Dish Subscribers were in for a big surprise this evening. The fat zombie lady must have sung because AMC is back on Dish. This means The Walking Deadand every other show (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Hell on Wheels, etc.) associated with the network has been brought back to Dish subscribers. I’m sure the marketing department of AMC has to be proud of themselves.

I’m sure many networks are always in a fuss with cable providers, but this war between Dish Network and AMC has been pretty weighty. Since this past summer, AMC Networks, which include AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel and WE TV, have been off the regularly programmed channel listing of Dish. If you had put money on AMC winning, now’s the time to cash in. AMC Networks and Cablevision was announced victorious in a $700 million cash settlement in order to resolve the case. Pretty nice paycheck at the end of the day.

Dave Shull, senior VP of programming at Dish says he’s happy, but behind these words, can a company who just lost $700 million be that happy?

“We are glad to have settled the case and reestablished our long-term relationships with AMC Networks and Cablevision. This multi-year deal delivers a fair value for both parties and includes digital expansion opportunities for AMC Networks’ programming.”

As part of this agreement, Dish will receive a lot of technical jargon that will allow them to gain control of a millions of wireless video distribution in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Josh Sapan, President and CEO of AMC Networks most likely has a big grin on his face:

“We are glad to partner again with Dish Network and are delighted to bring back our popular channels and programming to their customers.”

Speculated that Dish removed AMC’s network to leverage a deal in order to work in their favor is kind of funny. I don’t think it that thought process quite worked out. I assume that ratings for this past season of Breaking Bad andthe first few new episodes of The Walking Dead helped AMC’s case considerably though. Dish has probably lost a lot of subscribers thanks to AMC’s relentless campaign to have people switch their cable providers.

Now that everyone is happy, we can stop seeing those AMC promos for Dish not being on AMC. I honestly would like to know who they were targeting. Obviously those with Dish wouldn’t be able to see those promos, so my hunch is that they were aiming for those who didn’t have Dish but were looking to switch providers. Do you think AMC will start airing promos that say, “AMC, back on Dish”?

Source: Broadcasting Cable