Ergen also reiterated his position that a la carte programming would be better for consumers, as well as the industry itself. “We are still for a la carte, because the Internet is a la carte today,” he said. People could just watch Netflix, or even pirate content online, and service providers would have to compete with this new reality. “A lot of customers can live with Netflix and an… antenna, and YouTube…  and they’d be pretty happy,” he said.

However, Ergen cautioned the audience at Dive into Media that a la carte won’t become a reality anytime soon. “It’s gonna go there slowly,” he said, arguing that the major broadcasters won’t break the bundle willingly. It would be more likely that the bundle would be broken by outside forces like Amazon and Netflix.

Speaking of Netflix: Ergen was quite bullish when asked about the future of the video service. “I think they will be successful,” he said, adding that the launch of Netflix’s first original series House of Cards was “brilliant.”

He said that it would be possible for both Amazon and Netflix to succeed with their respective services – but it was quite clear that Ergen is rooting for Netflix: “I’m a fan,” he said, adding: “I feel stupid that we didn’t think of it first, but I’m a fan.”

CNET was ready to give the Hopper with Sling DVR, a set-top box from Dish Network, a spot in the finals of its “Best in CES” awards at the Consumer Electronics Show — until a directive came through from the site’s corporate parent CBS that the Hopper couldn’t win the award, because CBS is suing the company over its AutoHop commercial-skipping feature.

Not only was the Hopper disqualified from the award, but CNET added an editor’s note to its review of the device saying it would no longer be reviewing any products that were the subject of litigation with its parent company — a list that would include both the Hopper and Aereo, the over-the-net video broadcasting startup backed by Barry Diller, which CBS is also suing.

As John Hermann of BuzzFeed noted, this is probably every tech journalist’s nightmare: being told by a corporate parent that they can’t do their jobs because the parent co. is involved in a a lawsuit. But it’s more than just a journalist’s nightmare — it could be a serious problem for CNET when it comes to maintaining the trust of their readers. The site noted that the restrictions only affects its reviews and not its news reporting, but will readers make that distinction?

Presumably, when someone goes to the CNET site looking for information about set-top boxes or video-streaming hardware, they want the most complete information they can find. If they know that certain products aren’t going to be reviewed because CBS doesn’t like them for some reason, that’s going to color their impressions of the site’s thoroughness in doing its reviews — and it might also make them wonder about what else is being left out.

The more cynical might wonder whether anyone will even notice once the CES decision blows over, but for media entities — even large ones — in times like these, the trust of their readers is more valuable than ever, and it should probably not be squandered lightly.

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr user Hans Gerwitz

On Thursday, DirecTV reported its first net subscriber loss for a quarter, with a net 52,000 U.S. customers bolting the satellite service during the period extending from April 1 to June 30.

Also read: Pay TV model won’t die anytime soon, analyst says

In fact, each of the top four multi-channel video providers — which collectively service more than 60 percent of U.S. pay TV homes — lost customers in the second quarter. Earlier on Thursday, No. 4 service, Time Warner Cable announced a net loss of 169,000 subscribers. That came just a day after No. 1 service, Comcast, reported a net loss of 176,000 cable customers.

Last week, in a pre-Q2-earnings filing with the Securities Exchange Commission, satellite carrier Dish Network, the No. 3 service, revealed a net second-quarter loss of 10,000 users. Collective total for the Big Four: minus 407,000 users.

Many of these lost subscribers continue to migrate to telco-based services, with AT&T U-Verse  and Verizon FiOS  adding 202,000 and 120,000 video subscribers, respectively, during Q2.

Also read: Pay TV growth keeps slowing: 484k users added in Q1

Coupled with satellite additions, the emergence of these two telco video services have more than offset the declines of the cable business and kept the overall pay TV business in growth mode the last few years. But at least for now, satellite has stopped growing.

Also read: For Comcast, broadband subscribers are up, but video subs are down

As for DirecTV, the loss of 52,000 net U.S. subscribers wasn’t a complete surprise, with analysts predicting a loss in the mid-30,000 range due to the company’s efforts to reduce “churn” and keep subscribers around for the long haul, instead of enticing them for short stays with short-term promotions.

DirecTV reported a 9 percent increase in quarterly revenue to $7.22 billion. It’s operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) — i.e. profit – also increased 9 percent to 2.01 billion. While the satellite company faces stagnant growth domestically, it continues to show ample promise in Latin America, where it added another 645,000 net subscribers.

