to the company. The timing of the VOOM deal was likely coincidental (I can’t imagine the Dish folks had their eyes on La Liga when they axed ten channels) but to drop GolTV a few weeks before the European leagues start doesn’t seem like an accident. Unfortunately, it’s also sticking up a giant middle finger at soccer fans too.

Over the past few years I’ve heard that entertainment programming is supposed to be going in the direction of a la carte rather than packages, meaning instead of paying for 500 channels you don’t watch, you’d pay for the 10 or 12 you actually do. I hope to God this happens soon because the only reason we have the bloated package we do is because it includes FSC. Cable subscribers in Madison have also been burned by the Big Ten Network which, for some reason, the local cable company can’t come to an agreement with. The same goes for the NFL Network, which many Wisconsin cable outlets don’t carry. People around here get very surly when it comes to their football and I could see literally thousands of people dumping cable in favor of satellite to watch all their Badgers and Packers games.

I have no idea what wrangling goes on between channels and providers, but let’s just say that the ones who end up losing out the most are the consumers. Bolting for DirecTV at this point (which still carries GolTV) is tempting, but there’s nothing to say that this wouldn’t happen again. But with all the promotions and deals you can get for switching services, don’t think I’m not seriously considering it.

Current Mood: Outraged! |