Don Draper Fronts Network Dispute For The Mad Men At AMC

A battle between US cable network AMC and its host satellite broadcaster Dish, has resulted in AMC rolling out Don Draper to front the war. 

Dish have signalled they are planning to drop AMC at the end of June and have already pulled the plug on AMC's Sundance channel.

AMC claim that Dish are retaliating over a legal dispute the two companies have been involved in previously (they were both involved in a contract with VOOM HD that ended with lawyers facing-off).

During last weekend's first-run episode of Mad Men, AMC ran an ad to alert viewers of Dish's plans and suggested they ring to complain - they also supplied an address for fans to email the appropriate suits at Dish.

Dish quickly hit back, and just hours after the AMC notice aired, Dish moved the network from channel 130 to channel 9069 - the 9000s considered satellite's graveyard. 

Dish made the move without warning; viewers watching that night's episode of The Killing had their screens go to black. Viewers weren't told where AMC had been relocated to. 

Enter Don Draper. On Friday, AMC took out an ad in the Wall Street Journal that featured Jon Hamm as Draper, alongside the words: "You Should Be Getting MAD".

Dish are claiming that they have made their decision about AMC based on low viewer numbers, they released a statement saying: "These channels do not deliver the right value to our customer base for the price AMC Networks demands." 

Besides broadcasting Mad Men, AMC is also home to hits Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and Portlandia.