The Dish Network’s battle with broadcasters over a tricked-out digital video recorder called the Hopper has come to Twitter.
Dish on Thursday accused CBS of telling one of the network’s stars, Kaley Cuoco of “The Big Bang Theory,” to take down a Twitter message promoting the Hopper to her 1.2 million followers. For whatever reason, Ms. Cuoco deleted the message. The odd episode gave Dish’s chief executive, Joe Clayton, a chance to say on Twitter: “It’s disappointing that CBS — once the exemplar of editorial independence and innovation — continues to use its heavy hand to hold back progress from consumers.”
Arguably CBS won the quote war though, with this statement a few hours later: “Once again, Joe Clayton demonstrates his dubious gift for hyperbole and hucksterism. No demands were made, but it’s clear that Dish’s culture of fabrication is alive and well.”
Let’s pause right there. This isn’t really about Ms. Cuoco, it’s about copyright and consumer rights. Dish and broadcasters like CBS have been in court for months now, arguing over the legality of the Hopper, a digital video recorder that allows users to automatically skip all the ads on prime-time network television shows. The newest version of the Hopper uses technology from a company called Sling that lets customers wirelessly watch recorded shows away from home.
Dish says the Hopper is a legitimate response to changing consumer behavior. The broadcasters say it’s a violation of their copyrights, and perhaps a violation of their carriage contracts with Dish, too. They have, according to Dish, refused to sell the company any advertising time to promote the device.
Mr. Clayton brought up “editorial independence” in his statement on Thursday because it came to light last month that CBS prohibited one of its Web sites, CNET, from presenting an award to the Hopper. CBS also refused to let the CNET staff disclose the details of its involvement. But the details leaked out a few days later, and Dish condemned the corporate interference. CBS said the case was “isolated and unique” and said “in terms of covering actual news, CNET maintains 100 percent editorial independence, and always will.”
With Twitter, Dish seized on another opportunity to criticize CBS. It said Ms. Cuoco’s Twitter message in support of the Hopper was a “sponsored tweet,” meaning that it paid to have the message placed there. “Amazing!” the message said, pointing to an online commercial for the device. “Watching live TV anywhere on the #Hopper looks pretty awesome!”
A Dish spokesman said that the company heard from Ms. Cuoco’s agent that CBS demanded that she delete the message. “No demands were made,” CBS said in response.
Ms. Cuoco’s show, by the way, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the digital video recorder. On a typical week, about 17 million people watch the sitcom either live or within a few hours of a new episode’s debut. Another four million people watch the show via a DVR within a week of the debut — a gain of 24 percent. Among 18- to 49-year-olds, the gain is even bigger — 35 percent.
Broadcasters don’t object to the DVR per se — they’ve learned to live with the ad-skipping technology. Just because people can skip ads doesn’t mean they always do. But the Hopper makes it easy to skip ads automatically — and that’s what the networks fear.