Technology Soap Opera

C-NET is a website dedicated to reporting about technology. Every year they report on the Consumer Electronics Show and name a "Best in CES" award to the best new gadget from that year's show. The reporters and editors of C-NET voted and awarded it to Dish Network's "Hopper". That's a gadget that allows you to "hop" over television commercials.

Not exactly controversial, right?

Not until C-NET's owner, media giant CBS, urged C-NET not to give the award out to the Hopper. The CEO of CBS himself, Les Moonves, made that "suggestion" because he is currently suing Dish Network because Hopper destroys television's business model. If people don't watch the commercials, television can't sell the commercials, and if television can't sell commercials, they will go out of business.

Hopper's award was revoked.

Full soap opera details here at the Hollywood Reporter.

I try to keep this in mind when I read stories about media conglomerates: There are no "good guys" in any story. In this particular case, 24/7 Wall St. named Dish Network #1 among "America's Worst Companies To Work For". The Hollywood Reporter itself has a rather sordid past, which includes naming names during the Hollywood Blacklist era and blackmailing Hollywood studios into advertising with them.

Ah, the media.

Good people.