Channeling Charlie

Welcome to 2009, a year of nationwide "change," businesses in turmoil and platform providers channeling Charlie.

You know Charlie. The (now) billionaire boy from Tennessee who built DISH and EchoStar. A notoriously litigious fellow. And a well known poker player and skinflint.

Across the past several years, Charlie has filled reams of newsprint (metaphorically speaking) with lawsuits against programmers, threats of lawsuits against programmers and PR battles hoisted under the banner of "protecting our customers" from "unreasonable rate increases." (Just Google "Charlie Ergen" and the name of almost any programming service and you will find the remnants of Charlie's battles.)

Now leap into 2009 ... the Chinese Year of the Ox ... and I'm betting on 12 months littered with vicious battles pitting programmers versus platform providers. Of course, that's an easy bet to make. (To see a cable operator seized with apoplexy just mutter the words "retransmission consent.") But it's going to get worse ... a lot worse with battles involving both broadcasters and the so-called cable programmers. For a foretaste just consider that 2008 closed with Time Warner battling Viacom (quoth Glenn Britt in pitch-perfect Charlie "We can't abide (Viacom's) attempt to make up their lost revenue on the backs of Time Warner Cable customers") and BendBroadband fending off the per sub fees demanded by the local Fox affiliate, while numerous other small cable operators plus both DISH and DIRECTV were enmeshed in their own battles.

The Time Warner/Viacom battle was resolved. As of this writing, BendBroadband was handing out free antennas so their subs could receive Fox. I think we're gonna see a lot of that this year as the economy squeezes both programmers and platform providers and the internet continues to foil the traditional business models of both.

It's gonna be interesting and in the old Chinese proverb, that is not a good thing.