Turner Nets Dark on Dish

A handful of Turner Broadcasting System networks went dark to Dish customers across the country on Oct. 20, after the parties could not reach a carriage agreement.

In a statement, Dish said the affected networks include Boomerang, Cartoon Network, CNN, CNN en Español, HLN, truTV and Turner Classic Movies.

“In the past year, Dish has successfully renewed agreements with many large content providers,” said Dish senior vce president of programming Warren Schlichting said in a statement. “As a result, we are confident that we have offered a deal to Turner that reflects an appropriate value for our customers.”

The dispute apparently doesn’t include Turner networks like TNT and TBS. On a website dedicated to such disputes – www.DishStandsForYou.com -- the satellite company said Turner is “making unreasonable financial demands” for the channels and that Dish is working around the clock to resolve the dispute. Dish has about 14 million subscribers across the country.

“Dish has had a productive relationship with Turner Networks for many years,” Schlichting said in a statement. “We regret the service disruption to our customers, and remain committed to reaching an agreement that promptly returns this content to Dish’s programming lineup.”

In its own statement, Turner said that despite its best efforts, Dish and the programmer were unable to reach a deal in time.

“Turner has worked diligently for months to come to a fair agreement including multiple extensions and compromises, and it’s unfortunate that Dish is once again operating in a disruptive manner that takes away networks and programming from their customers,” Turner said in the statement. “We are hopeful our counterparts will return to the negotiating table, and we’ll get a deal completed.”