Also read: DirecTV aims to double Latin American revenue to $10B in five years

And while Latin American expansion continues to be the key to DirecTV’s future, cable companies like Time Warner are banking on the growth of broadband users. The addition of 72,000 net ISP customers pushed Time Warner’s revenue up 9.3 percent to $5.4 billion in Q2. OIBDA increased 10.3 percent to $2 billion.

Nearly four weeks after blacking out AMC Networks channels — and popular adult drama Breaking Bad along with them– Dish Network has seemingly done just that. And this could have broad implications in the pay TV business, where programmers have typically held most of the leverage when negotiating new affiliate agreements.

Asked Friday if a revolt among Dish’s 14 million subscribers has inspired the company to work with AMC on a new affiliate agreement and restore its channels, a spokesman for the satellite company said there was no update to the impasse.

Also read: Why Breaking Bad doesn’t scare Dish, but Walking Dead will

“Are you hearing anything,” he asked?

Strangely, I had to respond, “No.”

If the on-air and online campaign launched by AMC to steer Dish subscribers to other pay TV services is gaining traction, AMC sure isn’t beating its chest about it. An AMC representative on Friday told us grassroots subscriber revolts take time to gestate.

I also made an inquiry into the Dish sales department. A Dish rep told me there’s no timeline for AMC, WE TV and IFC returning to the service’s channel lineup any time soon. “Those channels are gone,” he told me.

Contrast that with the DirecTV/Viacom licensing dispute earlier this month — even as the corporate rhetoric raged on both sides, DirecTV sales reps kept assuring customers that a deal to restore channels including Nickelodeon and MTV was “imminent.”

Meanwhile, a perusal of the sales charts for Apple’s iTunes store shows that the most popular TV download is the most recent episode of Breaking Bad, titled “Madrigal.” This could be seen as lending credence to Dish’s negotiating position all along — that it has no reason to increase the program licensing fee it pays AMC, because its subscribers have so many other ways to access AMC shows. (New Breaking Bad episodes are also available through Amazon Instant Video, and Netflix has seasons 1-4 of the show exclusively.)

The AMC rep we spoke, however, said the network’s shows are always highly ranked on iTunes when they’re in season.

As for AMC’s linear TV ratings — and by extension, its ad sales — losing access to Dish’s nearly 14 million homes has undoubtedly rendered a hit. Last Sunday, ratings for the “Madrigal” episode were down 21 percent from the prior week’s fifth-season-premiere, with only 2.3 million viewers tuning into the initial run of Breaking Bad.

PR-wise, there appears to be little pressure on Dish. Summarizing the dispute for its online and mobile audience on July 3, ABC News lauded Dish for not saddling its subscribers with increased program licensing costs, titling its story, “Why Dish dropping AMC might be good for consumers.”

Asked whether he thinks AMC channels will ever return to Dish, Bernstein Research senior analyst Craig Moffett backed up AMC’s assertion that this impasse all ties into an unrelated legal dispute pitting Dish against AMC and its former parent company,  Cablevision.

Also read: AMC – “Dish never even talked rates with us”

Set to go to trial in September, Dish finds itself short on leverage in the $2.5 billion dispute, which stems from its decision to drop now-defunct channel Voom HD in 2008.

When a settlement does occur, Moffett contends, the restoration of AMC’s channels will likely be part of the agreement.

In the meantime, Dish doesn’t appear to be breaking a sweat … and while no subscriber data is available beyond June 30, the day AMC channels were yanked, it appears to have found its leverage.

This could be crucial in the satellite’s legal battle with broadcasters over these features, given that subscribers now have more control of how they’re used.

With the new upgrade, Dish’s Hopper DVRs are no longer set by default to record every prime-time show on each of the Big Four networks — i.e. ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. The user now has to select which networks they want recorded.

Dish subscribers have to switch a default setting from “no” to “yes” if they want commercials deleted from those recordings — that setting had previously been defaulted to the “on” mode.

Dish’s Ergen: AutoHop protecting TV from internet video barberism

Subscribers are also now in charge of when programs are deleted, as opposed to the Hopper setting a default date.

The tweaks, which began rolling out from Dish last week, were originally reported Thursday by Variety. Dish later confirmed them with us. The tweaks are just beginning to be discussed by Dish subscribers in various satellite and cable TV forums.

A Dish spokesman told us the upgrade was something the company does “routinely” to its products and that it was meant to “enhance the user experience.” Of course, this reeks more of legal positioning.

Dish is currently battling CBS, Fox and NBC in court, with the networks asserting that the so-called “Auto Hop” commercial-skipping feature violates Dish’s affiliate agreement to carry those networks’ channels.

