After several bitter months, AMC and Dish have settled their lengthy legal battle and war of passive-aggressive words, ending their carriage dispute before AMC was forced to issue any more gloating, “Not Available On Dish” ads over episodes of The Walking Dead. In fact, Dish agreed to settle shortly after that show posted its latest record-breaking numbers—seemingly disproving the provider’s original complaints that AMC didn’t provide enough viewers to justify its renewal fees, which was definitely the real problem and certainly not all the “separate matter” that AMC and Dish were also involved in a nasty lawsuit over Dish dropping VOOM networks and then destroying evidence.
As part of that totally coincidental, separate and unrelated incident, the new carriage agreement announcement came right as the lawsuit was settled, with Dish forking over $700 million, and also agreeing to a new multiyear deal for AMC, as well as IFC, Sundance, WeTV, and Fuse (beginning Nov. 1). This, of course, doesn’t do any good for Dish subscribers who already missed Mad Men and Breaking Bad over the summer, but as Dish itself reminded them, you can get those shows on the Internet and therefore don’t really need to have Dish anyway.