The problem is, Dish is in a tough position no matter what they do. If they agree to the Viacom extortion, rates will go up for everyone using Dish. That will anger most customers and cause people to cancel their subscriptions.
If Dish refuses to give in and holds out for a better contract with Viacom to keep customers bills the way they are now, they anger customers cause they lose the channels and cause people to cancel their subscriptions.
Either way, Dish will lose customers. It's just a matter of which poison is the lesser of evils. The '6 cent increase' quoted by Viacom is complete rubbish. Other numbers I've seen mention how Viacom is looking for 200million increase for new channels and 350million increase for existing channels (or something like that). Thats like 500 million of additional fees, not sure over how many years that is. But given that Dish subscribers number nowhere near that amount, thats a hefty increase to split among the subscriber base.
This whole dispute shows exactly what big media conglomerates are bad and what they are doing is really getting into the grey area of legality. Especially since not every Viacom carrier is being forced to bundle and accept rate increases to the extent that Dish is.
While it sucks being without some channels I like, I'd have to side with Dish on this one.
The issue will eventually be resolved though. I can't imagine Dish would permanently remove such high-profile channels like CBS, Nick, and MTV. Especially CBS. Not all markets lost it but mine did. Not being able to watch CBS is just ridiculous and nobody would subscribe to Dish over Directv if they could get CBS with one and not the other.