In recent retrans and carriage deals, the Web has served as a megaphone in the wars of words between programmers and distributors.
There’s Time Warner Cable’s RollOverorGetTough.com site, for instance, which the MSO used in the Fox standoff last year and leading up to the ultimately uneventful denouement with Disney/ESPN (see Time Warner Cable Updates ‘Get Tough’ Ad Campaign and Disney, Time Warner Cable Finalize Programming Deal).
Meanwhile, Fox has launched KeepFoxOn.com as it nears the retrans deadline with Cablevision (see Fox, Cablevision Prepare For Battle).
Now Dish Network, in its spat with Fox, has taken the Web-publicity strategy to a new level — registering not one, not two, but seven URLs to make its case after the programmer yanked 19 regional sports networks, FX and National Geographic Channel (see Fox Pulls Nets From Dish).
The domain names together almost read like a telegram — or a series of bumper stickers:
> DISHWillContinueToFightForCustomers.com
And here is Fox’s response site: GetWhatIPaidFor.com. I’m not sure of the search-engine optimization implications of seven sites vs. one — but Dish clearly thinks that more is more.