Also read: Dish defends ad-skipping DVR – peers throw it under the bus

Dish has been seeking to exploit legal precedent established in 2008 by Cablevision, which won a New York appellate court ruling against broadcasters who were suing the cable company over its virtual DVR service. Key to that ruling: subscribers had ample control of the technology, not Cablevision.

Dish has already lost one key early round. It actually filed suit first to have the case heard in New York, but the Big Apple court ruled that it would be decided in California, where the broadcasters had subsequently filed to have their claims heard.

Yes, despite tons of critical praise, Netflix usage and social media buzz, Breaking Bad remains only a niche hit, incapable of producing enough leverage to bring Dish Network back to the negotiating table and end a 16-day-old impasse that has kept AMC Networks channels off its service.

Also read: AMC to stream Breaking Bad for blacked-out Dish users

Sure, the 2.9 million viewers the show about a crystal meth kingpin averaged for the initial run of its fifth-season premiere Sunday night may have set a series record. And who knows how many more tuned into the live stream AMC set up specifically for refugee Dish subscribers (an inquiry sent to AMC was not responded to).

But put that rating in perspective: That was only 300,000 viewers more than the 2.6 million averaged by Sunday’s debut of Political Animals, which now faces extinction on the top-rated USA Network.

Also read: AMC – “Dish never even talked rates with us”

So when will Dish’s nearly 14 million subscribers finally get AMC, IFC and WE TV back in their homes? Well, Sept. 18 seems like an interesting date to point to — that’s when a court dispute over an unrelated matter, Dish’s dropping of Voom HD channels four years ago, goes to trial.

AMC Networks, and its former corporate parent, Cablevision, will go into that litigation with the upper hand. And it’s widely believed that Dish dropped AMC’s channels not because of what it claims are excessive rate increase demands but to gain leverage in litigation that could cost it more than $2.5 billion.

Another key date on the calendar: Oct. 14

On that Sunday, AMC will premiere the third season of The Walking Dead, which has managed to what AMC’s other critical darlings, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, have not — break out into mainstream hit status.

Also read: For Netflix users, “catch-up” TV viewing has a catch

The season two debut of Walking Dead last October averaged a whopping 7.3 million viewers, setting basic-cable records in the adults 18-49 and 25-54 demographics. We suspect Dish will have major subscriber revolt on its hands if AMC isn’t restored by that time.

AMC says it’ll stream the fifth-season premiere of its hit adult drama Breaking Bad on Sunday night for the nearly 14 million Dish Network subscribers who no longer receive its channels.

While AMC series are ubiquitous through over-the-top channels like Netflix, current-season episodes of the cable network’s shows typically aren’t available through streaming.

“AMC wants its loyal Dish viewers to experience the excitement of the Breaking Bad premiere at the same time as their friends and neighbors, and we want to give Dish customers an extra week to switch providers so they can enjoy the rest of the season,” reads an AMC statement issued Thursday.

(Note: AMC said nothing about paying the $175 early termination fee for any of those disgruntled Dish subscribers.)

Dish customers can visit http://www.amctv.com/breakingbad4dish starting at 3 p.m. ET Friday and authenticate their subscription for the stream, which begins Sunday at 10 p.m. ET.

Also read: AMC – “Dish never even talked rates with us”

AMC Networks channels, including not only the flagship AMC, but also the lifestyle-oriented WE TV and the movie-based IFC, were pulled off Dish July 1, coinciding with the expiration of a carriage deal. The satellite carrier claims AMC is seeking excessively high carriage rate increases to renew the contract. AMC says no negotiation of rates has even occurred — Dish’s decision, it contends, relates to a separate litigation between the two paries. (You can read all about that here.)

So how much anti-Dish messaging will AMC be conducting during this streaming presentation Sunday? An AMC press representative didn’t respond to our inquiry.

Also read: For Netflix users, “catch-up” TV viewing has a catch

But the strategy of making Sunday’s anticipated Breaking Bad debut available differs entirely from Viacom’s decision Wednesday to pull streaming availability for most of its current programs in the wake of its carriage dispute with DirecTV.

That was the advice given to Dish Network by several high-profile media analysts Wednesday morning. The satellite company, they say, should settle its lawsuit over the failed Voom HD venture with Cablevision and AMC Networks, and it should end the related carriage dispute that has kept AMC channels off its service since July 1.

“We believe Dish is making a strategic mistake, risking billions to save $70 million per year in AMC license fees versus settling their lawsuit and agreeing to a new long-term distribution deal,” blogged BTIG Research’s Richard Greenfield.

With a jury trial set for Sept. 18, litigation over Voom is now “immient” and “no longer merely a boilerplate entry buried in SEC filings,” added Bernstein Research’s Craig Moffett.

“Cablevision and AMC enter the trial with a huge head start, having already won an adverse-inference recommendation to the jury related to Dish having destroyed documents,” Moffett added. “In essence, the jury is to begin the trial with the assumption that Dish’s destroyed records would have supported Cablevision’s claims. The odds would therefore appear to be heavily in Cablevision’s/AMC’s favor.

Also read: “Dish never even talked rates with us”

At the end of June, coinciding with the end of their carriage deal, Dish pulled AMC Networks channels AMC, WE TV and IFC off its service. The No. 3 pay TV provider with around 14 million subscribers, Dish said it was looking out for its customers, claiming AMC wanted excessively high carriage-fee increases.

Also read: Dish to replace AMC with Mark Cuban’s HDNet Movies

For its part, AMC says that Dish never discussed carriage rates before pulling its channels. The move, most believe, is strongly tied to the ongoing Voom litigation that could prove costly for Dish to settle, and even more expensive should a jury actually be involved.

“The dollar amounts are large enough to be highly material to the valuation for all companies involved — the potential price tag is as much as $3.5 billion or more including interest,” Moffett wrote. “Proceeds in the event of a judgment would be paid by Dish Network and would be received by Cablevision and AMC Networks in an even split.”

The potential for this payout perhaps explains why AMC stock has shot up over 14 percent to $40.68 since July 2, despite the ratings and ad sales hit associated with suddenly being blacked out in nearly 14 million homes.

Dish, meanwhile, has seen its stock price drop from $32.61 in early May to under $27 Wednesday. With the fifth-season premiere of one of AMC’s tentpole series, Breaking Bad, set for Sunday (July 15), it’ll be interesting to see how much of a subscriber hit Dish takes. The company will reveal its current customer count August 8, when it releases its second-quarter earnings.

“While Dish sub losses have likely been minimal since dropping AMC, we expect the pace of disconnects to increase as key original programming returns to AMC, such as Breaking Bad this Sunday,” Greenfield noted.

Dish, he added, is “working hard” to retain upset subscribers, offering $10 discounts for three to 12 months as well as free Roku boxes and season passes to watch Breaking Bad on Amazon Instant Video.

As for the litigation, it started in 2008 when Dish pulled lightly viewed Voom HD channels off its service — channels that were programmed with high-definition shows provided by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision until it was spun off as the publicly traded AMC Networks last year.

Dish claimed that it didn’t violate its carriage agreement for Voom since Cablevision and Rainbow weren’t satisfying requirements for program spending.

However, Dish was dealt a significant legal setback when New York State Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Lowe ruled that the company intentionally destroyed documents related to the case.

But punch the cable programmer did just after midnight Eastern time, releasing a statement that doesn’t beat around the bush. The upshot: AMC Networks claims Dish’s decision to end carriage of AMC, IFC and WE TV has little to do with proposed carriage-rate increases and everything to do with an ongoing $2.5 billion breach-of-contract suit currently standing between the two companies.

Also read: Dish to replace AMC with Mark Cuban’s HDNet Movies

“Dish customers have lost some of their favorite shows because of an unrelated lawsuit which has nothing at all to do with our programming,” the AMC statement reads. “Dish customers will not be able to watch the new season of AMC’s Breaking Bad, premiering July 15, or upcoming seasons of The Walking Dead, Mad Men, or any of our other popular shows. We urge Dish customers who want to have access to our programming to call 1-855-KEEP-AMC or visit www.keepamc.com.”

In the same statement, AMC indicated that carriage talks continue with AT&T over carriage on U-Verse. Like Dish, the current agreement expires at midnight. But unlike Dish, there’s no indication that there’s any impasse beyond fee increases. And so far, there hasn’t been any U-Verse blackout of AMC.

Also read: Dish, America’s most over-the-top cable network, faces carriage crisis

Dish’s removal of AMC channels deprives the programmer of 14 million satellite homes — and the income from licensing fees that comes with them.

Dish, in its own statement Friday, said that AMC’s flagship channel doesn’t carry enough ratings weight with its subscribers to justify also paying for IFC and WE TV. (I don’t know about that. Mad Men is known to draw an elite but numerically finite audience. But as an AMC spokesperson reminded me Thursday, the season premiere of The Walking Dead set a basic cable ratings record in October with 11 million watchers.)

Dish also claims AMC has “devalued” its shows by letting them be streamed on over-the-top services like Netflix.

Another thought: Fox Networks also lets FX hits like Sons of Anarchy stream on Netflix. But 15 months ago, not only was it able to carve out its own carriage agreement for FX and various regional sports channels with Dish, it got the satellite service to also carry the lightly viewed National Geographic Channel.

Then again, News Corp. wasn’t suing Englewood, Colo. satellite company at the time.

Update: AT&T U-Verse and AMC announced a long-term deal Sunday, providing another option for some Dish customers who may choose to bolt over the program loss.

With a carriage renewal agreement between the satellite TV service and the cable programmer nowhere near in sight, Dish announced Friday that it’s giving AMC’s advantageous channel positions away to Mark Cuban’s HDNet outlets.

Also read: AMC, America’s most over-the-top cable network, faces carriage crisis

This will begin late Saturday night, when AMC Networks channels AMC, WE TV and IFC are slated to be removed from the channel guides of Dish’s nearly 14 million subscribers.

AMC is also facing the prospect of being pulled off of AT&T’s U-Verse service at the same time if a new carriage deal with the telco service provider can’t be hammered out. U-Verse touts around 4 million subscribers.

According to a Dish statement, HDNet Movies will take over the very visible 130 position on the Dish grid, moving down from the nether reaches of channel 383.

Meanwhile, HDNet — which is scheduled next week to morph into entertainment and music channel AXS TV through a joint venture with Cuban, Ryan Seacrest and live-events company AEG — will take over IFC’s 131 slot, moving up from channel 362.

Also read: Cuban teams with Seacrest, AEG to relaunch HDNet as ‘ESPN of pop culture’

Comcast/NBCUniversal-owned Style will assume channel 128, taking over WE TV’s position.

Asked how the enhanced positioning would benefit his channels, Cuban dryly stated in an email to paidContent that, “It certainly helps.”

He also noted another factor that helped his channels seize the opportunity — his maverick public support for Dish’s Hopper digital video recorder and its controversial new feature that automatically skips broadcast-network commercials.

Dish, meanwhile, added some acerbic punctuation to its announcement, noting that it’s replacing the AMC channels “with what the company views is stronger entertainment and movie content.”

Asked for comment Friday, an AMC representative referred paidContent to a statement provided a day earlier.

AMC is reportedly looking to increase its current affiliate rate to around 75 cents from about 40 cents per subscriber.

“A significant portion of any pay-TV bill goes to fees for content providers like AMC Networks,” said Dish senior VP of programming Dave Shull. “AMC Networks requires us to carry low-rated channels like IFC and WE to access a few popular AMC shows. The math is simple: it’s not a good value for our customers.”

Dish’s statement also continued to hammer home the company’s earlier-stated assertion that AMC has “devalued” its content by licensing to over-the-top services like Netflix, iTunes and Amazon.

On Thursday, an AMC representative disagreed strongly with paidContent’s assertion that the network was particularly aggressive in regard to licensing content for streaming.

With full archival seasons for all of AMC’s most popular original series currently available on Netflix, we’ll stand by that position. Qualitatively speaking, AMC competes in an elite class of original drama-series production, with its programming most often compared to the critically acclaimed shows found on premium channels like HBO and Showtime. And you don’t see a lot of HBO and Showtime series on Netflix.

But there’s also plenty of evidence that suggests that subscription video-on-demand access has actually helped AMC’s ratings — and by extension, Dish’s subscriber retention.

Netflix, for example, believes “catch-up” viewing for earlier seasons of Mad Men on its service contributed about 1 million new viewers to AMC’s season 5 premiere of that show over the spring.

AMC also took exception of our assertion that the appeal of the channel’s shows is somewhat “niche.” With October’s second-season premiere of The Walking Dead yielding 11 million viewers for the night, that stance should definitely be softened. However, other AMC shows, like Mad Men, tend to have a cultural impact that far outstrips their actual audience size.

But let’s not buy into Dish’s notion that it’s simply ditching a few low-rated channels. This is a big deal.

On Saturday, the channel that arguably has the three most critically acclaimed shows on television — I’m also including Breaking Bad with Mad Men and The Walking Dead — could lose access to 18 million pay TV homes.

For its part, AT&T has said nothing publicly about over-the-top services being an issue, and its impasse with AMC seems to be somewhat straightforward and about money. Rhetoric, to this point, hasn’t gotten out of hand.

Dish, however, doesn’t mention in any of its rather rhetorical statements that it’s currently being sued by AMC for $2.5 billion over its decision to stop carrying the channels of defunct HD service Vroom Networks in 2008.

How much, if any, is that litigation factoring into Dish’s impasse with AMC? Tough to say.

But with the anticipated season 5 launch of Breaking Bad set for July 15, it will be interesting to see what impact, if any, the blackout will have on Dish’s subscriber count over the next several months.